Obama Wins in Wyoming

Welcome to the snow day edition of Fear and Blogging!!!

It looks like the Democrats of Wyoming have finally landed a place in presidential politics. Obama has racked up another caucus victory, and a another mountain west victory. The Clinton people were already downplaying the significance of the caucus before it even started, but the fact that the entire Clinton family has been activly campaigning in Wyoming for the past few days is pretty telling about whether they were actually conceding the state or not.

Clinton's people keep saying that she should be the nominee because she is winning in the big states that matter like Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey, etc. Well, it seems like the rhetoric is backfiring on the Clintons; if they don't feel as though the voters in smaller states matter for a Democratic victory in November then those voters aren't going to vote for them. This is sort of a weak argument when faced with the fact that it is unlikely that California or New York will go Republican regardless of who the Democratic nominee is. It also ignores the polls which show Obama winning with more states, and by a larger margin against McCain.

Following Obama's victory in Wyoming the campaign will now shift for a few days to Mississippi. Obama is expected to do well in Mississippi as well, which combine with Wyoming will probably erase the 10-15 net gain in delegates that Clinton won on Tuesday. This leaves a 6 week gap before the final large contest.

My guess is that as of right now Clinton will win Pennsylvania, but not by more than a few points. As of right now she is leading Obama in the polls by 10-15 points, but Sen. Obama seems to be able to dwindle away those leads when he has a good chance to campaign in a state. The demographics of Pennsylvania are similar to those of Ohio, with a similar political situation. PA's governor has endorsed Sen. Clinton. But if Sen. Obama is able to either pull off a win here, or at least narrow Sen. Clinton's margin of victory, I can't see Sen. Clinton winning the remainder of contests following April 22nd.

I'd say that Obama is still the odds on favorite for the Democratic nomination.