A tv reporter tonight said Hillary Clinton is heading back to North Carolina tonight. Bill Clinton will make 11 stops there tomorrow and Hillary will make 2. (Here's how hard Bill's been working --3,500 came out to see him in Morganton today.)

The Obamas will also be in North Carolina, campaigning in Durham and Fayetteville.

What does it mean that both candidates are spending the day before the NC and IN primaries in NC?

There are 72 pledged delegates at stake in Indiana and 115 in North Carolina. Indiana hasn't voted for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. North Carolina voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 (by 13% and 12%). Even native son John Edwards on the ticket didn't matter. Since 1964, the Democratic Presidential ticket has carried N.C. only for Carter-Mondale in 1976..

Here are the latest voter stats, as of May 3, for North Carolina. As for Indiana, the New York Times explains it's very complicated. Maybe that's why the polls are so divergent.

Update: Comments now closed, new thread is here.

Public Policy Polling is suggesting that Obama will outperform the recent NC polling:

Barack Obama won three of the primaries in our surrounding states here in North Carolina- South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. And in all three of those states the polling vastly underestimated him . . . In all three cases Obama won by double digits more than the average preelection poll suggested, and no one got within seven points of the correct margin in any of the states.

This is true. However, in South Carolina (1/25), Clinton and Edwards split the white vote (43% of the vote.) In Georgia (2/5), Clinton won the white vote (43% of the vote) by 53-43 (Edwards was still in the ballot and took 4%). Virginia (2/12) was, with Wisconsin (2/14), the last contested state where Obama won the white vote. Oh by the way, SUSA's polling was quite good for Virginia.

Update: A poll of Northwest Indiana Democrats (Lake and Porter Counties) has Hillary ahead by 13 points- 46% to 33%.

Northwest Indiana is the state's second-largest pool of Democratic voters, behind Marion County. Lake County has the state’s highest concentration of Democrats, statistics show.

"If you want to be able to win in Indiana, you have to turn out the vote in Northwest Indiana," Eisenstein said. "This is the Democratic stronghold of the state."

***

It's another Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner tonight, this time in Indiana. Both Hillary and Obama will speak, at different times.

Update: 6:25 pm MT: Fox is about to broadcast Hillary's speech. Unbelievable that Geraldo has Jeanine Pirro, who ran unsuccessfully against Hillary for the Senate, as an analyst.

Some things to keep in mind about Indiana: [More....]

From Only in America, Newsweek's cover story today (page 4):

Eyeing those Reagan Democrats, the McCain camp believes that if Obama wins the nomination, the Republicans might have a shot at some states considered to be safe Clinton territory, like New York and New Jersey. Those big former industrial states—Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan—could all go Republican if the Democrats pick Obama. On the other hand, the Obama advisers argue that by appealing to independents and registering new young voters, Obama could take states in the West like Colorado and Nevada that seem unreachable to Clinton. By energizing his black base, Obama could even take away two or three Southern states—Virginia and the Carolinas, perhaps—from the GOP. The Obama-ites also predict that once the hard fighting of the primaries finally ends, the Democratic Party will come together, and Democrats alienated by all the feuding will come home.

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Rep. Heath Shuler (D- NC) is expected to follow his district in choosing the Dem Presidential candidate he will support:

Shuler, a freshman congressman, is expected to announce Monday that he will pledge his support to whichever Democratic candidate wins his district in Tuesday’s primary. . . . Given the demographics of Shuler’s district, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is predicted to win there on Tuesday.

It is a neat trick more superdelegates should use if they fear political repercussions for their decisions. Clearly, Shuler wants to be for Clinton but does not want to say it directly. Other ways could be used by uncommitted superdelegates. For example, if Shuler wanted to be for Obama, he could have said he would vote the way the state voted overall. Ultimately, I believe the overall popular vote leader should be selected by the super delegates. But there are many ways to finesse this for the SDs.

By Big Tent Democrat

Back in February, Bloomberg and Politico published an internal spreadsheet from the Obama campaign with calculations on the pledged delegate and superdelegate split. The Clinton Campaign brought up the spreadsheet today, asking if Obama still thought he was going to win Indiana by 7 points.

The memo is here in Xcel. If you don't have Xcel, I've converted it to pdf and you can view it here.

Check all the states, the campaign was off on several. It predicted only a 5 point loss in PA, a 7 point loss in Ohio and an 11 point win in Guam. For NC, it predicts an 8 point win and for Indiana, a 7 point win. Also, for Montana, an 11 point win. For South Dakota, a 15 point win. For Puerto Rico, an 8 point loss. It also predicts double digit losses in KY and W.Va.

What do I take from this? Obama knew back in Feb. he needed to work to convince the rural and blue collar voters of Ohio and PA and was unable to do so. Those states are critical in November. Why should the superdelegates believe he can take them in November?

Hillary Clinton was on This Week with George Stephanopoulus this morning. I received a transcript from the show by e-mail. Here's what she had to say about pledged delegates and the popular vote.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Despite this record, Senator Obama getting more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Perhaps that's to be expected. It's virtually impossible for you to overtake him now in the pledged delegates.

And a lot of people in the African-American community, including the third highest ranking member of the House, Jim Clyburn, say that, if you overturn the will of the pledged delegates, it is going to cause an irreparable breach with the African-American community. Isn't that a problem?

Hillary's answer is below:

Update (TL): The linked article is from Newsweek and is about why Oprah Winfrey left the Trinity Church.

*****

With friends and campaign advisers like this:

[Oprah] Winfrey was a member of Trinity United from 1984 to 1986, and she continued to attend off and on into the early to the mid-1990s. But then she stopped. A major reason—but by no means the only reason—was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. . . . Friends of Sen. Barack Obama, whose relationship with Wright has rocked his bid for the White House, insist that it would be unfair to compare Winfrey's decision to leave Trinity United with his own decision to stay. "[His] reasons for attending Trinity were totally different," said one campaign adviser . . . "Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America. Winfrey wasn't going for that. She's secure in her blackness, so that didn't have a hold on her." . . .

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The newly all important Obama surrogate Joe Andrew was on Fox today and he flatly predicted Barack Obama will win both Indiana and North Carolina. Apparently he believes Zogby. In any event, here is another example of bad expectations management by the Obama camp. They are predicting victory in both Indiana and North Carolina. If it does not happen, then what?

Let's make this an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat

John Zogby stands alone right now in predicting a Barack Obama 2 point win in Indiana. The key finding:

Clinton leads by 11 points among white voters in Indiana, which make up about 83% of the electorate. Obama leads by an enormous 10-to-1 ratio among African American voters in Indiana. Obama is holding on to a nine point lead among Indiana men, while closing the gap to five points behind Clinton among women.

Projecting undecideds, by my math, Zogby is projecting Clinton to win whites 55-44 (83% of the vote) and Obama to win African Americans (17% of the vote) by 90-9. This would be a terrific outcome for Obama and would win the race. Suffice it to say that Zogby is a charlatan and his results should be only be used to determine what Zogby the pundit is about. I think he is hoping for a close race in Indiana to let him claim some prescience. I believe he will have Clinton up narrowly on Tuesday. In North Carolina, Zogby has Obama up 10, which sounds about right to me. The key NC finding:

On Meet The Press, while Barack Obama acknowledged that were he President he too would order an attack on Iran should it launch a nuclear attack on Israel, he does not like Hillary Clinton's tough language stating the same view.

Similarly, while Barack Obama does not reject Hillary Clinton's "umbrella of deterrence" proposal, he does not think it is smart to debate the proposal in a campaign for the Presidency. I kid you not. Obama said the Presidential campaign is the wrong place to discuss a serious foreign policy issue.

I point these statements out not to criticize Obama himself. Indeed, his statements are a political calculation that may work for him. My point here is that the ACTUAL POLICIES Clinton espoused were either embraced or not rejected by Obama. The substance of these issues is not disagreed with by Obama. But he is a politician and gives a political answer. They are all pols folks, and act accordingly.

Watching CNN's Late Edition, I see that Bill Richardson does not like the language either. I do not think this is smart politics from the Obama camp.

By Big Tent Democrat

The New York Times has asked some of its op-ed contributors from North Carolina and Indiana to write about the race in their states.

Today's articles, one from each state, are both very good. In Songs of Eloquence and Experience, Alan Gurganus attends first a Bill Clinton and then a Hillary Clinton event, not expecting much but comes away impressed with each of them. Then it's on to an Obama event where he is expecting to be swept away in hope, optimism and youth -- politics mixed with a little religious ferver.

I’m nervous as I enter Chapel Hill’s basketball Valhalla, the Dean (Smith) Dome. Am I about to sing-speak-preach? This is the most perfectly racially integrated crowd I’ve ever been part of. Average age? Twenty-eight. I become that young myself.

He leaves extremely disappointed: [More...]