The morning before the perfect storm?

Tomorrow is the Potomac Primary as our three regional events are now commonly being called.

The thoughts offered below the fold are personal, a combination of anecdotal and analytical, and are probably worth less than what you pay for them, which of course is nothing.  Still, upon awakening after my first 8-hour sleep in more than a month, it is thoughts like these that are on my mind as I head for a day of school in which I do no teaching:  my AP students are in a computer lab and my regular students have a test, and school is closed tomorrow for Maryland's primary.

So if you are curious at the thoughts on my mind, come along for the ride.  Although if you are in Virginia, Maryland or DC, consider going and doing some volunteer work for your candidate - that is more important than reading me, and I don't mind if you do it for Clinton, because she will need all the help she can get.
There is no new polling data in Maryland or Virginia, and no one has bothered to poll the District of Columbia, where the only question is how badly Clinton will lose in a city whose residents are 57% percent African-American.  About the only sure statement is this is one time we can be sure that the percent of the Democratic turnout that is black will not approach twice the black percentage of the population. Real Clear Politics shows Obama with average leads of 17.3% in Virginia (and I think that is low) and 21% in Maryland (and that might be a tad high, depending upon turnout model).  There is no doubt that Obama will win both states by comfortable double digit models.  

Newa coverage in the Washington Post talks about Bill Clinton stumping in black churches, the competing events yesterday in NoVa - Hillary in Manassas and Obama in Alexandria.  I watched a bit of the broadcast from those two events.  And here's what puzzles me.  Obaba was introduced by the very popular Governor Tim Kaine.  Clinton, who was in Prince William County, as introduced by Carlos del Toro - who just was badly beaten for a House of Delegates seat in Stafford County, near Fredericksburg.  I can only assume that this choice of introducer was designed to inspire possible Hispanic voters in Northern Virginia, but Carlos - who is a fine man and often an effective speaker - is simply not that well known.  

Hillary was doing an event at Bowie State U last night.  One of my students, trs92 at dailykos, posted an interesting observation about the choice of venue which I think is worth quoting, considering that he - a white male - is as active as any young person in the nation on behalf of Hillary, having co-founded the national teens for Clinton effort:

Bowie today, which if you ask me is a very interesting choice of venue. She is speaking at Bowie State, a historically black college, but Bowie itself, despite being located in Prince George's County (a majority black county) is majority white, and majority Republican.

Maybe it's just the only venue they could get on short notice, but it's an interesting choice of audience nonetheless.

A few, such as the Rev. Jo Ann Browning, co-pastor of the influential 10,000-member Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, have even switched their support.

It was a womanly bond that originally drew Browning to Clinton. "Sexism is so alive in America," she said. "Being an African American female, it's my reality."

But she was in a house divided because her husband, the Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., senior pastor of Ebenezer, had aligned himself with Obama. Then last month, she attended an Obama fundraiser at Prince George's Community College.

"I think that was the beginning of me really listening to him. What I just heard from him was out of his heart. Who he is. His uniqueness as an African American man. I heard and I felt his desire to bring about unity," she said.

Grainger Browning said he has watched the congregation swing to Obama. Before the primaries, he said, the congregation's applause was about 70-30 for Clinton. But since Obama's primary wins, "my guess is that it's about 70-30 for Obama. I'm just going by applause," he said. "We haven't done a poll."

Debra Carter, former assistant secretary of transportation for Maryland, is also a Clinton supporter. "This is a moment in history where it is going to take courage to make a decision to do what is the best interest for this country at this point in time, and the best decision for me right now is Hillary Clinton," said Carter, who is organizing an African American rally for Clinton at Prince George's Community College tonight.

So far, only about 200 people have said they would attend. Her efforts have been met with some polite apologies. "They say, 'I'm sorry. We're going with Obama,' and then it's followed with a lot of love. At the end of the day, perhaps a dream ticket would be Clinton and Obama."

Leaves on the Current (wife) observed signage along Glebe Road coming up from Chain Bridge - it was the one place where there were a lot of Clinton signs.  Driving around N Arlington there is almost no signage for Clinton - in fact you are more likely to see a Ron Paul sign than a Clinton sign.  

As for outreach, about 5:15 last night I posted a brief front page story at Raising Kaine entitled A difference in the campaigns - of which the entire text is as follows:

30 minutes ago we got a call from a young man named Eric, who told me he was calling from the Obama for President Campaign.  I assured him we were both voting for Obama, and he thanked us pleasantly, and hung up.

2 minutes ago we received a robocall from the 42nd President of the United States on behalf of his wife.

Draw your own conclusions.

By the way, for the dailykos readers of this diary, Raising Kaine should probably be on of your mandatory reads if you want a sense of what is happening in the Old Dominion, now and in the future.  

Both candidates will be doing events across the region today.  Both are probably exhausted.  Listening to their voices both in Richmond and in the broadcasts of the events in NoVa yesterday, they both need some time off, to rest their voices.  Despite the thorough beating in Maine yesterday, I suspect the Clintons and their supporters will keep pedal to the metal even into tomorrow, trying desperately to narrow the margins by which they have been losing.   My own sense is that Clinton will not do particularly well, even when one does a CD by CD analysis of the two states -  I am sure that she will lose far more than 2-1 in DC, quite possibly more than 3-1, so little analysis is necessary there.

Virginia has 11 CDs.  Clinton will get clobbered in the 3rd, which is held by Bobby Scott and is heavily African-American.  She has been spending time in the DC exurbs and outer suburbs because she hopes to do well in several Congressional districts that are more heavily Republican. The districts in which she will do best are the 10th and the 11th in the N, possibly the 9th in SW, and the 6th which covers much of the Shenandoah Valley.  The 5th which covers a chunk of the state from Charlottesville to the NC border, might be more difficult because of the heavy support Obama will receive in Charlottesville and the immediate environs.   Obama will carry the 8th and 11th in Northern Virginia, although perhaps not overwhelmingly.  The 1st is Republican, and I am surprised we did not see more of an effort there for Clinton.  Still, I expect that Obama will come out of the state with a comfortable lead in delegates, even were he to lose as many as 4 of the 11 CDs - and that is in my opinion the upper level for Clinton, to lose 7-4, perhaps splitting one or two districts's delegates, whether winning or losing narrowly.

Maryland is a different kettle of fish.  Of the 8 CDs, it is hard to imagine that she will win more than 2.  She is likely to lose the 4th, which has a heated primary between two African-Americans for the Congressional seat, fairly badly - this also included the University of Maryland College Park, where Obama has a rally today that will probably exceed the capacity of the Comcast Center.  She will lose the city of Baltimore by a substantial margin.  She may win the 6th, in the Western part of the state.  But her field organization in the Old Line State has been weak, slow to get organized, and despite the support of Governor O'Malley and Senator Mikulski and former PG County Executive Wayne Curry Clinton lacks the kind of institutional support at lower levels that could significantly cut the margin of her losses.

I am no expert at any of this.  My students have a strong preference for Obama, even those who were previously supporting Edwards.  This support crosses racial and gender lines.  They are, of course, too young at 15-16 to have clear memories of the Clinton administration, which may shape their responses to the current campaign.

My wife plans to volunteer again tonight.  She is acting as if the race is a dead heat, which is always the way to approach any election, to seek to get every single vote possible.  While I was in Richmond Saturday, she spent 4 hours in Falls Church making phone calls.  She made 73, for shich 2 supported Clinton, 7 were undecided, and 9 supported Obama.  That encouraged her to return to make yet more calls.  And she hates calling people - that is how motivated she it.

I entitled this the morning before the perfect storm.  Given what has happened this weekend, given how badly Clinton lost every place, I think the factors are in place for a performance by Obama that exceeds the polling data and projections.  And were Obama to win by margins like 73-27 in DC, 62-37 in Maryland and/or Virginia (those are NOT predictions), I wonder what the impact would be on things like fundraising (with people being reluctant to keep giving money to someone who has the smell of loser) and super delegates?  While Clinton cannot win any of tomorrow's three contests, I do not think she can afford to lose by margins overs 20 or 25 in all three without it having a snowball effect.  It could be a perfect storm.  Then again, it might not be, there might be something below the surface that so far is not appearing in polling data, in the anecdotal reports.  I don't think so, but I acknowledge the possibility.

I wonder what others might think.

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