Clinton by 7%, but the delegate count even closer.
Clinton by 13%, but only picking up 7 delegates. Just enough to keep her in the game (so the media will say). Ugh.
Clinton by 9 to 11%. That’s right, 9 to 11. Rudy Guiliani will be called in to comment.
I’m gonna watch Blazing Saddles come Tuesday, then.
Clinton by 20 to 30%. Rioting ensues, on the SDMB.
Hillary by 6 is my guess, and it will still be enough of a victory for the Clinton campaign. Honestly, even if it was lower than that, if she wins she is staying in at least until Indiana.
This is what happens in every Hillary state, isn’t it? Barack has massive gains within two weeks of voting, then the last week is spent with him inching so close and everyone biting their nails as to what’s going to happen.
Hillary by 17 points. I think it has closed as much as it’s going to, all the undecideds will break for her in the next two days.
I’ll go with Hillary by 12. But I honestly have no idea.
I’ve got another sort of prediction, though - what the ‘result of the result’ will be, if you follow me. IOW, how the various possible margins of victory play out over the following days. Here’s how I see it:
- Hillary loses: even Hillary realizes it’s game over.
- Hillary wins by 7% or less: I don’t know what Hillary does, but the “pack it in, already!” chorus rises to a crescendo.
- Hillary wins by 8-13%: Hillary keeps going, the “pack it in” crowd stays quiet, but by Thursday or Friday, the main storyline on the Dem side reverts to Hillary’s next-to-impossible uphill battle.
- Hillary needs to win by 14% or more to get positive momentum out of PA. She’d better hope SUSA’s right, and everyone else is wrong.
I expect I could be off by a percentage point or two, but that’s my best guess of how it’ll play.
I think it has way less to do with expectations than (a) the grinding reality of the delegate arithmetic, and (b) in view of that arithmetic, what it would take to get wavering superdelegates to commit, wavering donors to contribute, and wavering voters in IN and NC to consider her in a more positive light.
I think 57-43 in PA would do at least some of those things. Any less, and I really doubt it.
Bob glad you didn’t disappoint!
The main thing getting me to think that it may turn out better than I called it is that Chris Matthews is predicting a 12% Clinton win. Whatever he says must be wrong, so maybe the 5% isn’t so far off! 
Shouldn’t there be two separate numbers under discussion here? The actual margin, and the margin of loss it would take for Team Obama *not * to spin it as a “win”?
Sure - I’ll bite 
just got back from a Loooooong weekend. 
Real Number - Clinton by 5*.
Number to ensure Team Obama doesn’t spin it as a win? 13+
*Why so Optimistic Phil?
Obama on Saturday night had the largest crowd ever gather for him of his entire campaign - in Philidelphia 35,000 people gathered to hear him speak. It was enormous. Plain and simple, I believe enough people want to see this primary season come to a head…and a blowout by Clinton won’t make that happen. That’s all, no scientific data, no polls, no long academic soliloquy- just hope that Obama keeps it close enough to make it further inevitable that he will be the nominee.
No anger, no hate, I’d just like to start buying bumper stickers for an Obama/??? ticket for the white house in 08’.
My take:
- Hillary loses: even Hillary realizes it’s game over.
- Hillary wins by 1%: she stays in at least until Indiana, gloating that Obama outspent her 4 to 1 and she still won, which proves she can win the big states and he can’t, no matter how much he spends and campaigns, and that his message doesn’t resonate with average Americans that the nominee needs to win in the General.
NitpicK - You can’t rise to a crescendo. The crescendo is the rise.
- Hllary wins by 5-19%: She vows to stay in until the convention
- Hillary wins by 20%: She uses this as justification for the launch of an arm-twisting tsunami on the Supers, and begins to call for Obama to drop out of the race for the good of the party…yes, even though he’d still be ahead.
Nah, we’re way ahead of you. We’ve got (1) the actual margin, (2) the margin it would take to get Hillary to drop out, (3) the margin it would take to get the ‘drop out already!’ folks to keep quiet, and (4) the margin it would take for Hillary’s win to represent an improvement of her chances for winning the nomination.
Yours would be the fifth number (at least; I might’ve missed one), not the second. 
And what would that number be? Very simple: if on Tuesday night when the serious numbers start coming in, David Axelrod doesn’t look and sound like someone’s hit him in the gut and knocked all the wind out of him, then they’ll spin it as a win. If he does look and sound like that, then while they may try, they won’t even be fooling themselves.
Which is as it should be. Obama’s got a comfortable lead, by all measures, and there are only a few primaries after PA. If he can limit his losses in PA, then he’s still comfortably ahead as the campaign goes into the equivalent of a rook-and-pawn endgame.
And Obama, the superdelegates and even Clinton’s camp know this. This weekend was full of shit clinging fromboth sides. The one thing that really got under my skin was when Clinton audaciously said, "we need someone in November to beat McCain not cheer him on…" - this in response to Obama saying any one of the three candidates would be better than Bush.
If people don’t see beyond Clinton’s words and know that throughout that last two months Clinton has agreed with McCain more times against Obama than the other way around…then they are being wooshed. I think people will see right through it.
Plain and simple Clinton’s campaign right now is trying to appear like they have more power and are in control - when in reality they have been crippled for weeks.
Seems to me more that they’re simply waiting for Obama to make a serious mistake, and trying to give him opportunities to do so.
I think it’s a little late in the game for that…I know that’s more than a tad naïve, but she is throwing the kitchen sink at him, and one thing that is a little different than before the Ohio and Texas Primaries is that he’s not holding back anymore, he’s throwing it right back at her. It was a huge mistake for her to imply that Obama is cheering McCain on, a gaff on her part that will effect the voters in Obama’s favor. As everyone knows she has agreed with McCain on more instances over the past 2 months than Obama in the entire campaign.
I had to check this because when I saw the quote I thought Obama had said it in reference to Hillary (“I’ve passed the commander in chief test, John McCain has passed the commander in chief test, you’ll have to ask Senator Obama…”) and her frequent praise of McCain and disrespect for Obama. I’m amazed that you can interpret a statement like “all three of us are better than Bush” to be cheerleading for McCain.
Pennsylvanians have a chance to end this. So did Texans. So did New Hampshire residents. So do the superdelegates. This race needs to end before Hillary destroys the party.
It’s a tough thing Bob. I agree with you, and I think this gaff on her part will play into the polls tomorrow. It got next to zero play on ABC news this morning - we all know how they lean Clinton - so to me that means it was a major enough gaff to keep it from getting a lot of play on their airwaves.
I do hope the residents of PA see that.
Obama did well this weekend, taking a slow train like the old politicians deep into Clinton Territory…and you know what? People cheered and showed up for him. I was happy to see so many people in the very small townships showing up to support him.
I’m visualizing an upset tomorrow in Obama’s favor.
Isn’t this silly campaign over yet? Will these people ever get off my radio?
Final SurveyUSA PA poll: Clinton 50, Obama 44.
Well, dayum. Maybe this thing really will stay in single digits.