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I understand that in hindsight polls can often be wrong; however, there still is no evidence to suggest that Obama loses to McCain and Hillary doesn't. I'm sure that there are things that the republicans will try to throw at Obama and maybe some of them will stick, but again, won't that push Democrats further away from McCain? Also, aren't you making the assumption that there is nothing else to dig up about the Clintons? Considering how reluctant they are to release their tax returns or to release some of the papers from his library, I think there is probably more out there. And I think the Republicans are salivating at the idea of having the chance to dig up more dirt on the Clintons. The weird little news story about Clinton's donations from Kazakhstan springs to mind.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?pagewanted=all)
I also don't know where you are getting your information that Reagan Democrats are voting in droves for Hillary and that they will not vote for Obama. Seriously, I'd like to read more about this. I thought the conventional wisdom was that the Reagan Democrats were so disgusted with the first Clinton presidency that they voted for Bush in 2000. Everything that I've read suggests that Hillary's largest base of support is older white women and Latinos. Aren't more Republicans and Independents voting for Obama than can be expected to vote for Clinton?
As far as Obama not winning states with more than 15 electoral votes, I have to correct you there. He won: SC: 45 electoral votes; AL: 52; CT: 48; CO: 55; MN: 72; LA: 56; VA: 83; my home state of MD: 38; WI: 63 and GA: 87.
I do wonder why you believe that the Democratic base would defect en masse from Obama and vote for McCain, when Obama and Hillary agree on 95% of their issues and McCain is anti-abortion, pro-war, pro-Bush, and pro-Hagee? Maybe you need to spell it out slowly for me, but I still am not understanding how Obama will lose the traditionally democratic states to McCain, but Clinton won't, just because he lost the primaries to her.
Finally, Florida. I think that Florida's delegates should count. But before we seat them, I think that they should redo their primary and allow both Obama and Clinton to campaign for a short period of time and then have people vote again. Seems fair, right? My understanding is that Howard Dean suggested something like this, but that Hillary's campaign has categorically refused any sort of redo. I assume because they are not confident she can win again. I believe that many Florida Democrats, and many MI Democrats, sat out their primary because they knew their delegates wouldn't be seated and they thought their votes wouldn't count. As such, I don't think there will be a mass defection to McCain or a mass refusal of Florida Democrats to cast a vote for Obama out of spite and anger. But you're right, there we might just have to agree to disagree.
