Regular readers of mine know that I am not at all inclined to write off Barack Obama. This is not to say that I think he is the likely nominee of the Democratic Party. My point has simply been that people are underestimating his chances.
The reason I think this is three-fold:
(a) The guy has a real message that he has honed over the last few months. It could resonate with Democrats, who presumably are the most desirous of a national course correction. As evidence of this, we cannot overlook the fact that he has had donations from more than 300,000 individuals. (b) He has raised $80 million to date. He will be able to compete as well as any presidential candidate ever has. (c) He is fully staffed in Iowa and New Hampshire. He'll be blitzing both states with advertisements. He could win one or both states and turn those national numbers upside down.
Most pundits who are favoring Hillary Clinton so heavily (and remember - I am not saying that she is not favored; my objection is that people are favoring her too heavily) are using the polls - most often the national polls - to support their point. I have argued that this line of analysis is problematic because the national polls are too volatile.
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