Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Clinton 'death watch' puts her chances below 10%

Is Hillary Clinton's candidacy dead? It's a question that's cropping up more and more. She was a shoe-in last summer. Now she's the underdog. She won Texas. Then she lost Texas.

Slate has hooked up a heart monitor and begun the bedside vigil to keep bookmakers and voters abreast of her odds. A feature on the organization's web site rates Clinton's chances of capturing the nomination.

Today her odds were up slightly from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent.

"When you've got a 1-in-10 shot of winning the Democratic nomination, a day without any major screw-ups is a good one," declared Slate.

Her odds today were down from last week when Slate kicked off its deathwatch and opened her odds at 12 perecent.

But they had risen slightly from the weekend because organization's heart monitor determined she hadn't had made any missteps over the last severals days citing a collection of polls that showed her with modest gains.

She rose four points in Gallup's latest poll but that was balanced by several key endorsements that Obama recently received.

The New Observer reported that Obama was expected to win a couple of North Carolina endorsement's this week.

Slate promised to "adjust Clinton's odds as polls waver, surrogates resign, superdelegates bail, and, of course, voters vote. We'll also keep an eye on indicators like fundraising, political futures, media coverage (always reliable), and the wind chill factor in Scranton, Pa."

Not everyone agrees with Slate's assessment.

Intrade, today, gave Clinton a 14.8 percent chance of winning compared to an 82 percent for Obama.

Despite the predictions Clinton seems unlikely to die quietly.


"When it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," she told a group of union supports this morning in Philadelphia, according to the New York Times.

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