Tuesday's Democratic primaries, in a nutshell

Reams of words have been written and even more spoken about the importance of the Ohio and Texas primaries for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But the New York Times' Bob Herbert, in his Saturday column, boiled the matter down to its essence:

"When does a dandy fight become an ugly brawl?

"For the Democrats, perhaps on Tuesday."

You can read the rest of his piece here. And a review of the latest polls in Ohio, where it's tight, and Texas, where it appears even tighter, can be found here and here.

— Don Frederick

Comments

[Keith]

Superdelegates = Clinton Nomination. That's where the smart money is. Popular vote means nothing.

[Texas Democrat]

THANK YOU TEXAS, OHIO, RHODE ISLAND AND VERMONT FOR VOTING FOR HILLARY CLINTON.

THE CANDIDATE THAT IS THE MOST QUALIFIED AND HAS THE EXPERIENCE TO ACTUALLY BRING REAL CHANGE TO MIDDLE CLASS AMERICA.

[Greg Neubeck]

Does America really want Clinton style Socialism? Unfortunately it's essential to preempt any Clinton speech with a hefty dose of truth serum. In the latest debate, Hillary regurgitated her familiar mantra that she would veto the falsely maligned Bush taxcuts which resuscitated the U.S. economy from the inherited Clinton recession; but, which Hillary says favor only the rich. That tired old populist ploy of "soak the rich". However , a brief review of IRS statistics related to post-Bush tax cut revenues reveals exactly the opposite. Specifically, the share of individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40% of American taxpayers, as a result of expanded child tax credits and earner income tax credits, was reduced from 0% to a -4%; and, took another ten million low income Americans completely off of the tax roles. That is, a very significant four(4) % decrease. On the other end of the scale, the tax burden on the top 20% of income earners, the so-called rich, increased to a full 85% of the total tax burden. For example a Single Individual making 30K paid $8400 in taxes under Clinton; under Bush $4500. A married couple making 60K: under Clinton $16,800, under Bush $9000. So Hillaryspeak, an economic strategy that left our Nation in a RECESSION on the Clinton's departure from the White House, would damage the poor more then any other group. One can summarize this quite simply by noting that IF Hillary's Marxist philosophies of soaking the rich were valid, Communist societies throughout the world would be exorbitantly wealthy, in lieu of economic basket cases a' la Castro's Cuba. The same can be said of her forced plan for Socialized Medicine. A program which is failing miserably in such Nations as Canada and the United Kingdom. Canada, as just one example, is now experiencing a dramatic shortfall in physicians. The American electorate should carefully evaluate the Marxist rhetoric coming from the Hillary campaign and her minions. Greg Neubeck

[Tom J]

The RealClear numbers are correct, but I think Pollster's trend lines make what's really happening much more obvious. I really don't see how this is going to suddenly reverse course, absent a major scandal or something.