This Wall Street Journal article reports this, with some detail:
"Barack Obama’s rising poll numbers among white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are having an unexpected ripple effect: Some black voters are switching their allegiance from Hillary Clinton and lining up behind him too. That could mean a further tightening of the Democratic presidential race, especially in southern states where blacks make up as many as half of Democratic primary voters. The evidence of movement is most clear in South Carolina, site of the first primary where black votes figure to make a significant impact. There, four polls now show Illinois Sen. Obama with a lead among African-American voters for the Jan. 26 vote. As a result, the race in South Carolina has tightened, with some polls calling it a dead heat."
On Hillary’s decline (and panic?) and the mention, for the first time, that she may lose all four of the first contests, see Howard Finemann and this on how Obama is doing in New Hampshire.
My question is this...who is more likely to run as an independent candidate if they do not get the Democratic party's nomination, Hillary or Obama? I think Obama.
What on earth makes you say that?
It's official, Hillary IS in serious trouble.
I can't believe she's trotting out her husband, it makes her look so weak and dependent. I was sure that the role Bill would play would be strong-arming recalcitrants behind closed doors, shaking hard that money tree, and issuing barely veiled threats to any media that runs "hostile," id est true stories of Hillary, Bill, and their weird arrangement. But Hillary and her gang have made a massive miscalculation, and they're highlighting her "husband." Unbelievable. Remember GW in 2000 kept his father well out of it. But Hillary is in official desperation mode.
Know too that the Christmas season, and the New Year holiday will truncate the race, because after the 20th, nobody is really going to be paying attention to the campaign season, because they'll be busy with their personal affairs. Thus what the numbers ARE today, may be the numbers after the New Year. Which means they might be the numbers reflected in the actual, official primary results.
Think too what happens to that slender Edwards contingent when he's finally forced from the race, they'll probably go to Obama too.
I said all along that THE greatest asset Hillary had was the sense of inevitability that attended her quest for the nomination. BUT if there's nothing inevitable about her inevitability, then she's vulnerable indeed. Could it be that Black Democrats are finally saying: "It's out turn, regardless of Hillary's private ambitions." Imagine that, Black Democrats FINALLY throwing their weight around in that party. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever live to see that day. But with Oprah and Obama, it looks like that day has finally arrived.
Imagine the wife of "the first black President" being defeated in her quest for the nomination by REAL Black Democrats. What an irony. It actually looks like Democrats are weary of their slavish position in regard to the Clintons. Who would have thunk it? Even American Democrats are affecting a quasi-independent spirit.
There's hope yet then for that party, if they're finally willing to jettison the Clintons, and all things Clinton.
Imagine how bored we'd all be if it looked like Hillary and Guiliani had clear sailing all the way to the convention. This may well prove to be one of the more interesting primary cycles in memory.
That is the only good aspect of the length of time this seemingly endless campaign is taking. The relentless exposure of these people is a good. Who was it who said months ago that by the primaries, everyone would have been dragged through so much that the ones left standing would be the people who deserved to be considered for nomination? The time involved and the need of the news media to keep us from being bored may have this good effect.
However, would Mrs. Clinton just give up? I like that she seems hoist between needing to slam Obama and needing to not seem mean and nasty. She's stuck. I love it.