By David Usborne in Philadelphia
Sitting in the media room inside National Constitutional Center in the historic district of Philly waiting for tonight's debate between Hillary and Barack to begin. It's nearly seven weeks since they were last on stage together (and I was similarly waiting) in a much chillier Cleveland, Ohio. Best I can remember that turned out to 0-0 draw more or less. Hillary, of course, went on to win that state by 10 points.
A few more numbers in no particular order of insignificance. Tonight's debate will be the 20th in 15 months of full-out campaigning between Democrats. There may or may not be one more in North Carolina on 27 April. Hillary says she will be there (NC votes on 6 May) while Barack has not said if he will play.
Ten points again - the victory margin most people think Hillary needs here next Tuesday to have any chance at all of convincing the party that she, not Barack, is the best choice to take on John McCain in November. If you are tempted to lay bets she might actually lose Pennsylvania, think back to Ohio. A new report by the Brookings Institution shows how similar the two states are: Pennsylvania is 82% white, Ohio is 82.8%. Meanwhile 15.2% of Pennsylvanians are over 65 years old, compared with 13.3% of Ohioans, and 25.4% of Pennsylvanians are college graduates, compared with 23% of Ohioans.
A better number for Obama: 4,238,165. Those the dollars earned by him and his wife in 2007 according to details of his tax filing posted at 6pm on his website tonight. It looks a little sad next to the more than $109m earned by the Clintons since 2001. Still the book business for Barack has been good.
Number of minutes until tonight's games begin: 17. Must go.
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Posted by: Significancestone | 09 December 2009 at 01:10 PM
whole debate with transcript is here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/16/us/politics/20080416_DEBATE_GRAPHIC.html#video
Posted by: sweeetback | 17 April 2008 at 08:06 PM
interesting numbers...
wonder if the elitist claim will stick better when the 4 mil that obama has earned filters through to the press.
but yes its dwarfed by the clintons multipule millions. I think she'll go on the attack tonight but try and make it a velvet gloved one like at the last big televised debate - but I still think it will damage her more than teflonobama.
Posted by: sweeetback | 17 April 2008 at 01:25 AM