I'll take those odds: 35,000 people on Independence Mall on Friday

Obama on Tuesday by five percentage points.That's right, five. Outside the margin of error but not too far. That's my highly unscientific but, I think, very reasonable call. Here's why:

Voter Registration. The PA Obama campaign did a lot of smart things this year. Remember a few months ago when the race was supposed to be decided by February 5 and PA primary was supposed to be an empty formality? You know, like it always is? Well, if the PA campaign felt that way, they sure didn't show it. Instead, they threw everything they had in the month of March into voter registration. They did this in areas with lots and lots of out-of-state migrants — like University City. They also did it in areas where people are poor and used to being ignored. (Something the Clinton campaign had some, er, problems with.See this week's cover story.)And they did it in area high schools. High schools, folks! You know,where most people are when they turn 18 and are granted the constitutional right to vote? Why did no one think of this before?!There is no way the polls can be accurately reflecting all of this right now, which brings us to the next point:

The polling has been way off this whole election. In the 90s,when the Nasdaq was high and Dick Morris was still allowed in the White House, polling was considered a science. Now it's more like outsider art. Gallup called Iowa for Clinton, and New Hampshire for Obama. These are historic errors, and I would suspect whatever has gone wrong is getting worse. I suspect it has something to do with cell phones. As one local organizer pointed out to me at Friday's mega rally, no one knows just how many, say, Bryn Mawr students, still have a cell phone number from whatever state they came from, re-registered in PA in March, and intend to vote for Obama. How you gonna poll them? Any ideas? Now multiply that by every liberal arts college in Pennsylvania.

Metropolitan Philadelphia matters more than the rest of the state. Sorry, I'm just calling it like it is. That's why, despite endless assertions that Pennsylvania is a "swing state," it's gone Democratic in every election since 1984. (When Reagan won 49 states. I was nine; what'sy'all's excuse?) And it's why Ed Rendell is our governor and not Bob Casey. The only way it seems to get rural Pennsylvania to show up and out-vote Philly is to mobilize religious conservatives. And people,Hillary Clinton is no Rick Santorum. Now wait a second Joel, I hear you saying. You mentioned Rendell. He is a vocal Clinton supporter. Won't he be using all of the resources of his office to make sure she wins?My answers to that are "kind of" and "What resources?" Rendell's base is still in the city. Rural PA merely endures him. And Clinton has already lost the city by a landslide, which leads us to:

"First Black President" my ass. One of the most interesting things about this primary has been the way the alleged "special relationship" between the Clintons and African-Americans has crumbled. Whether the borderline-racist remarks by both Bill and Hillary during the South Carolina primary were mere stupidity or a calculated and cynical attempt to out Obama as a "black" candidate, thereby striking fear in the hearts of white voters, their immediate result was a noticeable change in temperature regarding race and the election. Within a year, Hillary Clinton went from being a member of a political dynasty that was seen to have defended the interests of African-Americans against Reagan, Gingrich, etc., to yet another representative of the white establishment trying to take down a powerful and promising African-American. Oh, what a fall.

Now, in Philly, this matters. Remember the 2003 mayoral election? The curiously timed leak that Federal investigators were bugging the mayor's office? I remember this vividly. The moment it was seen as outside interference, a crooked attempt to swing the election away from Street, people went into lockstep. The signs went up, the bullhorns came out, and on election day, people voted. In the last few months I feel like I have witnessed the same basic process but on a much larger scale. And no, having the support of City Hall won't help her. Not if they are merely repaying electoral favors. Have you heard Nutter endorsing Clinton? He sounds like a man admitting to himself that he's going to need to take vacation days off of work for root canal surgery. In short, all of the councilpeople, aldermen, block captains, wardleaders, shop stewards, etc. in Philadelphia can stump for Clinton because they have to, and they will sound like they are doing it because they have to and won't have a lick of influence over what people do when they get behind that curtain. And an Obama landslide in Philly, combined with general malaise among Clinton supporters in the rest of the state, will probably be enough.

So let's look at the numbers. It wasn't too long ago that polls had Clinton leading by over 20 percentage points. A Franklin and Marshall poll released last week has Clinton going from 51-35 lead in March to a 46-40 lead in April. The most recent Rasmussen report has Clinton up 47 to 44. And again, in my travels around the city, I see a whole lot of people with Obama gear who I get the feeling no polling firm has bothered to ask. That's OK; we'll hear from them on Tuesday.

So there you are. Again, nothing quantitative going on here, just a lot of subjective observations strung together in what I hope is a meaningful way. And this: I'm not a journalist. I'm a historian. And believe me, it's pretty damn obvious which one of these campaigns has history on its side. And which one doesn't.

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