A Not Good Internet News Media Sign For Hillary Clinton

We’ve written here before on how the news media’s conventional wisdom has now shifted on Senator Hillary Clinton and her chances to get the Democratic nomination — and now there is a sign of a shift in the Internet news media as well: the online magazine Slate has started “The Hillary Deathwatch” page which gauges the odds on her getting the nomination.

Its logo is a sinking ship.

The intro sets the tone:

Hillary Clinton is as good as dead. This became the consensus over the past week, when the media awoke en masse to the dual reality that 1) Clinton can’t close the pledged-delegate gap and 2) Obama has her beat in the popular vote. But the Clinton campaign shows no signs of slowing—she said herself she’s prepared to compete for at least three more months. So the question now is not just “How dead is she?” but “When will she realize it?

And so, the magazine announces, it’ll do this as a daily update — which should a fascinating tidbit for political junkies everywhere (particularly talk show hosts and Hillary supporters).

And her chances today?

To start off, we’re putting her odds at a generous 12 percent. (Last week, a Clinton campaign official gave her one-in-10 odds.) At the moment, polls indicate that Obama has survived the Jeremiah Wright flap (for now). Clinton’s Bosnia blunder has metastasized from a headache into a five-day circus. Bill Richardson finally climbed down from his fence onto Obama’s side. And a Michigan court yesterday deemed the state’s Jan. 15 primary unconstitutional and declined to order a revote, effectively smothering the last glimmer of hope for a deus ex Michigana bailout. Meanwhile, a new poll puts her favorability rating at 37 percent—its lowest since March 2001.

But the magazine (wisely) puts in a journalistic hedge, given the fact that THIS WOMAN clearly has not sung yet.

That said, Clinton does have a shot. A heroic margin of victory in Pennsylvania and every subsequent primary, an implosion of the Obama campaign, a sudden mass epiphany on the part of superdelegates, or some combination of the three could lead to a Clinton nomination. But to be honest, we don’t expect Hillary’s chances to climb much higher than 20 percent. Hence the sinking ship.

In short, the page could be a good reality check for those who get caught up in the crisis of the moment or the seeming Hillary Clinton breakthrough of the moment.