Is the Clinton PA point spread the perfect 10?
Not according to the AP.
Obama maintains a clear delegate advantage as well as the lead in the popular vote, and there are not many opportunities left for Clinton to turn that around. Moreover, party leaders are growing impatient with the drawn-out struggle and have watched nervously as McCain, his nomination race long settled, has climbed in opinion polls.
Against those forces, Clinton clings to hope that she can persuade convention superdelegates to swing behind her en masse. She's touting her record winning most of the big states and hoping superdelegates will see her Pennsylvania victory as validation of her ability to appeal beyond a narrow base in the general campaign.
The big picture from the local PA front further examines the Clinton primary win.
Before you go crazy about Hillary Clinton's big momentum on display here in Pa, just a few things to consider:
1) The race for the Democratic nomination is a 50-state competition, and going into it, you would have handicapped Pa. as one of the worst of those 50 for Barack Obama, maybe the worst. His weakest voting blocs have included the elderly and union households. Pennsylvania is the third-oldest state in the nation, the most heavily unionized, and one of the most economically distressed.
Given the demographics, which is a bigger surprise? That Obama once trailed here by 20 points, or that in the end he lost by only 10 points. Bill Clinton didn't need to win Utah to become president, John Street didn't need to win Port Richmond to become mayor of Philadelphia. Any Obama strategy for the nomination would aim to get the most delegates and votes nationwide -- knowing that you would surely lose Pennsylvania.
Which he did. As expected. And, yes, he still leads in delegates and votes -- all because HE won the states he was expected to win, and needed to win.
2) Obama came to Pennsylvania after a weak showing in a state with similar demographics, Ohio. And after his loss in the Buckeye State, Obama really was hit with the kitchen sink, most of it not new activity but dirt-digging by political opponents in both parties into his past associations, including former pastor Jeremiah Wright. In spite of that, exit polling suggests that Obama actually dramatically improved his standing with the voters that cost him Ohio, most notably voters over age 60 and white males in general. But as noted in 1), Pa. has A LOT of voters over 60, more than Ohio.
3) Clinton's main argument as pertains to Pennsylvania is that it's a November battleground state, and that she'd be a better fall candidate here than Obama. Perhaps -- she'd almost certainly run a little stronger in the Pittsburgh area. But most experts think the state will be won or lost in the Philadelphia suburbs, where McCain is also more popular than the typical Republican. And Obama won those Philadelphia suburbs with more than 60 percent of the vote (at least according to the exit poll).
I think too often we get caught up the day-to-day, whether it's a heated debate or a new gaffe or a bowling score of 37. Truth is, the story line in Pennsylvania was cast long before 4/22/08.
- Jackson 5 Lyrics
The New York Times--who endorsed home girl Hillary Clinton--slapped her win with a condemnation of her choice of "low road" campaign tactics.
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.
On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.
If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.”
By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.
No matter what the high-priced political operatives (from both camps) may think, it is not a disadvantage that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton share many of the same essential values and sensible policy prescriptions. It is their strength, and they are doing their best to make voters forget it. And if they think that only Democrats are paying attention to this spectacle, they’re wrong.
After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.
It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.
I still aint found what I was after
I got the blues
And that is why I sing
I just wanna do my thing
I'm going back to Indiana
Indiana here I come
I'm going back to Indiana
Cause thats where my baby's from...."
