August 13th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
A new poll in Pennsylvania underscores some national polls: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is ahead of Republican Sen. John McCain by 5 percent but he is far from closing the sale since voters have lingering doubts:
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues to hold a narrow lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in Pennsylvania, edging his Republican rival by 5 points in the race for the state’s 21 electoral votes, according to a new poll.
The Franklin & Marshall College poll, released today, surveyed 641 registered voters from Aug. 4-Aug. 10. While Obama led 44 percent to 36 percent among all survey respondents, he led 46 percent to 41 percent among likely voters. With both candidates securing support from a large majority of their party’s voters, Obama’s lead, significantly, comes from the support of almost twice the number of Independent voters backing McCain.
So once again independent voters are seen as the key to tipping the balance. But the Obama camp shouldn’t be too happy with this poll: Read the rest of this entry »
This is a Guest Voice post by journalism professor and author Walter Brasch who is also a syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
Pennsylvania Politics: Resolved to Continue Bigotry
by Walter Brasch
There should have been absolutely no controversy in a resolution presented in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives this past week.
Speaker Dennis O’Brien, a Republican from Philadelphia, wanted to honor the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which was holding its 60th annual national convention in Harrisburg. These resolutions are routine and almost always noncontroversial. The resolution pointed out that the organization’s purpose was to “increase faith and harmony and introduce various humanitarian, social and religious services.”
But that wasn’t what angered Rep. Daryl Metcalf, a five term Republican from north of Pittsburgh.
“The Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God,” he declared indignantly, and said he would vote against the resolution.
Now, normally, Rep. Metcalf’s views would be heard—and dismissed as a bigoted attack. But this is Pennsylvania politics. So, Rep. Gordon Denlinger, a Republican from Lancaster, felt he had to talk. “Certainly this nation went through an attack some years ago that is well-burned into the subconscious of our society,” he said, and then emphasized, “What I sense on our floor today is that, for some people, this evokes very strong passion and emotion.” Apparently, Denlinger never considered that all religions, including Christianity, have violent extremists. Nevertheless, on Denlinger’s suggestion, the full House sent the resolution to committee, where it would ultimately die long after the weekend convention.
The nonsense in the House isn’t isolated.
Voluminous lies and exaggerations about Sen. Barack Obama permeate the conservative talk shows, e-mails, and Internet. From bitterness dripping in an equal amount of invective and stupidity, we are told that Obama is a radical Muslim “mole” who is waiting to take over America, that he attended Muslim schools and was indoctrinated in that faith, that he switched to Christianity solely to get elected to office, and that he took his oath of office by placing his hand on a Koran.
It’s as though anxiety around the world over the ongoing battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is just as strong as it is among U.S. Democrats.
“There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. But calculating the probabilities only gets you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.”
“If Hillary Clinton can’t recognize when its time to concede, then the remaining undecided superdelegates should offer a helping hand: with a swift vote in favor of the candidate who has emerged as the winner of primaries held so far: Barack Obama.”
By Sabine Muscat
Translated By Ulf Behncke
May 7, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
Philadelphia: It’s about time that the superdelegates put an end to the clash between presidential candidates Clinton and Obama - even if Clinton doesn’t realize that it’s time to stop.
There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. Calculating the probabilities can only get you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.
That should be exactly the course of action now taken by the U.S. Democratic superdelegates, in whose hands lies the power to bring the clash of rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to an end. The information we now have is this: Obama’s has the balance of superdelegates needed to obtain the Party’s nomination.
With his huge victory in North Carolina, he neutralized Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania the week before. Clinton was unable to catch up to and overcome him. And the enthusiasm that a clear victory in Indiana would have generated is missing as well.
U.S. Democrats had half a year to compare presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and to verify that both uphold the same core Democratic values. At present, which of the two stands a better chance against Republican John McCain on November 4 is anybody’s guess. What’s clear right now, however, is that the margin between both candidates and John McCain is shrinking. The Democrats should worry less about …
April 26th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Add to the increasingly long list of bad news for Senator Barack Obama in his battle for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination the latest Newsweek poll which shows him losing ground shockingly fast to Senator Hillary Clinton:
After an important primary win in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton has reduced Democratic rival Barack Obama’s double-digit lead among registered Democrats and voters leaning Democratic by more than half, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Plagued by controversies over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments and the candidate’s own “bitter” remarks, Obama has seen his favorability rating slip significantly in the last week, the poll found.
The survey found that Clinton now trails Obama by seven points, down from 19 just one week ago. The previous NEWSWEEK poll, conducted on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, found that more than half (55 percent) of registered voters believed Obama was more electable, while 33 percent gave the edge to Clinton. The current poll finds Obama leading 46 percent to 38 percent.
The question becomes whether Clinton now has “Big Mo” or whether it’s a matter of Obama quickly losing it. But the Obama camp has received some bad news recently. Two key tidbits: his shrinking lead in the Gallup Daily tracking poll, coupled with signs that the news media narrative is now changing from “Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a chance” to “Hillary Clinton might actually be able to be nominated.”
Once again, polls fluctuate and trending is what matters…but the trending for Obama hasn’t been good this week and this poll contains little good news for his campaign:
One of the more problematic results for Obama was that four in 10 of registered voters (including Republicans and independents) now have an unfavorable opinion of him–and the same number said there is “no chance” they will vote for Obama if he becomes the nominee. Four in 10 registered voters (41 percent) say they have a less favorable opinion of Obama based on his association with his former pastor, Rev. Wright, whose racially and politically inflammatory sermons have been circulated on the Internet and covered in the media. A similar number (42 percent) say they will not vote for Obama because of comments he made about “bitter” small-town residents clinging to guns and religion.
There is, however, one ray of sunshine for the Illinois Senator:
Even so, the NEWSWEEK poll indicates that despite the political damage inflicted over recent weeks, Obama still edges out McCain in a trial head-to-head heat for the White House, 47 to 44 percent. That margin was only one point wider a week ago. Clinton—whose own favorability rating has not improved even as Obama’s has slipped—also holds a three point lead with 48 percent of the vote to the Arizona senator’s 45. Among all registered voters, more than half (53 percent) still hold a favorable opinion of Obama, compared to the 47 percent who view Clinton favorably and 51 percent who have favorable views of McCain.
But it’s clear the Obama camp is, at the last, on the defensive right now and, at the most, in a holding pattern. Note these developments:
1. Hillary Clinton is trying to press Obama to a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with no moderators. Since Obama has seldom gained from debates, it’s hard to imagine him agreeing no matter how much she tries to pressure him. And he is refusing. When candidates try to make another candidate not debating the issue, it usually fizzles unless the other candidate feels there is something to be genuinely gained. Her husband Bill Clinton is also demanding Obama debate.
2. Bill Clinton is now unleashed.The Clinton campaign feels he’s a plus. And BC has been pressing for the campaign to go more negative and faster.
3. Obama has agreed to go on Fox News – a sign that he is pulling out all stops now to steady his campaign. The question: if he thought the ABC News moderators were tough on him, is he fully prepared for what will face him on Fox News? The upside for Obama: he handles himself well and gets some headlines — and produces some good sound bites — it’ll get lots of air time and communicate that his campaign is not just on the defensive.
Polls should continue to fluctuate, but right now Obama has hit a rocky patch. What to watch for this week: can he stabilize his tumble or reverse it?
As the craze for Obama spreads across the French countryside, the concern of Democrats Abroad is growing, as fear that Hillary could be doing irreparable harm to the Party’s likely standard-bearer in November starts to take hold.
“She’s playing the Bush card and the politics of fear. It’s because of her that we have the shameful racial bias that has been introduced into the country! It makes me crazy!”
“This election concerns the entire planet … it’s important to us … we are attentive to the emergence of this candidate bearing hope and who is open to the world.” Read the rest of this entry »
Barack Obama caused quite a stir a fortnight ago when he told a suburban San Francisco fund raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters were “bitter” about their economic plight. As a consequence, he added, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…”
As political comments go, it was a self-inflicted “twofer”. Not only was Obama’s sociological analysis delivered in a place synonymous with permissive liberalism, but also it raised questions about the candidate’s sensitivity to the lives of the hard-working, small-town voters that he was so intensively trying to woo.
Yet as controversial as they were, Obama’s remarks basically have reflected the contours of his vote-getting appeal. By and large, he has succeeded thus far by rolling up the vote in urban areas with their large minority population, and penetrating populous white-collar suburbs and the growing exurbs beyond. Yet in many places where new subdivisions give way to countryside, the Obama vote noticeably begins to ebb. There, his only consistent support has come from the occasional oases of academe that dot the rural landscape.
Al Gore showed back in 2000 that a Democrat can narrowly win the fall popular vote with the cities and a fair chunk of the suburbs. Yet to win the electoral vote, their nominee needs to do a bit better. In short, the party has become quite expert at winning 48 percent of the vote, but it takes a special Democrat able to draw votes in small-town America to bring that extra 3 percent that would ensure victory. Quite possibly, Obama has the political skills to do it. But his tepid primary showings in rural parts of key battleground states such as Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania places the burden of proof on him to demonstrate that he can do it.
April 25th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
In the latest see or saw of the see-saw Gallup Daily Tracking poll, Senator Hillary Clinton is nearly tied with Senator Barack Obama among Democrats nationally — a concrete sign of how Obama has been battered by his loss in Pennsylvania and several weeks of his campaign being on the defensive.
The question: will it last? Or will he regain the momentum? Does this portend problems for him in North Carolina (where he leads Clinton by a fat margin) and in the perhaps more pivotal Indiana (where polls are contradictory but the latest shows a dead heat)?
Regardless of the answers, these polling results aren’t good news for the Obama camp and must be welcome to presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain who can watch the two Democrats batte to raise each others’ negatives:
The Democratic nomination race is now tied, with Barack Obama favored by 48% of national Democratic voters and Hillary Clinton by 47%.
The latest results, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 22-24, include two days of interviews conducted entirely after Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Support for Clinton is significantly higher in these post-primary interviews than it was just prior to her Pennsylvania victory, clearly suggesting that Clinton’s win there is the catalyst for her increased national support.
Obama’s lead dwindled steadily all week, falling from a high of 10 percentage points in interviewing conducted in the three days just prior to the Pennsylvania primary. However, the percentage of Democrats supporting Obama has changed little (declining from 50% in April 19-21 polling to 48% today). Most of Clinton’s increased support (from 40% to 47%) has come from previously undecided voters.
Gallup notes the see-saw nature of these polls so far — and that Clinton now does slightly better in election match-ups with McCain than Obama.
In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s Obama 49%, Clinton 42% (see recent daily Democratic Nomination results). Those numbers are unchanged from the night before and, so far, there is absolutely no indication that Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania has changed the overall dynamic of the race. These results are based upon a four-day rolling average and include two full nights of polling following the Pennsylvania Primary.
The fun thing about these polls is that partisans can choose the poll that fits their bias — saying the one that shows their candidate is ahead is solid and reliable and the one that doesn’t is based on faulty methodology.
The bottom line:
–Polls don’t agree.
–It is a volatile race.
–A major stumble by either of them at this point could be politically deadly.
April 23rd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The latest Gallup Daily tracking poll is out and while it still shows Senator Barack Obama with a healthy lead over Senator Clinton in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, the numbers have also sparked a discussion about whether a pattern is emerging: Republican presumptive nominee Senator John McCain as a candidate who can’t get much above a certain number.
The boilerplate numbers, for those keeping track of the poll’s every twist and turn, are these:
Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton in national Democratic preferences for the nomination, 50% to 42%, in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 20-22.This marks the third straight day Obama has had a significant lead over Clinton, although he held a slightly higher 10 percentage point advantage in Tuesday’s report.
The latest three-day rolling average includes interviewing on Tuesday night, partially conducted as the returns of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary were coming in. However, the impact of Clinton’s 10-point win in that election on national Democratic preferences is not yet evident in the data.
With Obama currently leading Clinton nationally by eight points, it appears Pennsylvania is not a Democratic bellwether state. However, if the Clinton campaign is successful in using her solid Pennsylvania victory to argue she is the more electable candidate of the two in the fall, then she could start to close the gap with Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking over the next few days.
But some Internet pundits have noted another number: how McCain is shown as one point ahead of Obama, 46 to 45 percent and ahead of Clinton 47 to 46 percent. What is notable: he hasn’t moved all that much in many polls.
The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohen writes:
If McCain is getting a free ride, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. He’s running no stronger against either candidate than he was before the Wright story, Bittergate, or the Bosnia controversy.
It’s possible McCain’s numbers are stagnant simply because Clinton and Obama soaking up all of the media attention. But there may be another explanation, one I know I’ve read elsewhere (maybe in a Gallup analysis, though I can’t find it now): That 45 percent figure represents a ceiling of his support.
After all, barring some outside shock to the political system, there is no reason to think McCain’s numbers will go up. People already have overwhelmingly positive feelings about him–stronger than about either of the Democratic candidates. They see him as a likeable, principled war hero whom they trust on national security. Very few realize that he has supported privatizing Social Security, that he opposes universal health insurance, that he supports free trade without qualification, and so on. Once the voters learn these things, at least some of them are likely to abandon him.
If anything, McCain has the look of an Internet stock circa 1999: Great numbers, lousy fundamentals.
McCain simply isn’t as strong a candidate as people seem to think he is. Factors working against him include Bush fatigue, a declining economy, his age, his need to pander heavily to the Christian right, his hawkishness in a year when the public isn’t feeling very hawkish, his history of flip flopping for transparently political reasons, and a portfolio of extremely unpopular positions (like privatizing Social Security) that Democrats can make a lot of hay with in the fall. What’s more — and go ahead, call me an optimist — I suspect that at some point there’s going to be a press backlash against McCain. His media image is a bubble, sustained by a sort of childlike faith, and once that faith starts to wobble — something that may already have started — the bubble is likely to pop. Before long, I suspect that a lot of reporters are going to start recognizing his faux openness as more faux than open.
Of course, this all assumes that Hillary Clinton decides not to be completely suicidal and take down the party in a huge ball of flames. But I don’t think she will. Even the Clintons have to bow to reality eventually.
The last statement is conventional wisdom…and we’ve already seen how accurate conventional wisdom has been this year….
McCain, as a candidate, isn’t especially scary at all. He’s clumsy, unprincipled, arrogant, often belligerent, and usually confused. He was the best Republican candidate in the GOP field, but it was an awfully weak field.
But taking all of this into consideration, that’s all the more incentive to end the Democratic race and get the general election started. Like, now. Dems have a very powerful case to make against McCain, but they can’t make it while the party is divided in half, and they’re waiting until late August for a nominee.
McCain has high favorability ratings, nearly universal name ID, and the enduring love of every major news outlet in the country. The sooner Dems start making their case against McCain — which really isn’t that tough to make — Dems can position themselves for an incredibly successful, possibly even historic, year — at the top of the ballot on down.
The chances of this happening in a truncated, eight-week general election campaign, with a divided Democratic Party and a Republican nominee that will have a five-month head start, are considerably less. Cohn argues that it can come together for Dems anyway, so the party can just be patient and let all of this play out.
I’m not nearly as optimistic.
I agree with Benen.
If the Presidential election is viewed in a kind of vacuum with a Democrat in a normal year running against McCain, it could be argued that McCain isn’t getting much higher in the polls and could face problems once the Democrats get a nominee.
Obama’s difficulties and the prolongation of the Clinton-Obama confrontation have lifted Republicans from their slough of despondence to optimism about the presidential election. The transformation from deep pessimism to overriding optimism is such that McCain is privately warning supporters that once the nomination is decided and supporters of the losing Democratic candidate return to the fold, he will fall behind badly (though, McCain hopes, temporarily).
But what is most likely to happen? Unless there is some major development, Clinton will press her campaign — using as its tactic campaigning to raise Obama’s negatives so she can argue he is unelectable — at least into early June, or perhaps all the way to the convention. Many polls now report that Clinton and Obama supporters won’t vote for the other man/woman.
McCain is probably the strongest GOP candidate for 2008 because of his appeal to increasingly important independent swing voters. But some of the support is indeed “soft” and can be peeled away by a comprehensive Democratic campaign against him, particularly noting his many flip-flops on stands he originally took in his losing 2000 campaign. And — most assuredly — editors and reporters will cover anything that turns up about his background, or any of his political blunders.
Remember the unintentional press narrative that often emerges: the front runner rises, the front runner is solidly ahead, the front runner stumbles, the front runner is no longer the front runner and finally (in most but not all cases) the former front runner makes a dramatic comeback…and is the frontrunner.
The problem: media, public discourse, talk radio and blog oxygen is being sucked up by the increasingly ugly and personal Obama-Clinton campaign and the animosity of the camps of both of these candidates. Media attention often is determined by conventional wisdom and the idea of reader/viewer “interest.” No political story is as fascinating as the story of a political party that seemed to have it in the bag, ripping the bag wide open, releasing it’s contents and stomping on the bag.
All of the factors that could be cited that suggest McCain is a flawed candidate could be valid but must be looked at within this context: both Obama and Clinton are looking increasingly flawed as they fire political Uzis into each other. By COMPARISON, McCain is looking lofty and presidential and is not being painstakingly challenged.
McCain is solidifying his imagery the way he wants it to look..and doing it effectively. The two Democrats are working hard (and effectively) to tear down each others’ imagery…and they’re doing it effectively.
In any other year, McCain’s alleged polling ceiling would be highly significant. But viewed against the backdrop of what the two Clintons and Obama are doing to each other — and their party — McCain’s flaws may not matter much. Particularly if a sizable chunk of disappointed Clinton supporters or Obama supporters decide to teach the other candidate a lesson and stay home on Election Day.
On a related issue, be sure to read The Daily Kos’ Kos’ detailed analysis of Clinton and Obama electability.
FOOTNOTE: Who was the most accurate pollster in predicting the Pennsylvania vote? It was this pollster who contends Obama didn’t lose due to Clinton’s negativity, but his own political mistakes.
A smart person once said we all get the government we deserve. This applies not only to western, democratic nations who hold elections, but even to tyrannies. If a tyrant is truly hated by his subjects, they will eventually rise up behind a populist leader and either depose him or force the government to bend to their will. If they fail to do so, then it is in their nature to be so ruled. The case is more clear in democracies. If you are led by dishonest people of poor quality, those are the sort of people you chose for yourself. This, of course, brings us back to the American elections.
As I previously predicted, the long anticipated Pennsylvania primary has come and gone, and nothing much has changed. Senator Clinton keeps her campaign on life support long enough to limp into North Carolina and Indiana, while the total numbers in the race shift very little. One other thing which is not changing is the persistent attitude of many among each of their supporters about the opposing candidate. 23% of Hillary Clinton’s supporters and 18% of Obama’s continue to claim that if their chosen candidate is not selected, they will either stay home in November or vote for John McCain. Let’s take a moment to examine what the rationale for such a choice could be.
Presumably, if you are a supporter of one of these two Democrats, you feel that their stance on the issues and their plans for the future are in keeping with your own priorities and hopes for the country. If your chosen Senator is not selected, who would the person be who is closest to those goals? The two parties could not be further apart on most of the issues of the day. The way forward in Iraq, how we deal with national security and terrorism, how to deal with the sagging economy, how we approach global trade issues… John McCain is on the opposite side of the fence from both Clinton and Obama for each question right down the line.
So how are we to explain why a Hillary or Barack supporter would go cast a vote for John McCain? The answer is clear and very disappointing. It is nothing more than a fit of childish pique. “If my candidate doesn’t get nominated, I’ll show you! I’ll make sure your candidate gets the shaft too!” The reality, of course, is that you will be showing nobody but yourself, cutting off the nose of your party to spite its face.
I have been, and remain, hopeful that this is mostly the hyperbole and bluster of the silly season, but these numbers seem unshakable thus far. Comments pouring into the networks, newspapers, and even the pages of TMV seem to echo these sentiments. The Republicans have long had a habit, whenever they score a victory over the Democrats, to say that “the adults are back in charge now.” Many, many Republicans were less than pleased with John McCain taking the nomination (to put it kindly) but they have now largely swallowed their discontent and lined up behind their nominee. If one in five Democratic and Democrat leaning voters can not muster the sense to do the same, they will have single handedly done more to elect John McCain than Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt and Ben Stein combined could ever manage.
And then, dear readers, you will get precisely the government you deserve. Let me know how that works out for you.
I’ve spent considerable time in Ohio. In a past life, two of my largest clients were headquarted in the western half of the state. I also served for awhile as an interim GM for an office of my former employer in Ohio’s northeast quadrant. One of the things I remember most about my time there was the irrational animosity many Ohioans felt for the Pittsburgh Steelers. As much as that juggernaut of a football team was loved in Western Pennsylvania, it was hated in Ohio, and the closer to Cleveland you got, the stronger the hate grew.
Clearly, from last night’s primary results, the similarities of the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania far outweigh their divergent football loyalties. Consider this chart, courtesy of RCP:
RCP’s Jay Cost summarized it well: “… we can see why Pennsylvania and Ohio produced similar results in the aggregate. Clinton did roughly as well these groups in both states. Obama, for his part, improved here and there on her best Ohio groups. For instance, he trimmed her lead among white men. However, Clinton minimized this by doing slightly better with some of Obama’s best groups - like, for instance, the college educated. Overall, it added up to a roughly similar result.”
April 22nd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Senator Hillary Clinton got the Pennsylvania Democratic primary victory she needed so she could press the case that she should continue in the race because rival candidate Senator Barack Obama could not close the deal after vastly outspending her.
But her victory margin (a 10 percent margin, at this writing) most certainly means that the increasingly ugly battle for the Democratic party nomination will go well into June…and perhaps all the way to the convention.
Clinton ran a campaign of negativity unprecedented for a modern political primary. And the increasingly raw fissures in the Democratic party show no sign of receding: if anything, her victory means they will likely accentuate. Meanwhile, it is a fact: Obama has not been able to win over voting blocs that seemingly remain his stumbling blocks.
And what next? Obama is favored to win North Carolina. If so, will the Clinton camp argue that a win there doesn’t matter? And what about Indiana? It’s likely to become a prime battleground — perhaps one of the most important primaries of this looooooooong primary season. How did the Pennsylvania voting shape up? CBS News:
The Pennsylvania Democratic primary shared many of the same vote characteristics of other primary states this season - with Clinton winning her core base of union members, less educated and lower income voters and rural voters, and Obama winning voters with more education and income, and black voters.
What made Pennsylvania different, however, is the consistency of these traditional gaps as well as the appearance of some new divides. With intense media coverage of Obama’s recent statements regarding small town voters, and a consistent characterization of him as an elitist both by the media and by the campaigns of Clinton and John McCain, these pre-existing social divides grew larger in this first contest since the story broke.
In the primary Clinton received 71 percent of the vote from white members of labor union households, leading Obama by a striking 43 points. In contrast, Clinton won a smaller proportion of the white non-union vote, still besting Obama by 57 percent to 43 percent. This union vote is in stark contrast to the union vote in Ohio, one of the most recent and similar contests. In Ohio Clinton received 67 percent of the white union vote, and 62 percent of white non-union vote. This demonstrates a more polarized electorate by union status in Pennsylvania than Ohio.
This pattern of division repeats itself among other groups that have been important in past contests. White Democratic voters making less than $50,000 a year supported Clinton with 66 percent, compared to 58 percent support from those making over $50,000 a year. Obama received 24 percent and 42 percent respectively.
There was a 19 point preference gap between the less educated and the more educated in Pennsylvania primary voting. Clinton won 75 percent of the vote from white Democrats with a high school diploma or less - three times Obama’s vote among these voters - compared to 56 percent of those with more education.
Meanwhile, each candidate gave their own (predictable) spin on the election results. Clinton said the tide was turning and America deserved a President who wasn’t a quitter (TRANSLATION: She ain’t getting out until she runs out of money or feels it’s fruitless to stay in.) Obama noted that his campaign started way behind (TRANSLATION: He didn’t do as badly as it seemed he would do but it was not a good night for him). But the voting results really mean this:
“Hillary Clinton appears to have done what she needed to do in order to keep her campaign going on into Indiana and North Carolina and possibly well beyond that,” said CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs. “For Obama, this loss stems some of the sense of inevitability of his campaign and increases the pressure on him to regain the momentum.”
Even before her win tonight, Hillary was pointing out that a Hillary win in Pennsylvania demonstrates the fallacy underlying the ‘Obama is inevitable’ argument.
Hillary Clinton said if Barack Obama does not win Pennsylvania despite his huge campaign war chest, people ought to ask the question, “Why can’t he close the deal?”…
Clinton went to say that if she wins Pennsylvania, she will have accumulated wins in key states that Democrats need in order to retake the White House in November. She seemed to be speaking directly to superdelegates when she tried to raise doubts over Obama’s ability to win. “With his extraordinary financial advantage, why can’t he win a state like this one if that’s the way it turns out?” Clinton asked. “Obviously we have a long way to go before people are finished voting and the votes are counted. This will be one more in a long line of big states, states that Democrats have to win.”(CBS News)
At Political Punch earlier today, Jake Tapper also wondered why the much better-funded Obama can’t win over Clinton’s constituents.
My love for David Gergen continues unabated (while I muted Wolf Blitzer). And he has just said on CNN that the longer the race for a Democratic nominee continues, the more likely it is that one of the two candidates will be forced to run as the other’s Vice President.
What do you think of that!? He says it will be necessary to keep the party from completely fracturing.
April 22nd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Several news organizations are now calling the Pennsylvania primary: and it’s a win for Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton over rival Senator Barack Obama. The question now: how big will the win be and will it be a big enough win to impress Superdelegates?
Sen. Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary vote as expected, ABC News has projected.
Clinton has led polls in the state, and her win now fuels questions about why Obama hasn’t been able to sew up the nomination, despite having more money, having won more states and having a lead in the popular vote and pledged delegates, according to ABC News’ delegate scorecard.
The pressure was on Clinton today to win by a large margin.
“Hillary Clinton needs a clear and convincing victory today in Pennsylvania if she wants to continue on in this nominating process,” Democratic strategist Tad Devine told ABC News this morning.
April 22nd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
We earlier ran THIS POST that has an audio clip of a radio show in which former President Bill Clinton again thrust himself into the news — this time by charging that Senator Barack Obama’s campaign played the race card against him and that memos prove it.
Bill Clinton denied Tuesday he had accused the Obama campaign of ‘playing the race card’ during a Monday interview. A recording of the former president making the comment during that interview has been circulating online.
Go the link in the first paragraph here and re-listen to what he said on the radio.
Outside a Pittsburgh campaign event, a reporter asked Clinton what he had meant “when you said the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?”
Clinton responded: “When did I say that and to whom did I say that?”
The reporter replied that the former president had made the remarks during his interview with WHYY Monday night.
“No, no, no, that’s not what I said,” said Clinton. “You always follow me around and play these little games. And I am not going to play your games today. This is a day about Election Day, go back and see what the question was and what my answer was.
“You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your games today. …
“I said what I said you can go back and look at the interview, and if you will be real honest you will also report what the question was and what the answer was. But I’m not helping you,” said Clinton.
If Hillary doesn’t win big in Pennsylvania tonight, will she have the good sense to withdraw?
Pierre Rousselin writes for France’s Le Figaro, “She needs a win that is vivid enough to reverse the course of the election … otherwise all that will remain is for her to drop out or, through reckless calculation, be dislodged against her will, which will prolong a fratricidal duel that can only undermine the chances for Democrats to return to the White House.”
An early indication that Sen. Barack Obama thinks he’ll lose today’s Pennsylvania primary: He’s heading to Indiana tonight for a rally with John Mellencamp while Sen. Hillary Clinton plans a victory party in Philadelphia.
In addition, Obama’s campaign also released a memo essentially erasing all expectations of a win.
Since the ads are still going nonstop in Pennsylvania, I thought I’d provide an 11th-hour summary of 10 Hillary positives. The media — and the Obama campaign — have attempted to paint their policies and experience as virtually indistinguishable in order to justify its ongoing emphasis on petty bickering and gossip over their secret thoughts and beliefs.
Here, then, are 10 reasons for a Democrat to prefer Hillary to any other candidate.
![[The Telegraph, U.K.]](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00322/Cartoon_322830a.jpg)
