Clinton slaughters Obama in Pennsylvania, McCain pursues own course
With 90% of the precincts reporting, Hilary Clinton appears to have won Pennsylvania by approximately 10%. This gives her double digit wins in Florida, Ohio, and now Pennsylvania as well. She won 59 counties, Obama won only 5 - mostly in Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs (2 counties have not yet reported any results). She also managed to cut Obama's popular vote lead by over 200,000 votes. Coming into the night, Obama's popular vote lead, if Florida is included, was 219,270. Throw in Michigan, even giving Obama every vote for "undecided" (which really was likely a split between Obama and Edwards supporters as well as a few others) and Clinton will have a 100,000 or so popular vote lead. Obama's popular vote lead now being gone, look for Clinton to start plugging away the popular vote argument to the undecided superdelegates. Those superdelegates that did not go for Obama during his February momentum and in spite of his huge lead now have more political cover to break for Clinton, (though most will continue to wait in all likelihood). The arguments Clinton will make now are the big state argument, the key swing state argument, the popular vote argument, and questioning of course Obama's general election electability. Questioning Obama's electability will be made along the lines of this conservative columnist's arguments at http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=459951.
The next big question is just how much momentum will Clinton have coming out of Pennsylvania?
The next primary is Guam on May 3rd, (11 days from today) with a mere 4 electoral votes, which they will almost certainly split 2 each. After that, the next primary date, and like Pennsylvania the biggest one left on the calendar, will be North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th, (2 weeks from today). North Carolina is currently projected as a 15 point Obama victory and Indiana is roughly even. Clinton will need to win Indiana and cut down Obama's lead in North Carolina. The big question though is the superdelegates and how many will break for her now after Pennsylvania versus how many might break for Obama after North Carolina.
Nevertheless, Obama still has a large delegate lead nationally, and a large financial lead. Obama has raised $240 million and still had at the end of March approximately $41 million, (though he spent extremely heavily in Pennsylvania in April, anywhere from 2-5 times as much as Clinton by most estimates). Clinton had at the end of March only about $9 million, (with substantial, yet well secured debts). McCain meanwhile raised another $15 million, spent nearly nothing on advertising, but continued his "forgotten America" tour, visiting Selma, New Orleans, and other cities to connect with voters not in the places he needs to campaign to win in, but in everywhere people have been left behind and forgotten, clearly defining himself as a very different type of Republican. He is trying to show he is doing everything possible to be in touch with every American and that he cares about every American, regardless of their importance in a cold political calculus. This dovetails with his decision to take public financing and his campaign and supporters will try to strike up support behind the drumbeat that "McCain is beholden to nobody and cares about everybody." I anticipate he will provide at key campaign moments legislative plans/initiatives reinforcing these messages, particularly on issues where he can win the center - such as campaign finance reform, ethics reform, cutting spending, balancing the budget, energy policy, global warming policy, job creation, etc.
McCain has also utilized the time preceding his "forgotten America" tour to meet with international leaders of various countries in Europe and the Middle East while the Democrats have been slugging it out over the past 6 weeks to try to win Pennsylvania. This helped present a "Presidential" image while the Democrats are stuck in their own quagmire primary. His one big ad campaign was to help define himself, his life experience and what values he stands for without almost any reference, and certainly no explicit reference, to either Democrat.
He has not criticized his Democratic counterparts very much, except to call out Obama on his relationship with convicted terrorist William Ayers, calling Obama out of touch after Obama's gaffe at the San Fran fundraiser (where Obama insulted small town folks, religious folks, gun owners, those against trade isolationsim, and those who feel strongly about slowing down/reversing the tide of immigration, etc.), and calling out Obama's statements on his plan to deal with al Qaeda if he withdraws totally from Iraq. This is far less than what he could clearly be arguing and pointing out, showing McCain is holding his powder for the time being, generally avoiding shots at Clinton while she and Obama duke it out, and only commenting on huge Obama gaffes.
The next big question is just how much momentum will Clinton have coming out of Pennsylvania?
The next primary is Guam on May 3rd, (11 days from today) with a mere 4 electoral votes, which they will almost certainly split 2 each. After that, the next primary date, and like Pennsylvania the biggest one left on the calendar, will be North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th, (2 weeks from today). North Carolina is currently projected as a 15 point Obama victory and Indiana is roughly even. Clinton will need to win Indiana and cut down Obama's lead in North Carolina. The big question though is the superdelegates and how many will break for her now after Pennsylvania versus how many might break for Obama after North Carolina.
Nevertheless, Obama still has a large delegate lead nationally, and a large financial lead. Obama has raised $240 million and still had at the end of March approximately $41 million, (though he spent extremely heavily in Pennsylvania in April, anywhere from 2-5 times as much as Clinton by most estimates). Clinton had at the end of March only about $9 million, (with substantial, yet well secured debts). McCain meanwhile raised another $15 million, spent nearly nothing on advertising, but continued his "forgotten America" tour, visiting Selma, New Orleans, and other cities to connect with voters not in the places he needs to campaign to win in, but in everywhere people have been left behind and forgotten, clearly defining himself as a very different type of Republican. He is trying to show he is doing everything possible to be in touch with every American and that he cares about every American, regardless of their importance in a cold political calculus. This dovetails with his decision to take public financing and his campaign and supporters will try to strike up support behind the drumbeat that "McCain is beholden to nobody and cares about everybody." I anticipate he will provide at key campaign moments legislative plans/initiatives reinforcing these messages, particularly on issues where he can win the center - such as campaign finance reform, ethics reform, cutting spending, balancing the budget, energy policy, global warming policy, job creation, etc.
McCain has also utilized the time preceding his "forgotten America" tour to meet with international leaders of various countries in Europe and the Middle East while the Democrats have been slugging it out over the past 6 weeks to try to win Pennsylvania. This helped present a "Presidential" image while the Democrats are stuck in their own quagmire primary. His one big ad campaign was to help define himself, his life experience and what values he stands for without almost any reference, and certainly no explicit reference, to either Democrat.
He has not criticized his Democratic counterparts very much, except to call out Obama on his relationship with convicted terrorist William Ayers, calling Obama out of touch after Obama's gaffe at the San Fran fundraiser (where Obama insulted small town folks, religious folks, gun owners, those against trade isolationsim, and those who feel strongly about slowing down/reversing the tide of immigration, etc.), and calling out Obama's statements on his plan to deal with al Qaeda if he withdraws totally from Iraq. This is far less than what he could clearly be arguing and pointing out, showing McCain is holding his powder for the time being, generally avoiding shots at Clinton while she and Obama duke it out, and only commenting on huge Obama gaffes.
This result should be viewed in perspective. For one, it was about a point closer than the Ohio primary. Additionally, as has been widely noted, the demographics were perhaps even more favorable to Clinton in Pennsylvania than they had been in Ohio. Not a single poll taken before February of 2008 showed Clinton with a lead that wasn’t double digits. In early and mid-March, in the aftermath of the Texas and Ohio primaries, and as the Jeremiah Wright Sermon came out, polls showed Clinton with a lead ranging from 12-26%, with a median of 15%.
By the beginning of April, most polls showed Clinton’s lead had diminished to between 5 and 8%, presumably largely as a result of the Obama campaign outspending Clinton by a wide margin. It appeared that Obama might actually be competitive in the state. On April 6th, Obama made his “bitter” comment, and April 16th was the ABC debate, in which he unquestionably fared poorly.
With a final result of 9%, Obama’s missteps clearly cost him a few percent of the vote, and perhaps more in the way of gains he might otherwise have made. Also, as in Ohio, and in contrast with his performance in states like Wisconsin, Virginia, and Maryland, Obama was unable to break into the white, non-college-degree-holder, and older voter blocs. However, it is likewise pretty clear that Bittergate and Ayers were not game-changing for his campaign. Moreover, Obama’s money advantage did make a difference in allowing him to cut into Clinton’s initial edge in the state. This primary continued with the trend of late polls overstating Obama’s support, possibly attributable to the so-called Bradley effect, but also suggesting that Clinton’s endgame may play better with voters who make up their mind at the last minute.
Superdelegates have yet to buy into the idea that the Michigan vote faithfully captures support for Obama in the state, with Obama’s name omitted from the ballot. Granted, it was his choice to remove it therefrom, but given the pledge all of the candidates made not to campaign in the state, it did not seem inappropriate. Polls suggest that Obama and Clinton enjoy comparable support in the state. Florida was always going to be a Clinton victory, but surely not as lopsided as the actual vote was; Clinton devoted noticeable resources at the time to “fundraising” activities in the state, skirting the pledge not to campaign. The Republicans counted only half of the delegates of states that moved their primaries forward impermissibly; this seems like the best Clinton could reasonably hope for in Michigan and Florida.
Significantly, the media has basically refrained from including delegate totals or popular vote counts from either state. As such, the states will be excluded altogether until the convention, which means that the “will of the people” will be perceived as being whatever the tally ends up in early June without them, which will surely favor Obama. That may prove impossible to overturn.
As to Superdelegates, it is rumored that Obama has a store of them that he plans to roll out between now and the big Indiana and North Carolina primaries in a week and a half. Clinton will try to play up talk of momentum from Pennsylvania, but that has so far not found purchase, and certainly it is likely to be nixed unless she cuts into Obama’s wide lead in North Carolina or wins Indiana by more than a few points. For Obama, Indiana and North Carolina pose a potential opportunity to seal the deal, likely the best such opportunity until early June. With a wide lead in North Carolina already, and money to burn in very-much-up-for- grabs Indiana, Obama has the opportunity to make a statement to Superdelegates, many of whom are eager to end this thing. Also in Obama’s favor is the fact that he opted out of the only debate scheduled in the next two weeks, offering himself more control of his own narrative.
Obama’s missteps have knocked the man from his pedestal, but he has proven that he can raise ungodly sums of money, and he has outorganized his rivals with enviable state grassroots organizations. Meanwhile, Clinton’s negatives have only gotten worse, between her Bosnia prevarications and some piling onto the Obama criticisms, both of which played into the general narratives against her, that she is dishonest and fights dirty. She will do everything in her considerable power to reach the convention and take the nomination, but it seems probable that her already long odds will disappear over the course of the next five weeks. (Comment this)