Hillary Clinton's Win in Pennsylvania Leaves Obama Battered, Party Reeling

[Evilmav2]

Clinton's Win in Pa. Leaves Obama Battered, Party Reeling

By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania victory means that the Democratic Party's eventual nominee will be badly bruised and could have a tough time rallying the party in the fall.

Clinton on Tuesday once again failed to do well among young and African-American voters, who are growing increasingly alienated from the New York senator. She won with some harsh tactics — too harsh for a lot of Barack Obama supporters.

Obama, on the other hand, stumbled badly. He outspent Clinton by an estimated 3 to 1. He had six weeks since the last primary to ingratiate himself with people he's had a hard time wooing: blue-collar whites, small-town residents and older women. Instead, he once again lost the white vote handily and couldn't put his opponent away.

The momentum that seemed so strong in February, when Obama won 11 contests in a row and seemed on the verge of knocking Clinton out of the race, was all but gone Tuesday.

Also gone, or at least fading, was the feeling among Democratic voters on both sides that either candidate ultimately would be acceptable.

While Democrats remain angry over the Iraq war, the economy and President Bush, they've grown less inclined to accept their favorite candidate's Democratic opponent as a prospective president.

The deepening Clinton-Obama schism became more pronounced after last Wednesday's Philadelphia debate.

Obama backers insisted that their man was treated unfairly when the Illinois senator was asked about his relationship with his former pastor and '60s-era radical Willliam Ayers. They argued that Obama did the right thing by staying gentle in his explanations.

Clinton folks saw the performance differently. They were disturbed that Obama didn't put more distance between himself and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who has suggested that past U.S. actions were partly responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that the HIV virus was a government plot against people of color.

If Obama gets the nomination, lots of Clinton backers said, they'd give presumptive Republican nominee John McCain a look.

Obama backers said the same, should Clinton be the nominee.

"I love Obama," said Aimee Brace, a Williamsport housewife who switched her registration to Democrat. "He has a real down-to-earth way. If Clinton gets it, I don't know what I'd do. I'd be lost."

Democratic leaders sensed this increasing rupture between the Clinton and Obama camps, and in recent days they've pleaded with the superdelegates who control about 20 percent of the convention votes, and with them, the balance of power.

"I need them to say who they're for, starting now," party Chairman Howard Dean said of the superdelegates last week. "We've got to know who our nominee is."

The surest way to have gotten a quick decision would have been if Obama had won Pennsylvania. That would have instantly dispelled the notion that he lacks appeal in a big diverse state and restore the aura that made him a star in an array of states as different as Vermont, Minnesota, Virginia and Louisiana this winter.

By Wednesday, this thinking went, the media would have been declaring the race all but over and the superdelegates would have had a fresh reason to leap on the Obama bandwagon. He'd be officially anointed this generation's John F. Kennedy, ready to inspire the masses with his vision and vigor.

Instead, the verdict Wednesday will remain the same: Pennsylvania joins the roster of Clinton wins that stretches from Massachusetts and New Jersey on the East Coast to Texas and Ohio in the middle and California in the West.

But Clinton still can't break Obama's hold on black and young voters. He won 92 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls, and between 56 percent and 58 percent of voters under 45.

Similarly, however, Obama can't shake that a lot of whites are uncomfortable with a black as president, as exit polls showed him losing the white vote by 60-40 percent — a consistent trend in recent primaries.

Yet Clinton's harsh campaign may be turning Obama's flaws into open wounds that prove difficult to heal by November.

And so, the party is left again in a stalemate without apparent end.

The campaigns now head for May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. North Carolina, where roughly 40 percent of the Democratic voters are black, is expected to be solid Obama territory, but Indiana promises to be less predictable.

The two camps will undoubtedly paint the state as a make-or-break affair, but it offers only 72 delegates. With 2,025 needed to nominate, Indiana's an unlikely game-changer.

So on a day when the Democratic race remains muddled, this much is clear: Obama remains the favorite for the nomination, but it's not a comfortable lead.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/34589.html

[chumdawg]

Any Democrat who voted for Hillary in this primary is dumb enough to deserve whatever fate they get in the general election.

[Flacolaco]

So their nominee will be decided in back rooms of the convention by a small contingent of super delegates? Is that how it works? (seriously, I don't really know)

How democratic, if so.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

So their nominee will be decided in back rooms of the convention by a small contingent of super delegates? Is that how it works? (seriously, I don't really know)

How democratic, if so.

It could be. But there would be nothing un-democratic about it. The public will get their say on which party and which candidate they want in the White House.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

So their nominee will be decided in back rooms of the convention by a small contingent of super delegates? Is that how it works? (seriously, I don't really know)

How democratic, if so.

This is just practice. We all know how the general election can be decided by a few vote-riggers in Florida (no doubt also smoking unhealthily in backrooms lit by those non-twisty bulbs) and a few supreme court judges.

[Jack.Kerr]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Any Democrat who voted for Hillary in this primary is dumb enough to deserve whatever fate they get in the general election.

You know, it seems like the more-Left Democrats want a coronation not a nomination. But in politics, there's brass and papier-maché invovled, and increasingly the clanking sound is coming from Hilary.

Can Obama punch?

Wilting Over Waffles
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 23, 2008

He’s never going to shake her off.

Not all by himself.

The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.

She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Now that Hillary has won Pennsylvania, it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival. Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit. It’s like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke.

“You know, some people counted me out and said to drop out,” said a glowing Hillary at her Philadelphia victory party, with Bill and Chelsea by her side. “Well, the American people don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit, either.”

The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. With gas prices out of control, with the comically oblivious President Bush shimmying around New Orleans — the city he let drown — and Condi sneaking into Baghdad as rockets and mortars hail down on the Green Zone, beating the Republicans should be a cinch.

But the Democrats watch in horror as Hillary continues to scratch up the once silvery sheen on Obama, and as John McCain not only consolidates his own party but encroaches on theirs by boldly venturing into Selma, Ala., on Monday to woo black voters.

They also cringe as Bill continues his honey-crusted-nut-bar meltdown. With his usual exquisite timing, just as Pennsylvanians were about to vote, Hillary’s husband became the first person ever to play the Caucasian Card. First, he blurted out to a radio interviewer that the Obama camp had played the race card against him after he compared Obama’s strength in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s. And then, with a Brobdingnagian finger-wagging on the screen, he denied it to an NBC News reporter.

“You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today,” he said, accusing the reporter of looking for “another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us.”

If there’s one person who knows about crass diversions, it’s Bill. But even for him, it was an embarrassing explosion, capped with some blue language to an aide that was caught on air.

The Democrats are eager to move on to an Obama-McCain race. But they can’t because no one seems to be able to show Hillary the door. Despite all his incandescent gifts, Obama has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game. Again and again, he has seemed stuck at deuce. He complains about the politics of scoring points, but to win, you’ve got to score points.

He knew he tanked in the Philadelphia debate, but he was so irritated by the moderators — and by having to stand next to Hillary again — that he couldn’t summon a single merry dart.

Is he skittish around her because he knows that she detests him and he’s used to charming everyone? Or does he feel guilty that he cut in line ahead of her? As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?

He is frantic to get away from her because he can’t keep carbo-loading to relate to the common people.

In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak.

But this is clearly a man who can’t wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites. That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas.

“Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?”

His subtext was obvious: Why can’t I just be president? Why do I have to keep eating these gooey waffles and answering these gotcha questions and debating this gonzo woman?

Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!” (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as “Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!”) They could sing:

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. ... I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. ... You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!”

[Jack.Kerr]

If Obama gets the nomination, lots of Clinton backers said, they'd give presumptive Republican nominee John McCain a look.

Obama backers said the same, should Clinton be the nominee.

"I love Obama," said Aimee Brace, a Williamsport housewife who switched her registration to Democrat. "He has a real down-to-earth way. If Clinton gets it, I don't know what I'd do. I'd be lost."

There's a non-seq here, illustrated by the quote from the Obama supporter. The Obama supporter being "lost" if Clinton won the nomination is not nearly the same thing as the Hillary supporters saying that they'd take a look at McCain if Obama won.

Heard an exit-poll stat last night from Pennsylvania where something like 13% of Caucasian respondents said they'd have trouble voting for an African-American candidate, and the pollster observed that if that high a percentage would admit it face-to-face, then the true percentage was likely quite high. I have some familiarity with that demographic, and that observation resonates.

The Clintons, once again, are triangulating the electorate. A lot of her base of support, IMO, would be MORE likely to vote for McCain than for Obama.

Memo to Democrats: When you play all-or-nothing, sometimes you get nothing.

[DevinHarriswillstart]

All of this media hullabaloo about Pennsylvania for nothing. He made it all up in North Carolina. The race is over.

[dude1394]

I certainly hope so. I continue to much prefer obama to clinton.

[GuerillaBlack]

He blows by Richardson
He blows by Edwards
He blows by Clinton

Score!

[Flacolaco]

Still Indiana has yet to be "decided" as we cross into Wednesday...

The fact that it's that close is good enough right? Is she going to give up or what?

[chumdawg]

Pretty fascinating drama going on on CNN right now. The mayor of Gary, IN, can't make a coherent case for why they haven't released their votes yet. He sounds like a moran!

[Ninkobei]

wish clinton would just give up her spot. she's so damn greedy though she's going to drag this thing out for another 2 months. very poor sportswoman's ship from her. thought she was supposed to be a classy broad?

[DevinHarriswillstart]

This is what angry denial looks like.

"LOSE!! THE CLINTONS NEVER LOSE B***CH."