Pennsylvania Very Good for Clinton, Dems In General

One thing the Pennsylvania primaries made very clear: the GOP really is going to have to struggle to keep up. Both Democrats each individually drew more votes yesterday than the total Republican voters between all GOP candidates (Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee were both on the PA ballot for the GOP, and got crushed by McCain, of course.) Just over 804,000 voters participated in the GOP primary, versus 2.3 Million voters on the Democrat side. That means Democrats outnumbered Republicans at the polls almost 3-to-1.

Another thing that seems clear: Obama's $11 million dollar act of desperation won him a lopsided victory in Philadelphia. If you look at the county level results, Clinton demolished him in the state wide contest. The majority of her victories are in the 60-75% range, with Obama taking the urban demographic by a 14 point lead. Once more, Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics.com has already published a very thorough analysis of the PA demographics here, which demonstrates Clinton's true success in Pennsylvania. She exceeded expectations, and once again did what they said she needed to do: score a double digit victory. And, just like every other time, as soon as Clinton jumps another hurdle they put another one in front of her.

Something that should not be ignored is that as of yesterday, Clinton closed the popular vote gap, and pulled ahead. How, you ask? Yes, with those pesky little impatient states Florida and Michigan. Even if delegates never get seated from the two contested states, the voters cannot be ignored. Can you imagine the GOP media heyday? "Democrats don't like to count all the votes." The only reason FL and MI have not been settled yet is because Obama keeps saying no. He doesn't want those states to count, because it is becoming increasingly clear that they erase his popular vote lead, something he desperately needs in order to keep his front-runner status. His electability was already in question, and now that Clinton has cinched up another critical big, working class state, it is in dire jeopardy. I honestly cannot see how the superdelegates could get behind Obama if his electability is seriously challenged, and it has been. The Obama campaign is still pounding on the "can't pass me in delegate count" drum, but the fact is, Clinton can pass him in the delegate count, so long as she maintains her superdelegate lead, which she is doing. She's hanging onto it by the skin of her teeth, but she's doing it.

Obama made a huge stand in Pennsylvania, even going so far as to briefly pontificate that they might pull off a win in the Keystone State. By a multi-million dollar long shot, the Obama campaign staged the biggest, most expensive, most intense campaign for Pennsylvania, and in the end could not deny Clinton a double digit win. Obama has accused Clinton of throwing the kitchen sink at him, but it looks to me like it was the other way around, and he still lost. Clinton won every major demographic in Pennsylvania, even taking the post graduate vote which usually goes to Obama. She also demolished him on the issues, beating him on the Economy (the biggest issue in PA and in the election overall by far) by 16 points, and Health care by 8. Obama took Iraq by 10 points, and still maintained his lead in young voters. The working class, and women surged out in favor of Clinton, giving her a smashing lead in the area of 25-30 points. Obama managed to draw the averages down to 10 points by taking Philadelphia whose population is heavily disproportionate to the rest of the state. Was it a well spent 11 million? When it's all said and done, I doubt it. I think the huge struggle which resulted in a still-resounding loss says all it needs to say.

Watching the post primary coverage last night, something struck me as very apropos. While Clinton was giving her victory speech the crowd started chanting, "Yes we will, Yes we will, Yes we will!" Later, watching Obama's speech, the crowd was chanting, "Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can!" I immediately thought to myself, Yep, maybe Obama can, but Clinton will. Clinton avoided discussing Obama almost completely in her victory speech except to acknowledge that it was a hard fought battle on both sides. When it appeared she was going to say something negative, she got booed, but it quickly turned back to loud cheering when she plugged her website and made a plea for donations. Another thing that is clear, even Clinton supporters are tied of the negative campaigning. Obama's post primary speech consisted mostly of his new stump points, which are largely anti-Clinton, and barely veiled.

Anyone who was ready to write Clinton off got another nasty surprise. In less than 12 hours, the Clinton campaign is reporting $3.5 million in donations, she has regained her national head-to-head win over McCain, and she's added another key state to her big state strategy. The punditry is calling it everything from a big win to a stalemate, but I believe the reality is this is a major win for Clinton. Her biggest campaign strength, electability, just got a massive injection of validity and her momentum has gone from a slow roll to a steady gait.