Pennsylvania Keeps Clinton Alive
Open Road’s man in Pennsylvania reports on Hillary Clinton’s victory last night
So it continues.
Pennsylvania is not going to be the end of the Democratic Party’s nominating process.
Hillary Clinton has won by ten points. Not the 20 plus point win the polls suggested 2 months ago, but not the 3-4 point squeaker that looked possible before Senator Obama’s now infamous “bitter” remarks in San Francisco two weeks ago.
Whether one applauds her tactics or not, you have to hand it to Mrs Clinton – she doesn’t quit. Her victory speech, while more personal than usual, was a re-affirmation of that tenacity and determination (she entered the Bellevue-Stratford ballroom in Philadelphia tonight with the twanging guitars of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” playing in the background). She was outspent in Pennsylvania more than 2 to 1 and yet still won the vast majority of the state geographically. She found a way, ten days ago, to stop the Obama surge and recover her lead. She continued to be highly successful convincing seniors, blue collar workers, Catholics and rural dwellers that in difficult times she is more likely to be able solve their problems. And, perhaps more importantly for the pursuit of the nomination, she continued to raise doubts over her opponents ability “to close the deal” and his ability to win key constituent groups in important bits of the country. She added a bit of fear to her standard arguments about experience and in Pennsylvania’s culturally conservative, cautious communities, they resonated.
And yet she still probably cannot win.
At the end of the day, the process – and the maths that goes with it – remain against her.
With a 10 per cent win, a margin of almost 200,000 votes, the delegate division from tonight so far stands at 55 to Hillary and 42 to Obama allowing Obama to continue to hold a considerable overall delegate lead.
Over 32 million Democrats have participated in primaries and caucuses so far. Obama has a lead of between 300,000 – 600,000 in the popular vote (depending on how you count). He has won almost twice as many states (with 9 more contests to go) and has had greater success mobilizing young people than any national politician in a generation.
These are some of the facts facing the almost 800 super delegates.
But equally, they know that Senator Clinton has won the largest States, has won the swing States that matter in November and has had tremendous success mobilizing women. Her blue collar, Latino, Catholic coalition is the traditional coalition of Democratic electoral success.
The dilemma the Democrats now face is that Senator Obama has fallen from earth. Weeks of attacks have taken their toll and Senator Clinton – to the delight of Camp McCain – has raised questions in voters minds about Obama’s judgement and his electability. At the same time, there is no way for Hillary Clinton to “win” the nomination before the August convention. The only way for her to secure the nomination is to “take it away” from her opponent by persuading super delegates that she is the only candidate that can beat Senator McCain.
It seems impossible to imagine the Party allowing that to happen if she continues to trail in all the key indicators – pledged delegates, popular vote and states won. Tonight, in Pennsylvania, she cut the popular vote lead by 200,000 but moved only marginally in the other categories. I think it will be very difficult for super delegates to put aside Mr. Obama’s lead and hand the nomination to Mrs Clinton because she convinces them she is most likely to beat Senator McCain. Having occupied the high moral ground on counting votes since the November 2000 debacle in Florida, ignoring the popular will of the Party’s rank and file, would be hugely damaging, embarrassing, provide ammunition for the Republicans and would be likely to lead to an internal split in the Party. In a cycle where Democrats seemed poised to take power back in Washington, it’s hard to believe the Party elders will allow that to play out.
So what next?
Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina. The first three all border on Ohio – sharing a demographic profile like Pennsylvania. Obama needs to demonstrate to super delegates that he can win a rust belt state. So Indiana has become the new (or next) Pennsylvania, (which was the next Texas/Ohio, which was). The Clinton campaign will now argue that Obama has been unable to connect with those working and middle class voters who decide battleground states. Someone needs to revive the 1992 mantra and remind Senator Obama that – particularly in times like these – “It’s the economy, stupid”. His ability to convince these voters that he can protect and help them may determine not only whether he is the nominee but whether or not he can win the Presidency in November.
Meanwhile, Mrs Clinton’s needs to continue her momentum, shoring up her argument with super delegates by being able to say that she finished strong, all the while cutting into his numerical leads. She needs to rack up a series of victories and finish the primary season on June 3rd with a clear wind behind her back.
I suspect that she will now be nervous about “going more negative.” It helped her in Pennsylvania but it has a potentially divisive effect on the party. The Washington Post is already reporting tonight that many in the Obama camp now want to hit her harder and that a debate has broken out over whether this is a “winning strategy” or not.
I don’t think it is. More importantly, I can’t help but cringe every time I hear all these paid Democratic pundits suggest on cable news that this increasingly nasty battle isn’t hurting the party’s chances in November. If this process plays out till the Democratic Convention there will not be a candidate until September. That means four months of this level of hostility and bickering. Four months of focusing on each other rather than on the Republican opponent. Four months of chasing money to fund that fight rather than building a war chest for the autumn. I remain to be convinced that this can be a good thing for Democrats.
I have to admit that when watching Barack Obama fend off question after question last week, I suddenly found myself thinking about Adlai Stevenson, Willie Horton and windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket. Would Obama become another smart liberal Democrat – like Kerry, Dukakis and an earlier Senator from Illinois – easily caricatured by the Right as wimpy and out of touch, unable to muster the stomach or strength to counter punch? We all remember swift boats.
Over the past weekend as his tv ad buy seemed endless it was clear that the Illinois Senator was willing to fight back. On the stump and on tv he struck back as the Clinton campaign attacked him on multiple fronts. It wasn’t always elegant, nor was it very complementary to his “new” politics approach, the “politics of the hope”. But, as he said on national television yesterday, “if you get elbowed enough” eventually you have to stop it.
And “stop it” is what more and more party insiders are saying they will expect Howard Dean, Al Gore, John Edwards and the other undeclared elders of the Democratic Party to do in June. One Beltway insider said to me tonight, “They need to get a grip on this process” and “encourage” ( a New Jersey art form based on subtle persuasion)) super delegates to indicate their intentions sometime after the primaries finish in early June. Many now believe that allowing this to drag out another 3 months till the Convention would be a catastrophe for the party’s chances in November. Whether the leadership can pull that off remains to be seen as the campaigns themselves are more interested in winning and less concerned about the state of party unity.
For the candidates, going forward, their focus is clear. It now seems inevitable that the 2008 update of the aforementioned Carville quip will be, “It’s the super delegates, stupid.”