Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Pennsylvania Ten Cent Recap

What I keep telling myself:

1. Penn was worse on demographics for Obama than Ohio, and six weeks ago, we figured he'd cut it to about ten points.

2. The kitchen sink strategy had no apparent effect. Obama suffered the worst six weeks of the campaign, and actually made small inroads on white working-class voters over Ohio.

3. Classy as always, Obama congratulated Hillary after her win (Clinton always ignores Obama on her losses).

4. Clinton will pick up in the neighborhood of 12 delegates, but will slide further behind in her effort to catch up. She also picked up 200,000 popular votes, but remains in the hole. Looking forward, the likelihood of her catching him in the popular vote looks remote (she'll win overwhelmingly in W VA and KY, but roughly tie in IN and lose in NC, OR, MT, and SD.)

5. Obama may have lost Pennsylvania, but by virtue of bringing so many new voters in, he's made it much more likely to be a Democratic state in November. Local politicians running for office owe him a huge debt for that and, since many are superdelegates, this will be a factor in the election.

6. Hillary has consistently won the oldsters. Almost a third were over 60 in Pennsylvania, and that was the difference. But Dems have to make a call--do they want to lure in the voters who can give them a governing coalition for the next generation, or those who will be dead in a generation? A crass consideration perhaps, but certainly one Super-D's are making.

Take a deep breath--we're right where we started.

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