Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Democratic primary gave us the same overall result as the ones that came before it: none whatsoever. Pennsylvania was built up to be the decisive primary, just as New Hampshire, all the Super Tuesday states, Ohio and Texas had been before, but the result was as inconclusive as all the others.
Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in Pennsylvania by 10 points. It was a big enough win to give her the slimmest of hopes of actually getting the nomination, so she’ll stay in the race at least another two weeks until May 6, when North Carolina and Indiana vote. But she only picked up 12 delegates and still trails Obama by 130 overall delegates and by more than 150 pledged delegates.
The Obama campaign sent out an e-mail on Tuesday night saying Clinton “lost her last, best chance.” This is true. Pennsylvania was Clinton’s last real hope of changing the math of this primary race. Obama will end up winning more delegates — elected ones and total delegates — going into the Democratic Convention in Denver. Clinton’s only hope is that the superdelegates rush to her side and overrule the will of the people.
Despite her claim that she is the more electable candidate and therefore superdelegates should support her instead of Obama, it’s just not going to happen. The Democratic Party is the party of voting rights, and having party insiders overrule the voters — as would have to happen for Clinton to win the nomination — would represent an incredible contradiction of the party’s chosen ethos. It would cause a civil war in the party and alienate two essential blocs: African Americans and young people. The superdelegates know this, and this is why Clinton’s superdelegate lead has dwindled during the last two months.
For as much as the Clinton team emphasizes its win in Pennsylvania, it neglects the fact that she was up 25 points a month ago in polling. It was a solid win for Hillary and a win she desperately needed, but it came too late. If it was going to be the “game-changing” election that her surrogates claimed it was on Tuesday night, she needed to win by 20 points, not 10. Clinton failed to make the statement she needed to shift the momentum of the race.
If Clinton cared about the Democratic Party, she would drop out and let Obama gear up for the general election. But Hillary Clinton has never cared about anyone other than herself.
So the real winner on Tuesday was not Hillary Clinton, but John McCain. Hillary’s win ensures the bruising Democratic primary continues, and as the Democrats beat each other up, McCain gets a free pass. The primary is hurting the Democratic Party and will be the major reason that they lose in November, despite McCain running on the record of a very unpopular president and with the millstone of the Republican Party label around his neck.
Wednesday’s New York Times bashed Clinton’s negative campaign in an editorial. This is the same New York Times that endorsed her two months ago. They wrote, “It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.” But again, that’s unrealistic.
She isn’t going to change her ways. Right now, she seems to be channeling Mike Huckabee, who would claim, “I didn’t major in math; I majored in miracles.” Clinton too must be ignoring the math, because only a miracle would help her now.
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