Pennsylvania Will Decide It... in November

If Barack Obama can score an upset victory tomorrow, well, he would end any serious Hillary Clinton challenge and take an enormous step toward inauguration. Pennsylvania has served up a double whammy for the Illinois legislator, not only do the demographics of the state rival Ohio's (a clear Clinton win) but most suspect the influence of Governor Ed Rendell, a longtime Clintonite dating back to at least his DNC chairmanship, to mitigate Senator Obama's usually prodigious totals in urban areas, i.e., Philadelphia, owing to Mr. Rendell's deep roots there. So, we expect Mrs. Clinton to win, but will it matter? It has not seemed that way in some time.

The debate on Wednesday last probably did little for anyone, except for wry conservatives anxious to see journalists hold Barack Obama to his "cling" comments and associations with Jeremiah Wright and Ted Ayers. I think others have correctly noted that Mr. Obama's answers on those matters, and, yes, even the flag-pin nonsense, have only satisfied his admirers and done very little for any purportedly undecided voters. Democrats, of course, have only themselves to blame for their current predicament. Hillary Clinton very early on shrewdly positioned herself on Iraq, but failed to take ownership of domestic issues, in part because Mr. Obama is the most liberal Democrat this close to the nomination since 1964. When candidates do not have major differences on judges, taxes, social issues, we can say that the personal supersedes the political.

I have long felt that a McCain-Obama race in Pennsylvania could sink the Democratic Party in November and that he would only defeat the Clintons here if enough voters wished to end the process. Clearly, they do not. Elsewhere, Indiana looks within the margin of error (leaning Clinton) and Senator Obama commands North Carolina, which means absent a fifteen-point-plus victory, the Clinton campaign will not make up enough ground to give superdelegates pause at the close of next month. Her effort, thoroughly unprepared for a post-Super Tuesday quarrel probably still cannot believe the fundraising prowess and Hart/Jackson-coalition-building of Barack Obama. Defections of former Clintonites, though exaggerated in the media, have hurt them too, perhaps personally more than professionally.

Bill Clinton almost assuredly believes that Senator Obama is an untested politician ripe for a "swift-boating" to invoke leftist excusism for their last presidential nominee's defeat; Obamanites, some perhaps louder than others, clearly believe that the Clintons simply cannot leave the stage and that they are yesterdays news--DLC saviors of the electoral college that are now obselete in a world of liberal rebirth. And they are both correct. Until he defeats Mrs. Clinton, the charismatic Chicagoan has never defeated a real opponent in his career (on the other hand, neither has HRC) whereas the Clintons' dogged persistance--this time against Democrats--delays the initial wave of anti-McCain attack ads that could swamp the Arizona Republican by another month.

I don't happen to put much stock in the latter. Comparisons to 1996 are risky and mostly superficial: Democratic presidents nearly always set the tone of their reelection races and Bob Dole never had the national standing of Mad Mac. Furthermore, according to Kaus, we live in a world of the Feiler Faster Thesis, or a notion that argues what once endured, good or ill, no longer does for very long. Thus, no matter how much blood is spilt between now and even late August, the effect would not rival 1968, we move on (no pun intended) much quicker today.

This, then, is a lot of worry for nothing. The Clintons would not stand down even if Al Gore, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and who knows how many others stood next to Barack Obama. Nor should they. In the history of American politics, no candidate with Mrs. Clinton's campaign profile and percentage of delegates has elected to bypass a convention floor inquiry. The party chose to have a superdelegate system in order to allow its elites to close ranks and deny a seemingly unelectable candidate the nomination. So, as she cannot top his delegate count, and since absent a few more gaffes or questionable connections, or a Rezko trial moment these pols will not dare offend the will of the voters, she must make the argument that he is unelectable, and race always seems tethered to any such assertion. We had once wondered if HRC, long deemed 50/50, could win the presidency in this country.

The real worry is that Democrats, in both their wisdom and arrogance, have tempted fate in an otherwise lumnious year for their party by disdaining the white man candidate. A woman and a minority candidate, ironically, each have formidable strengths in a Democratic primary--and each have formidable weaknesses in a general election. Maybe the point has become less instructive over the last two decades, but take care to count sometime the number of women and black men in the Senate Democratic caucus. We are thus asking between twenty-five and thirty-five states to do something they're not accustomed to doing.

A white male Democrat, say a Bredesen of Tennessee, Bayh of Indiana, etc likely pockets 57% of the female vote and 93% of the black vote against John McCain, not too dissimilar to Democratic totals over the last four presidential elections. I definitely applaud the party's (unwitting) courage, but it worth asking if we truly believe our two remaining candidates can sweep to victory without a substantial turnout increase in one of the aforementioned categories. Mad Mac is inordinately well positioned to dominate the white male vote, and given the close losses for President Bush in several Midwestern states, just a few more points could turn this race into a Republican rout. Yes, laugh at the preceding sentence if you must, you've been warned...

Barack Obama has too much money and too many hard-core supporters to go down in flames tomorrow and that is all he truly needs to avoid. The question is whether every single HRC voter will pull the lever for him against Senator McCain in November, especially in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Will he have to unite the party by choosing Mrs. Clinton before Denver as his running mate? Should he? More on this anon.