Clinton's Big Win in Pennsylvania

By Rick Moran

Depsite winning Pennyslvania handily, the electoral landscape looks pretty much the same today as it did yesterday for Hillary Clinton.

She is behind in delegates to Obama with virtually no chance that she can catch up in the primaries remaining. And as long as that singular fact dominates the minds of the superdelegates - and there is no indication that her victory has altered any opinions - then she is, for all intents and purposes, dead in the water.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania on Tuesday by enough of a margin to continue a battle that Democrats increasingly believe is undermining their effort to unify the party and prepare for the general election against Senator John McCain.

Despite a huge investment of time and money by Mr. Obama and pressure on Mrs. Clinton by the party establishment to consider folding her campaign, she won her third big state in a row. Mrs. Clinton showed again that she is a tenacious campaigner with an ability to connect with the blue-collar voters Mr. Obama has found elusive and who could be critical to a Democratic victory in November.

Mrs. Clinton’s margin was probably not sufficient to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race, which continued to favor an eventual victory for Mr. Obama. But it made clear that the contest will go on at least a few weeks, if not more. And it served to underline the concerns about Mr. Obama’s strengths as a general election candidate. Exit polls again highlighted the racial, economic, sex and values divisions within the party.

Meanwhile, Obama continues to show that he will be a weaker general election candidate than Hillary Clinton. He lost the Catholic vote by more than 2-1, middle class voters, Jewish voters, women, white voters, - every single constituency that Democrats must win on election day 2008 to defeat John McCain, Obama lost and lost badly in most cases.

But the superdelegates, even if they wanted to switch, cannot afford to alienate their most reliable voting bloc; African Americans. Hence, it is extremely unlikely that they will break for Hillary unless Obama messes up by committing some huge gaffe.

But his handlers have scrapped the idea of any more debates and the candidate himself is dodging the press as if they all had ebola. Being thus shielded, all we will see of the candidate and read about are the issues he and his supporters wish to highlight.

Clinton is doing the only thing she can - playing out the string, hoping that somehow she can convince the superdelegates that they should choose her to be the nominee. Unfortunately for her, time is too short and most of the Democratic superdelegates want to move on from the primary into the general election campaign.

But Hillary is saying not yet...not yet.