Pennsylvania Results (Hillary Won The Battle, Lost The War A Long Time Ago)

As expected Hillary won Pennsylvania, but not without having Obama cut deeply into her once huge lead, despite all of her advantages in the state.

As expected, she is spinning away, completely out of touch with reality.

As expected, the media is pretty much saying the race goes on (imagine that, they ratings go on as well).

As expected, McCain and the Republicans are undoubtedly very happy that many Democrats apparently don't understand that attacking their nominee from two fronts at once probably isn't the best idea.

Hillary won Pennsylvania by a mediocre less than 9% margin, far from the blowout win she needed, but enough for the media to continue to indulge her delusions of having any chance of winning the nomination. Not that the media needed much push, they've been willfully ignoring the math for months now, while repeating Hillary's talking points like they are witty jokes they think may impress someone. Thus even on The Huffington Post there is a big headline which reads: Hillary's Next Must-Win: Indiana.

Excuse me? Her next must-win? Let's inject some reality into that statement. EVERY state is a must win for Hillary if she wants to actually win the nomination. Not only is every single state a must-win for Hillary, every single state is a must-win by HUGE blowout margins. She failed miserably at this in Texas and Ohio, and she has failed in every state since then. She failed miserably again last night. Before yesterday's primary Hillary needed to win 65% of the vote in EVERY SINGLE remaining state in order to win. For a little perspective, I could count how many states she received over 60% of the vote or more on one hand, if I had been in an industrial accident which lost me 4 fingers on that hand. Yes, she has only once even overcame the 60% mark, and that was in her home state of Arkansas (she didn't even come close in New York, her new "home state"). And before yesterday she needed to win 65% of the vote in every single race. She failed. She only got 55% of the vote in Pennsylvania, a full 10% below what she needed. Now, she needs 68% wins in EVERY SINGLE STATE from here on out to win. Considering Obama has a big lead in North Carolina right now, and will also easily win Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, and Indiana will be close, there is absolutely no way she can pull this off. Simply put, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

And yet the media continues to pretend that a less than 9% win in Pennsylvania (a state she had every possible advantage in) means something. Well, it does mean something, it means the same thing her failures in Ohio and Texas meant, it means that she has even less of a chance today than she did yesterday. As Slate puts it, "Coming into today, the odds that Clinton would catch Obama in pledged delegates were very small. Now they're zero." Exactly.

Okay, so let's talk what Obama achieved last night, despite Hillary's spin and the media's regurgitation of it. Beyond cutting her huge lead down to less than 9% despite all of her advantages, Obama also gained among her core supporters. Obama made gains among the 60+ crowd, among white, among white men, among white women, among lower income voters, and among protestants. Obama's close margin is even more impressive when you consider that the demographics in Pennsylvania were significantly less favorable to Obama than the those of Ohio. In the end Hillary's spin that Obama has some sort of problem capturing her demographics is flat out wrong, because he has continually shown he can cut into her base.

One last thing, the general election polls in Pennsylvania have been all over the board, however they show clearly that Hillary has no better shot against McCain in PA than Obama does, and in fact Obama generally outperforms Hillary in the general, despite her win in Pennsylvania, which shows her primary-derived electability argument is complete crap. Yet expect it to be repeated ad nauseum, as Hillary seems to think very lowly of our intelligence, as pointed out in this excellent blog.

Okay, another last thing, Hillary is also running around saying "now more people have voted for me than my opponent", which is a complete lie. She is of course including the votes from Florida and Michigan, neither of which were legitimate elections given that in neither race did the voters have the information to make an informed decision (they were essentially name recognition races, with Obama unable to touch Hillary's advantage with his own advertising), and Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, so according to Hillary Obama got ZERO votes for Michigan. Nice try Hillary. Also the popular vote was never counted for the caucuses in IA, NV, ME & WA (three of which Obama won, and the other was essentially a tie), so the reported popular vote totals under report Obama's popular vote lead, and Hillary knows this. So to recap, she thinks it is fair to count the popular vote totals in two tainted races, one of which didn't even have Obama on the ballot*, but she doesn't think that four legitimate states should have their votes counted in the popular vote totals. So when you hear her running around claiming she has won the popular vote, realize that she is being purposefully deceptive. In reality she is still far behind in the popular vote, and those numbers are only going to get worse for her in the races ahead.

Update: The New York Times, which endorsed Hillary originally, wrote a scathing indictment of the low tactics she resorted to in order to pull off her small win in Pennsylvania:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. 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.[...]

By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don't like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.

Update #2: It seems that Hillary only gained 9 pledged delegates from Pennsylvania. For a little perspective, Obama recently gained 8 delegates from California after they finished counting the ballots there, and the media didn't even mention it. 9 is nothing.

*Note: Let's have a flashback to what Hillary said about her name being the only one on the ballot in Michigan:

I personally did not think it made any difference whether my name was on the ballot. You know, It's clear this election they are having is not going to count for anything.

Yes, and now she is trying to claim not only those pledged delegates, but the popular vote as well. What ever happened to "not going to count for anything" Hillary? Or was that your other face talking?

Update: Apparently the results are still not completely in from PA, not that the media cares (as they are still reporting the false 10%), but several heavily pro-Obama precincts have yet to report, so her margin of victory will likely still shrink a bit more.

Update #2: Keith Olbermann isn't fooled, unlike most of the mutton media: