Clinton pulls out another big state win over Obama

PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton took a solid and crucial win over Barack Obama in Tuesday's Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary, extending the race at least two more weeks and keeping alive her uphill battle to capture the nomination.

"Some people counted me out and said to drop out," Clinton told cheering supporters in Philadelphia. "Well, the American people don't quit and they deserve a president who doesn't quit either."

"Because of you," she said, "the tide is turning."

Clinton's win – another in her series of big-state victories - left her still trailing Obama in the delegate count and advanced the focus to May 6 contests in Indiana and North Carolina.

Obama, already campaigning in Indiana, told supporters in Evansville Tuesday night that he was pleased that he had closed the gap in Pennsylvania, where early polls gave Clinton a double-digit lead.

"There were a lot of folks who didn't think we could make this a race when it started, thought we were going to be blown out," Obama said in remarks that made little reference to Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania balloting – which showed Clinton up by 10 points with 83 percent of precincts reporting – prolonged an unprecedented and increasingly nasty battle between two senators who want to go head-to-head with Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, in November.

Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton backer, said at her celebration that voters in his state "not only changed the dynamic, (but) it's the equivalent of a political earthquake."

Overstated, said Muhlenburg College political scientist Chris Borick of Allentown.

"She won a state she should have won. He did OK. If people were seeking clarity out of this there are not going to get any," Borick said.

"I think it's put us further into a state of purgatory" in terms of deciding the race, Borick said.

For Clinton, the immediate challenge is cash.

"We can only keep winning if we can keep competing with an opponent who outspends us so massively," she said in urging supporters to come up with contributions.

Clinton's win was fueled in part by her success in attracting blue-collar voters, a crucial demographic in a state where 89 percent of the voters said the nation is in a recession.

Exit polling showed Clinton prevailing among voters without a college education, union households, gun owners and those who had not attended college.

With the win, Clinton claimed another big state - Obama's biggest-state win has been in Illinois, his home - but Obama remained ahead in the delegate count and total states won (30-15).

The Pennsylvania contest was the first since Obama trounced Clinton by 24 points in Mississippi on March 11.

Before Tuesday's voting, Obama led 1,648.5 to 1,509.5 in the race to the 2,025 delegates it takes to clinch the race. There were 158 delegates, awarded proportionately based on statewide and congressional district results. Another 157 will be awarded in the Indiana and North Carolina contests.

Obama is a heavy favorite in North Carolina. Indiana could be close and crucial.

"Pennsylvania was supposed to be the next Ohio," University of Pennsylvania political scientist Donald Kettl said of Ohio's March 4 contest — once was viewed as the one that would determine the race. "Now Indiana looks like the next Pennsylvania."

McCain easily won Tuesday's Pennsylvania GOP primary, cruising by Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee remained on the ballot even though he has withdrawn from the race and endorsed McCain.

McCain adviser Mark McKinnon said his candidate also was a winner in Tuesday's Democratic race.

"The longer the Democratic primary drags on with Obama and Clinton fighting each other, the longer John McCain can run a general election campaign talking about his positive vision for America," McKinnon said.

Exit polls in Pennsylvania showed the continuation of some well-established trends on the Democratic side, with Obama carrying 92 percent of black voters, 53 percent of males and 60 percent of recently registered voters, and Clinton carrying 59 percent of voters age 60 or over and 55 percent of females.

Kettl said the Pennsylvania results highlighted vulnerabilities on both sides, with Obama unable to attract working-class voters and Clinton weak on attracting upper-income and young voters.

The primary was the first since Obama had to deal with controversial comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the candidate's longtime Chicago pastor. In videos widely viewed on YouTube and elsewhere, Wright said in a post-9/11 sermon that the nation had brought the attacks on itself.

Exit polls indicated a negative reaction to Obama among religious voters, possibly a reaction to Obama's recent comment about some Americans clinging to religion because of economic woes. Thirty-nine percent of the state's voters said they attend church weekly. Clinton carried 59 percent of those voters.

Clinton's chance of winning the nomination rest mainly on persuading Democratic superdelegates that she has the best chance of beating McCain, even if she winds up with fewer pledged delegates than Obama.

Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak, a Clinton backer and superdelegate who represents a suburban Philadelphia area in which Obama ran well on Tuesday, said he is not changing his allegiance.

"I need to listen to my district, but I still believe she is best for our nation," said Sestak, who has no fear of deciding the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Sestak believes that Clinton, in the remaining primaries, can pull close to even with Obama in the overall popular vote, an outcome he said would make a compelling case for her to take the race all the way to Denver.

Despite giving Clinton Tuesday's win, 54 percent of Pennsylvania voters said they expect Obama to win the nomination.

For the Democrats, another primary meant another round of spinning the results, something both sides did before the polls closed.

"One thing is clear," the Obama campaign said in a memo distributed to reporters and others, "Pennsylvania is considered a state tailor-made for Hillary Clinton, and by rights she should win big."

Obama's handlers noted Clinton's family roots in the state — her grandfather lived in Scranton — and her support by Gov. Ed Rendell, and the fact that polls once showed her up by 25 points here.

Clinton, said the Obama camp, needed "a blowout victory in Pennsylvania to get any closer to winning the nomination."

Clinton sought to put herself above spin, concentrating instead on the daily math.

"I think a win is a win. Maybe I'm old-fashioned about that," she told reporters during the day.

But she couldn't resist a quick spin.

"I think maybe the question ought to be: Why can't he close a deal with his extraordinary financial advantage? Why can't he win a state like this one, if that's the way it turns out . . . big states, states that Democrats have to win," she said.

Obama, campaigning in Philadelphia before heading to Indiana later in the day, said he wasn't interested in moral victories.

"Let me cut to the chase,'' he said during a drop-by at Pat's King of Steaks. "A win is fifty plus one. So if Senator Clinton gets over 50 percent she's won the state. I don't try to pretend I enjoy getting 45 percent and that's a moral victory; we've lost the state."

In defeat, he found solace in a recap of the race to date.

"What I do believe is we're coming to the end of this process and if you look we've won twice as many states. We've won the popular vote by a fairly substantial margin. We've got a very big lead in pledged delegates and we've competed in every state, win or lose," Obama said.

And he scoffed at Clinton's claim that her big-state wins mean something.

"Part of the reason, for example, we might not win one of the big states is we've decided we could get more delegates by campaigning in five small states. That was a decision based on the notion that this was a delegate race," Obama said.

The prolonged campaign has led to escalated rhetoric as each side works to tear the other down, an increasingly expensive effort that could accrue to McCain's benefit.

In an ad aired in Pennsylvania in recent days, the Clinton campaign noted that Obama has taken almost $2 million from "lobbyists, corporations and PACs" in the past 10 years.

The Obama response came in an ad accusing Clinton of "eleventh-hour smears paid for by lobbyist money."

The exit polling showed that 67 percent of Tuesday's voters felt Clinton had attacked unfairly. Only 49 percent felt that way about Obama.

McCain campaigned Tuesday in Ohio, telling a Youngstown audience it was "a big news day in politics, with the Pennsylvania primary and all."

"And I've been left recently in the unfamiliar position of facing no opposition within my own party," he said. "As you might recall, it was a different story last year, when I could claim the unqualified support of Cindy and my mother - and mom was starting to keep her options open."