Pennsylvania or bust?

This week attention turns to the Keystone State, as the Democrats gear up for a potential showdown in the last big primary

As the race for the Democratic nomination drags on, the candidate who is looking best as a result is John McCain.

The outcome of this week’s contest is unlikely to seal the race since the favourite to take the state, Hillary Clinton, is so far behind in the delegate count. This means that the fight is on two fronts, with behind the scenes energies focused on picking up support of the all important superdelegates.

So, whilst Hillary is slightly ahead in the polls in the state, her victory there may not be enough to convince senior party figures to pledge their support for the former First Lady.

Paul Harris reports from Pennsylvania in today’s Observer:

“Her [Clinton’s] 20 per cent-plus lead of just a month ago has been whittled down. Now the voting population seems restless and volatile. Recent polls have swung wildly, with one study last week putting Clinton 18 points ahead, while another a day later had Obama just three points behind.

Then there is the wider picture, which looks bleaker by the day for Clinton. Her strategy now rests entirely on doing enough damage to Obama to make the so-called superdelegates - party officials and elected politicians - swing her way and give her the nomination at the Denver convention.

But Clinton, not Obama, has just suffered a disastrous week of headlines. Her top staffer Mark Penn was demoted after he was revealed to be lobbying on behalf of a Colombian free-trade deal that Clinton herself opposed (and is hugely unpopular with Pennsylvania’s unions). Then, even worse, Bill Clinton was also revealed to have had close ties to the Colombians on the same issue.

Instead of winning over more superdelegates, Hillary Clinton has been losing them to Obama. Since Super Tuesday, 5 February, Obama has won 69 superdelegates and Clinton has actually lost five. At the same time, theoretically neutral bigwigs such as party chairman Howard Dean, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Jimmy Carter have either hinted they want a swift end to the contest or that they might support Obama.

Cash, too, is becoming a problem, with debts mounting up and the looming prospect of Clinton being forced to lend her campaign more of her own money. The result has been the creation of a ‘bubble mentality’ in the Clinton campaign seemingly oblivious to its sickly chances of winning. Indeed, numerous press reports are now speculating as to which top Democrat will be the one to tell Clinton she has lost, with the focus falling on Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel or her long-time friend Vernon Jordan.”

The more this drags on, the more one wonders if the race between Obama and Clinton were a horse they would shoot it.

Things look like they are going to stay negative, and thereby giving McCain even more ready baked ammunition for the November election, as the
Clinton team focuses on some ill chosen words by her rival.

As an accompanying story in the Observer states:

“Presidential candidate Barack Obama has launched a damage-limitation exercise after apparently belittling small-town Pennsylvanians for being bitter and turning to God, guns and anti-immigrant sentiment to make themselves feel better.

The Democratic frontrunner admitted he had used the wrong words when he described the bitterness of people over job losses. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain seized on the comments, made at a private San Francisco fundraiser last week but which became public on Friday.

Obama was describing how jobs had been disappearing in small towns in Pennsylvania and across the Midwest for 25 years with nothing to replace them. He then added: ‘It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.’”

Further reading
The best background article I have come across recently is in the Economist here