Clinton’s Pa. win prolongs primary

It’s going to be a long summer.

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Pennsylvania primary by the frustrating margin of 10 percent on Tuesday, giving her the backing she needed to argue she has reason to go on. But the size of the margin wasn’t large enough to actually change the dynamic of the race, so the primary really changed nothing.

Her win by only 10 points certainly does not mean “the tide is turning,” as she proclaimed last night. She only took one extra delegate according to the latest count from The New York Times. Barack Obama still leads by 150 pledged delegates according to the Associated Press.

It still looks almost impossible for her to win the nomination, but this margin gave her reason to argue to the superdelegates that Obama can’t win the big states.

Any smaller margin and there would have been calls from every corner of the Democratic Party for her to withdraw. A larger win may have actually given her a chance, albeit slim, at actually taking the nomination.

But her argument that Obama can’t take the big states doesn’t stick. These states include places such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, which both have large working class populations. And these are traditionally swing states.

But the economy is on the verge of a recession thanks to the subprime mortgage lending fallout, and these are some of the places where the pinch will be felt most.

It is silly to think that after these voters have seen the effects of a Republican administration’s economic policies, the loss of homes and life savings, they will want to vote in another Republican administration. 

And they must be especially “bitter” after watching that same administration give a $200 billion bailout package to the finance sector, which is really responsible for the credit crunch, while people in these areas move into the family car.

Now, understanding this, and understanding that she cannot win without stealing the nomination from the first serious black contender for the presidency without backroom dealings involving superdelegates, it is understandable how bad these results really are for the Democratic Party. 

It is going to be a long summer of primaries that don’t matter and get excessive news coverage, of personal attacks being slung between two members of the same party, of confused party leaders, and of millions and millions of dollars of wasted campaign contributions.

Hope may be on the horizon in the form of the voters of North Carolina and Indiana, but in the most likely scenario during those next two primaries on May 6, Indiana will go for Clinton, and North Carolina for Obama. If he wins both by enough votes she will be forced out. But this won’t happen.

Some would think voters are actually electing the president in these whimsical contests in an already decided race. People almost forget about John McCain looming on the horizon, looking respectable in comparison.

If these two Democrats hammer each other all the way to August, then no matter how bad of a recession George W. Bush’s administration has gotten the country into, McCain will be poised to pounce on an exhausted Obama. 

He’s already tired. The evidence was all over the airwaves last week during the thrashing he took at the ABC debate in Philadelphia.

If the Democratic Party wants to avoid a sweaty, sloppy, superfluous summer, they need to encourage Clinton to come back down to earth and “turn on, tune in, drop out,” as Timothy Leary used to say.