Clinton needs big win today
Pa. vote can show viability in Nov.
BLUE BELL, Pa. - Hillary Clinton faces the toughest test yet of her struggle to capture the Democratic nomination in today's Pennsylvania primary: Not only must she score an expected win, she must beat Barack Obama by a large enough margin to convince party leaders that she would be the stronger nominee in the fall.
With its high numbers of older, female, and working-class voters among the 4 million registered Democrats, the Keystone State is tailor-made for Clinton, who focused yesterday on turning out her political base. But trailing Obama by about 140 delegates - and with Obama adding superdelegate endorsements nearly every day - Clinton needs to prove to the remaining superdelegates that she can deliver the big industrial states that a Democrat needs to win in November, and reassure campaign donors that she can still win the nomination.
Pennsylvania, the first contest in six weeks and the biggest prize left with 158 pledged delegates, presents Clinton with her best opportunity.
Both campaigns sought to lower expectations yesterday, with the Clinton camp maintaining that even a close win would show that Clinton would be the stronger nominee, able to challenge presumptive GOP nominee John McCain in the large states she has captured in the primaries.
Obama declared that Clinton would probably win, but he is hoping that a big turnout of new voters - including young people and African-Americans - will limit her margin of victory and raise more questions about her continued viability. With the party's proportional allocation of delegates, a narrow loss would probably result in Clinton only marginally cutting into Obama's delegate lead.
"I'm predicting it's going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect," Obama told Pittsburgh radio station KDKA yesterday morning.
But the Illinois senator has failed to land the knockout blow three times before: Clinton won the New Hampshire primary in January; she effectively fought to a draw on Super Tuesday in February; and she won in Ohio on March 4 to revive her candidacy.
In the final push yesterday in Pennsylvania, Obama and Clinton wooed students, economically struggling workers, and even wrestlers in a frenzied day of rallies, intimate chats, and television appearances. Both brought their popular spouses along with them as they hit campaign events from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and the smaller towns in between. Clinton portrayed herself as the tougher general election candidate, and Obama promised change in Washington that would end the Iraq war and help families pay for healthcare and higher education.
Underscoring her ties to the state, Clinton recalled her childhood in Scranton, where she said she learned "the kind of common-sense values that matter here in Pennsylvania and across America." Obama, making an appeal to middle-class voters at a small discussion group at Montgomery County Community College, won applause when he promised to reexamine every executive order President Bush has issued to make sure Americans' constitutional rights had not been compromised.
Both contenders also deluged the airwaves, running last-minute ads and making their pitches on television shows ranging from "Larry King Live" to
The campaigning culminated six weeks of rhetorical battles - including questions about whether Clinton exaggerated the danger she faced when she visited Bosnia in 1996, or whether Obama insulted small-town Pennsylvanians when he said some of them are "bitter" over their economic circumstances and "cling to guns or religion."
Analysts say, however, that the Pennsylvania results will hinge more on demographics.
"It's really less about the policy differences and it's more about the makeup of the [Pennsylvania] Democratic Party. It all depends on turnout, who gets out the vote," said David Paleologos, who conducted a Suffolk University poll released yesterday showing Clinton ahead 52 percent to 42 percent. (Other recent polls give Clinton a single-digit lead.)
Larry Ceisler, a Democratic consultant in Pennsylvania not affiliated with either presidential campaign, said, "It's her election to lose. She has had every advantage in the state."
But unless Clinton can win convincingly enough to sow doubts about Obama in the minds of the superdelegates, her chances of becoming the Democratic nominee are slim at best, he said.
A victory by 10 percentage points or more over Obama would give Clinton "a strong case to make to the superdelegates of the party that she should be the nominee," Ceisler said, adding that a win by fewer than 6 percentage points would mean "she's going to seriously have to consider whether she goes on."
Anything in between those scenarios might have Clinton hanging on for the next primaries May 6 in North Carolina and Indiana, he said.
She would probably face increasing pressure to withdraw from many party officials who worry that the protracted race is damaging the party and allowing McCain to galvanize the Republican base without being damaged by the sort of nasty sniping that has characterized the last week of the primary here.
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean has said he wants the superdelegates to decide soon after the final primaries on June 3 to avoid a brokered convention that could weaken the eventual nominee.
The Suffolk University survey provided more evidence of the bitterness of the nomination fight: 20 percent of the likely Democratic voters said they would vote for McCain in November if their preferred candidate does not get the nomination, another 20 percent said they were undecided about what they would do in the fall, and 4 percent said they would defect to independent Ralph Nader.
But Clinton - despite a dire financial situation that could imperil her ability to compete against Obama after Pennsylvania's contest - is battling determinedly ahead, arguing that her experience fighting Republican attacks makes her the stronger Democrat to face McCain.
Her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, dismissed suggestions that the criticisms that Clinton and Obama are lobbing at each other are hurting the party, saying that McCain would make the same attacks no matter what happens in the primary race.
"Once we get through with the primaries," McAuliffe said on CNN, "we will come together as a united Democratic Party."
Scott Helman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
