WASHINGTON, 24 April 2008 — Basking in her 10-point victory and exuding fresh confidence after her double-digit Pennsylvania primary win on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton turned her attention Wednesday to the May 6 contests in Indiana and North Carolina and pressed her case that she can still win the Democratic presidential nomination despite the odds against her.
In a round of Tuesday television interviews, Clinton argued that her feisty act of political survival, defeating Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, confirms her contention that she would be the stronger challenger against Republican John McCain because she has shown she can win in big, swing states.
But even her victory celebration revealed weaknesses, as she all but pleaded for financial contributions for her cash-starved campaign.
Prior to Tuesday's vote, the Clinton campaign said it had $9 million on hand but $10 million in debts. Barack Obama's rival campaign, meanwhile, has $41 million dollars ready to spend.
But Clinton, who won 55 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania to Obama's 45 percent, may have climbed out of the red with a surge of post-election donations. As of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Clinton campaign claimed it had raised nearly $2.5 million since the state was called for the New York senator. Eighty percent of that money came from new donors to the campaign, it said, calling it their "best night ever."
It may have been their best night, but many are calling her method of getting there her worst. Tuesday’s New York Times lead editorial (the reader will remember that Clinton is a senator from New York) was surprising in that, rather than congratulating Clinton, it scolded her.
“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,” noted the NYTimes. “It is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Sen. 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.”
Added the Los Angeles Times: "Pennsylvania voters Tuesday gave Hillary Rodham Clinton every reason to continue her campaign for president. But they did not present any definitive new evidence that would compel Democratic Party elders to step in and anoint Clinton as their White House nominee, particularly when Barack Obama continues to lead in the overall delegate count and in the popular vote."
Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania has only accentuated the quandary that Obama faces: Stay negative and he risks undermining the premise of his candidacy. Stay aloof and he underscores Clinton’s argument that he will not be able to beat a ‘Republican attack machine’ sure to greet him this summer.
And, in a campaign where demographics seem to be a decider, one of the most striking factors is the segregation of voters by age. In state after state, older voters have formed a core constituency for Clinton, who is 60, while younger voters have united around Obama, who is 46.
Political observers say age has been one of the most consistent indicators of how someone might vote — more than sex, more than income, more than education. Only race is a stronger predictor of voting than age, and then only if a voter is black, not if he or she is white.
