It's The End of PA As We Know It - And I Feel Fine

[NeedleCast]

As an Obama supporter, I was glad we kept it reasonably close. It'll be interesting to see what the fallout will be. The talking heads should at least have some new meat to gnaw on for the next few days.

Bottom line though, tonight changed nothing.

You can really stop reading at the line above this one, because I'm just going to babble on about why for a few paragraphs. First, PA was a state tailor made for a Hillary victory. Mostly white, lots of blue-color working class who for whatever reason continue to support the Clinton family despite the fact that NAFTA has had plenty to do with taking away their ability to make a living at their professions. I'm not going to play the fuzzy math game and try to spin this is an Obama victory. It's not. Hillary won. She won by 8-10% in a state that she was leading by 20% in three weeks ago. She won by 8-10% in a state that, other than maybe New York and Ohio, couldn't have been tailored more to her. She gains, lets be generous and say 16 delegates. Obama still leads by 125(ish). Still leads the popular vote.

I admit I didn't have the giddy anticipation a lot of us did for PA because the pledged delegate count is already over. Has been since the results of TX/OH came in. Really since mini-super-Tuesday with Maryland, Virginia and DC came in, although Hillary still had an outside shot at pulling close. But looking at what we have left - NC, WV, IN, SD, Montana (don't know your two letter code, sorry), OR and KY - where does Clinton come up with the pledge delegates needed to catch up or even draw within 100? NC, OR, SD, Montana are going to Obama. Believe it. Hillary will win WV easily and probably take Indiana (although see below). I think she'll probably take KY too. Here's the kicker though, unless she sweeps all eight of them by somewhere around 70% now, she doesn't catch up. Winning them all by 60% doesn't pull her within 50 pledge delegates.

They big factor in PA is that it's Pyhrric victory for Hillary. She won the battle, but it bled her dry. From what I saw on MSNBC before I turned it off to go play Dungeons and Dragons (our party killed a zombie crocodile...rockstar) Hillary's debt is now higher than her cash on hand. Meanwhile, it appears Obama has something like 40 million cash on hand. How is Hillary going to make a new 3:00 AM ad for Indiana? What money will she buy TV time with? I'm sure the victory in PA will garner her a few million in extra money from supporters who are mostly tapped. Obama continues to show no sign of having trouble raising money, and every Hillary win seems to get his supporters ratchet up another notch in what they contribute.

1. Hillary has no money
2. Without unheard of margins of victory in ALL of the remaining eight states, Hillary can not significantly change the delegate count.
3. Hillary must now rely on the uncommitted supers to line up almost unanimously behind her, which they show no sign of doing.
4. Hillary's only other hope is that the she can cut a "back room" deal at the DNC and if Obama is leading in pledge delegates and popular vote this would be suicidal for the Democratic party.

Anywho, I had a fun night of fantasy gaming and mostly ignored PA except for an hour around 8:00 PM. It changed nothing.

[ROakes1019]

1. Hillary's gain

Daily Kos gives Clinton 40 delegates and Obama 37. That's a pickup of 3 delegates for her, hardly makes a dent in the delegate count.