Hillary Clinton, as quoted in the NY Times: “I won the states that we have to win -- Ohio, now Pennsylvania,” Mrs. Clinton said on CNN about her successes over Senator Barack Obama, in one of her six appearances on morning news shows. “It’s very hard to imagine a Democrat getting to the White House without winning those states.”
Conversely, we saw a case of a Democrat winning Pennsylvania, John Kerry, who still went on to (narrowly) lose the White House. But Clinton is suggesting that Obama can't win Pennsylvania or Ohio -- states that are critically needed victories. The Times piece disagrees:
Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia.
According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones -- just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries.
And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republican in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women.
Here, again, I think it is useful to look at the Bush-Kerry Pennsylvania matchup in 2004. Kerry won 12 counties to Bush's 56, although arguably what pushed him over the line was his huge margin over Bush in Philadelphia county. There, Kerry picked up 542,205 votes to Bush's 130,099 -- a difference of 412,106 -- which was more than Kerry's margin over Bush in every other county he won combined.
Last Tuesday, Obama won Philadelphia county 280,423 to Clinton's 149,719 -- together they pulled in 430,142 primary votes. Does anyone really believe that McCain will be able to do better than Bush in PA -- that is, win so decisively in every county in PA other than Philly -- and beat Barack Obama? I'm not saying it won't be close, but let's be clear about what Clinton is arguing: she will do as good as -- if not better than -- Kerry in 2004. And she's arguing that Obama won't. I find that difficult to believe.
--Mori Dinauer
