One of the fundamentals of writing fiction is that each scene needs to further the plot. Adding some sort of incident for the characters that's ultimately meaningless serves only to slow things down for the reader. The Pennsylvania Democrat primary of 2008 will end up only being one of those incidental items that will be thrown out by any professional editor.
There's kind of a psychological barrier over the 10-percentage point margin of victory by Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the long-awaited vote. This being a primary race that's being decided almost purely on demographics, it was clear going in that Clinton would win the Keystone State in a significant way and she did. You gotta figure that 10 points is just about right.
If, say, Obama had closed the margin to 5 in last night's voting. Then you've got a situation where no matter what's gone wrong with the Illinois senator the past two months, he's still campaigning well and there's still a lot of Democrats who don't like Hillary. With leads among both delegates and the popular vote, it would become even more apparent that Clinton was not going to win the party's presidential nomination. Imagine if Obama had won in an upset, with the public completely turned off by Team Clinton's tactics. The campaign would be over, and her speech following the results would have been darned interesting to hear.
Now let's turn the argument on its head. Say Clinton won by 12-15 points. That in today's political climate is something of a rout. You'd be hearing "the Comeback Kid" moniker being bandied about again, and added to that a sobering realization that Obama was truly damaged by the political setbacks of the past two months. Maybe the calls would be for Obama to leave the stage.
Neither of those two circumstances played out. As it happened, the New York senator won by about as much as she was expected. They now move on to Indiana and North Carolina. The first is expected to be close and the latter is shown by polling to be a large Obama win.
For all her effort, Clinton gained just 15 more pledged delegates from Pennsylvania than her rival. Obama still leads in delegates by a large margin, is holding his own in the super-delegates and holds a slim edge in the popular vote tally. Clinton has regained some momentum and has displayed an ability to win big states.
We're no further along in our story than we were at the beginning of the week.
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An analysis published by the Associated Press today suggests five reasons why Obama can't put Clinton away. All five are legit: race, elitism, troubling relationships, his inexperience and her mettle.
Left unsaid is the sixth which is what Obama's struggles of the past two months have told us: the smooth veneer of hope and change has been removed and replaced by your typical politician. He's no longer being judged -- as much -- by his oratory. He's being scrutinized for his beliefs, his record and his past relationships. The concept of Obama would have the nomination wrapped up by now. The real thing is struggling.
