NEW YORK Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won a much-needed victory in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, staving off elimination and ensuring that the Democrats’ fierce nominating battle would last at least another two weeks.
Clinton was winning 55 percent of the vote to 45 percent for Obama with 99 percent of the vote counted.
There were 158 pledged delegates at stake Tuesday, the biggest single prize left on the campaign calendar. Clinton won at least 66 delegates to the party’s national convention, with 35 still to be awarded. Obama won at least 57. A final count could come later. Overall, Obama leads 1,705.5 to 1,575.5, with 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination.
Her comfortable win sends the race on to North Carolina, where the flush-with-money Obama is favored; and Indiana, where the two are close.
Obama was able to stave off an eyebrow-arching blowout by Clinton even while falling short in his effort to bring the polarizing competition effectively to a close.
“Some counted me out and said to drop out,” the former first lady told Philadelphia supporters who roared their disapproval of that idea and cheered her victory in a state where Obama outspent her 2-to-1. “But the American people don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit, either.”
Obama wasted no time making tracks to Indiana. His plane was in the air when the primary was called in Clinton’s favor, which he discovered upon landing.
Clinton won the votes of blue-collar workers, women and white men in an election where the economy was the dominant concern.
Obama maintains a clear delegate advantage as well as the lead in the popular vote, and there are not many opportunities left for Clinton to turn that around. Moreover, party leaders are growing impatient with the drawn-out struggle and have watched nervously as Republican John McCain, his nomination race long settled, has climbed in opinion polls.
Against those forces, Clinton clings to hope that she can persuade convention superdelegates to swing behind her en masse. She’s touting her record winning most of the big states and hoping superdelegates will see her Pennsylvania victory as validation of her ability to appeal beyond a narrow base in the general campaign.
Obama reported spending more than US$11 million on television in Pennsylvania, more than any place else. That compared with less than US$5 million by Clinton.
“In the last 10 years Barack Obama has taken almost US$2 million from lobbyists and corporations,” said a Clinton ad in the final days. “The head of his New Hampshire campaign is a drug company lobbyist, in Indiana an energy lobbyist, a casino lobbyist in Nevada.”
Obama responded with an ad that accused Clinton of “11th-hour smears paid for by lobbyist money.”
The remaining Democratic contests are primaries in North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon, Kentucky, West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico, and caucuses in Guam.
(SD-Agencies)
