The Campaign Rolls On

Hillary Clinton trounced Barack Obama in Pennsylvania today. She won by 10 percentage points, and raised $1 million online in the two hours immediately after declaring victory.  My inaccurate guess beforehand was that Clinton would win by 5 points--enough to keep going for a while, but not enough to stop the Obama juggernaut. 

It's anyone's ballgame, once again. Obama's bid to shift the focus to John McCain tonight will fail, because the Democratic campaign is far from over.

As the campaign rolls on, McCain will be the prime beneficiary of the foul mood. The 6 week  long Pennsylvania slog brought out the nastiness in both Clinton and Obama--especially Clinton, who peddled images of Osama bin Laden right before the Pennsylvania primary to show that she would be tougher on national security than Obama. 

In tonight's concession speech, Obama hopefully spoke about moving beyond the "silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics."  But he never should have gone to this level in the first place, and I don't see a way out of the muck now. I don't mean to be harsh; the turn of events only goes to show that interminable campaigns wear away at anyone's sense of civility.

On a practical level, therefore, Democrats have every reason to be concerned about how things are shaping up in what should be a landslide Democratic year. But there is nothing intrinsically wrong with an epic campaign like this one.  Both Clinton and Obama are brilliant; both care about everyday Americans; and both would be good Presidents.  If our politics were less shallow, their jousting would be invigorating and informative. As it is, though, their skirmishes are only helping to ensure four more years of a Republican White House.

Comments

[Bill Cash]

All this business is making me more and more excited about pulling the lever for McCain in the fall. I've been a (mostly) undecided voter for the Democratic primary and the general election for about a year, but my man on the GOP side was McCain and he pulled it out.

Is 10% a trouncing? According to the news media we are now to play the Expectation Game of "Spinsylvania" (MSNBC). (What, does the Expectation Game come in a box, ages 6+ up, for 2-4 players? If so, I think its closest model is "Sorry!", the game of starting over repeatedly.)

[Helen]

I disagree with the assumption that the dragged out primary is benefiting McCain. Most people don't make voting decisions six months before the election date. Those who do are die-hard party supporters anyway, like me, who will always vote Democratic except in extraordinary situations. So for the people you're worried about--people who would've voted for a Democrat but who will now consider voting for McCain because of the nasty images they're watching on TV--there are six months before the election. By the time they make the decision that counts, all this primary nastiness would've been long gone from their minds. By that time, there would be nastiness for both McCain and Clinton/Obama on TV. The level-playing field will be here soon enough.