Why can't Barack
Obama close the deal?
It's a question
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates raised through
the last days of the caustic Pennsylvania primary contest.
And unfortunately for Obama -- who lost to the former
first lady by a 10-point margin Tuesday night -- it's
a question that bears repeating.
The loss, despite
a massive cash infusion and robust campaign presence in
the state, underscores the persistent problems he's had
winning over many of the voters who form the
traditional Democratic Party base.
While the
Illinois senator remains overwhelmingly popular among
blacks, affluent voters and young people, other groups
key to building the Democratic coalition remain
elusive.
Clinton bested
him among white, blue-collar voters by a margin of 69% to
30% in Pennsylvania, similar to her showing in Ohio last
month. She also won older voters, women, and whites
and improved her margins among white, non-Catholic
men.
To be sure, Obama
has performed well among those groups in a handful of
primaries, including Wisconsin and Virginia, both likely
general election swing states.
Obama surely will
emerge with sufficient delegates to maintain his
overall lead, and Clinton's win in Pennsylvania will not do
much to close the popular vote gap as she tries to eat
into his margin. But the sense of momentum that
propelled him to crushing margins across 11 contests
beginning in February has slowed, raising concerns among
many party activists that he will be left bruised and
limping by the time the primaries end in June.
The Obama
campaign points to the many advantages Clinton enjoyed in
Pennsylvania: Its large population of working-class voters
and seniors played to her strengths, and her family
enjoys deep roots in Scranton, in the northeastern
part of the state -- a fact the New York senator never
failed to bring up on the campaign trail.
Former president
Clinton, who remains a popular figure here, campaigned
extensively for his wife. And she had the support of Ed
Rendell, the state's popular governor and a savvy
political operative in his own right.
But Obama had
considerable strengths of his own -- money first and
foremost. He spent $11.2 million on television ads to
Clinton's $4.8 million. He spent countless more on
phone banks, mail, and voter targeting.
Surveys among
Pennsylvanians after they left the polls showed they viewed
Obama as more honest and trustworthy than Clinton and that
they favored a candidate who can bring about change --
Obama's core message -- over one who, like Clinton,
has had years of political experience.
The six-week
hiatus after the last major primary in Mississippi were not
particularly kind to either candidate.
Obama was forced
to defend his association with his pastor of 20 years,
Jeremiah Wright, after videos surfaced showing Wright
delivering sermons from the pulpit in which he cursed
the United States as racist and denounced the
government for allegedly supporting terrorism and spreading
HIV. Obama also was confronted with his own comments at a
fund-raiser in San Francisco, where he described
small-town voters as bitterly clinging to guns and
religion.
In the same
period, Clinton received withering criticism for her
discredited tale of coming under sniper fire at an arrival
ceremony in Bosnia as first lady in 1996. She stuck to
the falsehood until television footage of the peaceful
arrival surfaced, forcing her to acknowledge that she
''misspoke.''
Clinton also goes
into the final nine contests at a significant cash
disadvantage, although she said Wednesday morning in a round
of television interviews that her campaign had raised
$3 million online since winning Pennsylvania. She also
must fight the perception that she is damaging Obama's
chances in the general election by fighting on even
with little chance of overcoming his lead in delegates and
the popular vote.
The candidates
face their next major test May 6, with primaries in
Indiana and North Carolina.
Phil Trounstine,
director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at
California's San Jose State University, said that Obama's
problems with key Democratic demographic groups are
temporary and say nothing about how he would fare with
those voters in a general election.
''The notion that
Obama cannot attract core constituencies is only being
tested in matches against Hillary Clinton. That's not an
argument that he can't win them against John McCain,''
Trounstine said. ''If Barack Obama were the nominee,
you would expect Ed Rendell and [Philadelphia mayor]
Michael Nutter would work like crazy to deliver
Pennsylvania. The same thing would happen in
California and Texas, which Clinton also won.''
After the
drubbing he took in Pennsylvania, Obama needs to hope the
so-called superdelegates likely charged with settling the
contest will find that argument persuasive. Otherwise,
what has been an epic Democratic nominating contest
may be lurching toward virtual stalemate. (Beth Fouhy,
AP)