THE PA PRIMARY: CNN calls race for Clinton
By Mary Anna Towler on Apr. 22nd, 2008
UPDATED 9:48: Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania is holding, ranging between 6 percent (consistent with polls reported this morning) and 8 percent. This gives her the ability to continue to fight - and to make the case that she can win in the big states and swing states. But it settles 
nothing, and makes it pretty clear that the tension in the Democratic Party will continue. Republican Bill Bennett has been arguing on CNN that Pennsylvania proves that "Clintons win," and that Obama is a big risk, because he's more liberal than John Kerry and Michael Dukakis. Bennett also says that both Clintons know how to find the center of American politics. Obama, he says, also seemed to know that until the last few weeks. CNN commentators are also noting that Obama vastly outspent Clinton, but she won.
It'll likely take a couple of days to sort out the exit polls and the response of superdelegates and other party leaders to today's voting in Pennsylvania. Next up: Indiana, in two weeks.
9:08 p.m.: CNN has called the Pennsylvania Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton. Only 7 percent of the poll results have been reported, but CNN seems comfortable with declaring Clinton the winner. The spread is still less than 10 percent, but this early, it's not possible to tell what the final percentages will be. CNN is saying, however, that Clinton is winning the blue-collar vote and that she will use that to try to convince superdelegates that if Obama couldn't capture blue-collar workers in this state and in Ohio, the Democratic Party risks losing them to John McCain in the November election.
Posted at 8:30 p.m.: The polls in Pennsylvania have been closed for 30 minutes, and major media are saying that the race is too close to call. That's not surprising, and we can't read much into it. In a less tight race, media such as CNN are able to call races based on their exit polls. Having been stung by wrong projections in close races, they're being more cautious now. For the past week, the Clinton-Obama race has been very close. Clinton has led, Obama has crept up, but a reasonable number of voters were undecided. A Philadelphia Inquirer poll earlier this week indicated that people who made up their minds a few weeks ago were trending toward Obama. So were the large number of new registered voters. But polls yesterday indicated that late-deciders would vote for Clinton.
Some media are saying that projections won't come until 10 tonight. More to come.
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Emmanuel Winner on April 23rd, 2008
Hillary won by 8.5%, which was close to Obama's predictions; yet the mainstream media calls this a "decisive victory" of 10%. Considerable voter-registration foul-ups in the area of Philadelphia - Obama's strongest base in PA - typical of other vote-rigging known to occur in New Hampshire New York City and New Mexico. Clinton now boasts she won the popular viote of the primary season, which is a lie, based on the illegitimate, uncontested Michigan primary where she broke her pledge not to participate in. Clinton spent the past week smearing Obama with the help of supporters in the media, such as George Stephanopoulos. She appears now to have engaged the aid of right-wing billionaire supporters like Alex Spanos, Richard Mellon Scaife and Rupert Murdoch and ersatz ally Rush Limbaugh in order to engage in an openly racist smear campign in North Carolina, much like the "Willie Horton" ad used against Mike Dukkakis. While promising to end the war out of one corner of her mouth, she threatens to nuke Iran out of the other. This woman not only does not deserve the nomination, she cannot allowed to be president; if by chance she does get to the White House, we will need to impeach her immediately. The charge will involve Bill's use of the Clinton Foundation and Yucaipa Inc to launder money through Columbia. This is a possible nightmare that would make the Bush years look like a picnic.