CNN & MSNBC - PA Dem primary too close to call...

[BenBurch]

Its going to be a long night.

[David Wong]

Right now there are 0 precincts reporting, and they show Obama and Clinton tied at 0%. Based on that result I am going to project that Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary.

[BenBurch]

Right now there are 0 precincts reporting, and they show Obama and Clinton tied at 0%. Based on that result I am going to project that Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary.

That was EXIT POLLING, silly.

Sheesh.

[Brainster]

Looks to me like Obama's not showing as strong as expected in Philly. With 22% of the precincts reporting, he's only up 8 percentage points. Outside of Philly, my current count has Hillary with 29,000 votes to Obama's 12,000.

[Brainster]

CNN calls it for Hillary.

[TriskettheKid]

Watching the numbers come in, it's looking like she's only going to win by 6%.

[BenBurch]

6% is VERY bad news for Hillary. About half of what the polls indicated only days ago.

[TriskettheKid]

Well, I could end up being very wrong here, but I'm suspecting it's going to be around 6%.

Watching the percentages and numbers on CNN, she is rarely ahead by 10%, and when the numbers do get to her being 10% ahead, more numbers come in and drop her to about 8%, and then more come in and drops her to 6%.

It seems, and again, it could turn out wrong in the end, that the steadiest numbers appear to be Hillary winning PA 53%-47%. That's very bad news for her.

[Brainster]

Watching the numbers come in, it's looking like she's only going to win by 6%.

The Philly numbers are coming in early, which skews things a bit. More than half the votes counted so far are from Philadelphia County, and that county only had about 1/9 of all the voters in Pennsylvania in 2004.

I'll stick with my original prediction, that Hillary wins by 10%.

[Cello Man]

Dammit, Pennsylvania.

You probably could have finished this tonight. But no, it's gotta go all the way to the damn convention at this point.

[TriskettheKid]

Dammit, Pennsylvania.

You probably could have finished this tonight. But no, it's gotta go all the way to the damn convention at this point.

Well, I did my part and sent in my absentee ballot weeks ago.

[Cello Man]

Well, thanks for your vote, then. Just be sure to get your family and friends to vote in the general, too.

[David Wong]

Yep, no surprises here. She's up by 8 right now.

Same as it polled, same as everybody predicted. Not the surprising blowout she needed, she'll drop after North Carolina.

[Dragoonster]

I'll stick with my original prediction, that Hillary wins by 10%.

Sounds about right. Maybe even 12%.

But, even if it is/was 6%, very bad news so far means nothing to Hillary's camp. She's had really bad news for most of the past three months. Obama actually winning Texas was insanely bad news. It doesn't matter to them, they're determined to try to force a brokered outcome. I mean--Obama getting 2024 would certainly be very bad news, but I doubt even that would cause her to fold before the convention without some DNC pressure!!

As for Obama, I think he's being too meek and needs to start vocally criticizing her hanging on. He's got a great case for it ending right now and if he wants to be Prez he has to be forceful in matters like this. If he doesn't force the issue himself he may die by a thousand cuts by the time the convention rolls around.

If McCain were a pushover I wouldn't mind that, but he isn't and a sooner resolution is far preferable. Currently that would favor Obama as the candidate. (I wouldn't mind McCain winning either this time, but I'm miffed in general at the democrats turning gold [well, maybe copper lol] into crap every single election.)

[Loss Leader]

Anything less than a 10% win for Clinton should end her campaign. After 6 weeks of campaigning, she lost ground. The superdelagates want a winner.


If McCain were a pushover I wouldn't mind that, but he isn't and a sooner resolution is far preferable. Currently


I don't agree. Right now the news is Democrats, Democrats, Democrats. McCain had to go to the Middle East to get any press.

Equal time rules give McCain 33% of the airwaves right now. A Democratic nominee will push that up to 50%. I prefer a fight all the way to the Convention. I want people tuned in to the rollcall vote, on the edge of their seats like it was the 60s again. I want them to care about the nominee.

I could be wrong. I'm not, but I could be.

[T.A.M.]

looks like it will be 8-10%...

just enough to drag it out...no doubt.

TAM:)

[Dragoonster]

I don't agree. Right now the news is Democrats, Democrats, Democrats. McCain had to go to the Middle East to get any press.

Equal time rules give McCain 33% of the airwaves right now. A Democratic nominee will push that up to 50%. I prefer a fight all the way to the Convention. I want people tuned in to the rollcall vote, on the edge of their seats like it was the 60s again. I want them to care about the nominee.

I could be wrong. I'm not, but I could be.

A month ago I agreed with this take, but Hillary is making this into a three-person race. She's essentially becoming this year's Nader, in radicalizing her supporters into despising or completely discounting Obama as a serious candidate. She even explicitly or implicitly stated that only she and McCain had the requisite experience to be prez. The democrats can afford no split votes from their own party. And they certainly shouldn't be using thier own money at this point to do the GOP's work for them.

McCain is building his war chest, the dems are spending theirs. He's building consent and support in the GOP, the Dems are dividing it between themselves. He's sitting back, Hillary and Obama may be leaking/pushing issues such as Rev. Wright and Sniper Attack that is seriously damaging them come November.

[T.A.M.]

Hillary and her campaign are behaving worse then Nader, as she is basically going to bat for John McCain, fighting the fight he doesn't have to.

TAM:)

[Puppycow]

Looks 9%ish. A single-digit number. Since a lot of people see 10% as a magic threshold, I would call this a result that the Obama camp can live with if not be fairly happy with. I had been thinkiing 10-12 range myself.

[Brainster]

Current margin is 10.3% The problem for Obama is that the areas where he's done well are almost all counted. I'm guessing 11% for the final margin now, and it might be closer to 12%. Not a blowout, but definitely enough of a win to sow some more doubt in the superdelegates' minds.

[David Wong]

Still, it almost eliminates her chance to overtake the popular vote margin. Obama is up by, what, 600,000 or so? This win will shave 210,000 or so votes off that?

It basically eliminates her ability to catch up in that category, unless you count Michigan, which I assume no one involved in the process is silly enough to do.

[Puppycow]

OK, so it looks like it might be 10 or 11 after all. Looks just like Ohio (http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#OH) (except voters in PA seem to skew older for some reason)

[David Wong]

Current margin is 10.3% The problem for Obama is that the areas where he's done well are almost all counted. I'm guessing 11% for the final margin now, and it might be closer to 12%. Not a blowout, but definitely enough of a win to sow some more doubt in the superdelegates' minds.


It doesn't seem like there's enough votes left on the table for that to happen; we're at 90% reporting and the margin is still 10.2%.

1,109,878 to 903,848.

To bump that up to 12 you'd need a pretty skewed result in these last 200,000 votes.

Though I am terrible at math.

[David Wong]

95% reporting, the margin is down to 9.7%.

Oh man, I seriously do not want to go through a week with the two sides debating over whether or not she had a "double digit" lead, which seems to be the psychological barrier here.

[Brainster]

Yeah, looks like a little under 10%. Just enough to keep her alive. Obama basically got crushed everywhere but Philly, where he had a much higher margin than early results showed.

[kallsop]

Looks 9%ish. A single-digit number. Since a lot of people see 10% as a magic threshold, I would call this a result that the Obama camp can live with if not be fairly happy with.


PA is going to be in play in November, considering Obama called the residents bitter losers and their choice, Hillary, is on a death spiral. Kerry won PA in 2004 by 51% to 49%.

I don't see much happiness for Obama in PA.

[BenBurch]

Alive in her mind only...

[corplinx]

Hillary and her campaign are behaving worse then Nader, as she is basically going to bat for John McCain, fighting the fight he doesn't have to.

TAM:)

Before Iowa when she was the presumed candidate she could do no wrong. Now she's the fat, racist, spoiler, liar, scumbag.

With friends like those, who needs swift boaters.

[TriskettheKid]

Just a quick update:

Hillary did not win by 10%.

She won by 8.6%, according to the results found here:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/

[BPSCG]

Dammit, Pennsylvania.

You probably could have finished this tonight. But no, it's gotta go all the way to the damn convention at this point.:popcorn1

Hooray for democracy!

[IchabodPlain]

Just a quick update:

Hillary did not win by 10%.

She won by 8.6%, according to the results found here:
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/

9.2% (http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/) if we are going to play that game.:p

[David Wong]

Doesn't matter, when everybody went to press last night it was 10 points, the headlines all said 10 points, she'll be trumpeting 10 points in every appearance from here on out.

Same as when she "won" Texas and came away with fewer delegates. To this day it's, "After her comeback victories in Texas and Ohio..."

Double digit win it is. And it doesn't matter; she picks up 16 delegates on Obama and if he wins North Carolina the way it's polling (by 15) he'll pick up 17 delegates on her. The popular vote lead (still half a million votes) is now insurmountable, since last night was her last chance to take a real bite out of it.

[T.A.M.]

PA is going to be in play in November, considering Obama called the residents bitter losers and their choice, Hillary, is on a death spiral. Kerry won PA in 2004 by 51% to 49%.

I don't see much happiness for Obama in PA.

Are you in the business of lying or putting words in people's mouths, or did you mistakenly put your opinion of what Obama might have meant, in as if it were his own words?


Before Iowa when she was the presumed candidate she could do no wrong. Now she's the fat, racist, spoiler, liar, scumbag.

With friends like those, who needs swift boaters.

I never liked her from day one, so stop putting those words in my mouth....for starters.

Secondly, I have not called her fat, a racist, or a scumbag.

The other two words there I would say are accurate.

TAM:)

[dudalb]

All the major news sources were calling it after just a couple of hours,so it was not such a long night after all.