Can Clinton Pull Off A Big Pennsylvania Win?
From Fox News ~ In Pennsylvania, it’s not just about winning for Hillary Clinton. It’s about winning big.
Clinton trails Barack Obama in delegates and is struggling to convince uncommitted superdelegates that her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is still alive and kicking. To that end, her campaign is looking for a commanding victory Tuesday to give her momentum going into the Indiana and North Carolina primaries two weeks later.
“A double-digit victory in Pennsylvania would be huge,” Clinton supporter and former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Hoeffel told FOX News. “That double-digit victory is within reach and it would be a tremendous turnaround.”
With three days to go until the Pennsylvania primary, both candidates stormed through the Keystone State on Saturday, taking jabs at each other’s character. Obama told voters Clinton is a “slash and burn” Washington game-player. Clinton suggested Obama is all talk, no substance.
Polls show Clinton consistently leading in Pennsylvania, but since late March, Obama has narrowed that margin to about 5 or 6 percentage points.
Obama aides tell FOX News the goal is to keep Clinton’s lead to single digits. This would dull Clinton’s argument that she consistently wins big in large industrial states that are key in a general election. Clinton won by 10 points in Ohio and New Jersey and by 17 in her home state of New York.
In a sweep across the southeastern part of the state, Obama clambered aboard a shiny, royal blue train car Saturday morning in Philadelphia after speaking to about 35,000 supporters the night before — the largest crowd of his campaign.
Clinton, meanwhile, spoke under a baking sun outside West Chester’s 175-year-old fire house, striking a somber note about problems at home and abroad as she described the stakes for voters Tuesday.
“I don’t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up,” she said. “I want everyone thinking.”
The primary Tuesday follows a month-long hiatus in voting, a gap the candidates filled in large measure by sullying each other.
Clinton has been trying to cast Obama as a flimsy candidate, even poking fun at him for complaining about the rough treatment he got at a debate Wednesday in Philadelphia. On Saturday she said the “incredible pressures of a political campaign” are a good way to test which candidate can handle the pressure of the presidency.
Clinton worked hard over the past week, in interviews and in a television ad, to get electoral mileage out of Obama’s controversial claim to a group of California donors that small-town voters “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness over lost jobs.
But only Tuesday will tell how well that worked. Pennsylvania polls have stayed pretty much steady for the past week while national polls have fluctuated wildly.
Clinton trails Barack Obama in delegates and is struggling to convince uncommitted superdelegates that her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is still alive and kicking. To that end, her campaign is looking for a commanding victory Tuesday to give her momentum going into the Indiana and North Carolina primaries two weeks later.
“A double-digit victory in Pennsylvania would be huge,” Clinton supporter and former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Hoeffel told FOX News. “That double-digit victory is within reach and it would be a tremendous turnaround.”
With three days to go until the Pennsylvania primary, both candidates stormed through the Keystone State on Saturday, taking jabs at each other’s character. Obama told voters Clinton is a “slash and burn” Washington game-player. Clinton suggested Obama is all talk, no substance.
Polls show Clinton consistently leading in Pennsylvania, but since late March, Obama has narrowed that margin to about 5 or 6 percentage points.
Obama aides tell FOX News the goal is to keep Clinton’s lead to single digits. This would dull Clinton’s argument that she consistently wins big in large industrial states that are key in a general election. Clinton won by 10 points in Ohio and New Jersey and by 17 in her home state of New York.
In a sweep across the southeastern part of the state, Obama clambered aboard a shiny, royal blue train car Saturday morning in Philadelphia after speaking to about 35,000 supporters the night before — the largest crowd of his campaign.
Clinton, meanwhile, spoke under a baking sun outside West Chester’s 175-year-old fire house, striking a somber note about problems at home and abroad as she described the stakes for voters Tuesday.
“I don’t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up,” she said. “I want everyone thinking.”
The primary Tuesday follows a month-long hiatus in voting, a gap the candidates filled in large measure by sullying each other.
Clinton has been trying to cast Obama as a flimsy candidate, even poking fun at him for complaining about the rough treatment he got at a debate Wednesday in Philadelphia. On Saturday she said the “incredible pressures of a political campaign” are a good way to test which candidate can handle the pressure of the presidency.
Clinton worked hard over the past week, in interviews and in a television ad, to get electoral mileage out of Obama’s controversial claim to a group of California donors that small-town voters “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness over lost jobs.
But only Tuesday will tell how well that worked. Pennsylvania polls have stayed pretty much steady for the past week while national polls have fluctuated wildly.
Labels: 2008 Presidential Race
posted by Mike McCarville @ 10:54 AM
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