What Hillary Clinton's Impressive Pennsylvania Win Means

Hillary Clinton won an impressive victory over Barack Obama last night, winning by an 55%-45% margin. Her victory was impressive for a number of reasons:

1. She won despite the clear bias of most in the mainstream media in favor of Obama. Over the weekend, several of the Cable News Channels (CNN, MSNBC) constantly trumpeted how close the race had become in Pennsylvania. They seemed to be doing all the could to create momentum for Obama in Pennsylvania.

2. She won despite being outspent in the state by Obama by a 3 to 1 margin. He spent 11 million dollars in the state and still lost by 10 points!

3. She won despite the perception that Obama is the inevitable nominee. That is usually the kiss of death. In most nomination battles, once a candidate takes on an air of inevitability - as Obama certainly has - that candidate is almost always able to go on to a decisive victory and wrap things up. Obama has been unable to do that in Ohio, Texas, and now Pennsylvania.

What this says is that even Democratic voters are not sold on or sure of Barack Obama. Here are some frightening numbers from the Pennsylvania Exit Poll for Democrats with the prospects of Barack Obama as their nominee:

1. Obama lost the White Male vote 56%-44%, and the White Female vote 66%-34%. Had he not had a near lock on the Black vote by winning 90% of it, he would have been completely trounced in Pennsylvania. That is significant because the Black vote is a disproportionately high percentage of the vote in the Democratic Party, but will not be in the General Election. Obama's inability to win large numbers of White voters in large states augers disaster for the Dems with him as the nominee.

2. Obama lost the Age 65 & over vote to Clinton by a 63%-37% margin. McCain has done extremely well among Seniors, and Obama will have a hard time with him among this large voting block. Florida and Pennsylvania have the two oldest populations in the USA, and McCain will likely do very well in those two states as a result. For all their talk of Obama energizing young people, it must be remembered that Senior Citizens are far more likely to actually turn out and vote.

3. If Obama is the Democratic candidate, a full 25% of those Democrats polled in Pennsylvania says they would either vote for John McCain (15%) or not vote at all (10%).

For a candidate who is supposedly creating wild enthusiasm and who is "the one we have been waiting for," he did not do very well in the major battleground state of Pennsylvania. I'm sure there are a lot of nervous Democrats realizing the reality of their situation this morning.