Keystone Confrontation

(Newser) - Republican vice presidential hopeful Tom Ridge is campaigning with John McCain in Pennsylvania today, CNN reports. McCain and ex-Pennsylvania governor Ridge started the day meeting with employees at a GE plant. Asked what he would do on first taking office, McCain replied, “Call Tom Ridge to Washington from whatever vacation he is taking and get him to work." More »

(Newser) - In Pennsylvania, the New Republic 's Dayo Olopade finds an effort to unite working-class union types with the liberal elite that could long outlive Barack Obama's heyday: the search for green-collar jobs. Stelworkers have long viewed environmentalists skeptically, but both groups have a stake in finding a "new industrial policy based on the twin causes of sustainability and job creation." More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton is riding high from her Keystone State win. After lagging in Gallup polls much of this month, she tied Barack Obama in the latest tracking poll at 47%. She also leads John McCain by 3 points, while Obama is even with the GOP nominee at 45%. The two Democratic hopefuls had been roughly tied with McCain since Gallup started polling election preferences last month. More »

(Newser) - The best explanation for Hillary Clinton's big win in Pennsylvania was not race but age, Jonathan Alter argues in Newsweek . A remarkable 40% of the voters in Tuesday’s primary were over 60, and Barack Obama’s 41-59% defeat in the demographic was the killer. Pennsylvania is second only to Florida in average age, and Obama's showing among seniors there was actually markedly improved from his 28-69% thumping in that demo in Ohio. More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton prevailed in Pennsylvania by dragging Barack Obama's bipartisan, hopeful vision through the muck, proving politics is “frequently mean and irrational,” Gail Collins writes in the New York Times . Clinton showed that the playing field is dirty, and that even the junior senator from Illinois would go negative if he was pushed. She also proved that nobody can match her for pure toughness. More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama, once the fresh-faced symbol of a new kind of politics, emerged from the Pennsylvania primary “stale, battered, and embittered,” Joe Klein writes in a stunningly dour piece on the state of the Democratic race in Time . Dragged into a morass of character attacks, some of it  “scurrilous trash,” Obama withered. “There is an immutable pedestrian reality to American politics,” Klein writes. “You have to get the social body language right.” More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s top strategist yesterday downplayed the demographic that sank his candidate in Pennsylvania on NPR, noting that the “white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years.” Added David Axelrod: "This is not new that Democratic candidates don't rely solely on those votes." More »

(Newser) - Until recently, Barack Obama seemed to have quashed concerns about the chances of an African-American winning the White House. But as he inches closer to the nomination, more Democrats are beginning to ask whether white and other non-black voters will elect a black man in November. The question has taken on new urgency since Obama's loss in Pennsylvania, writes the New York Times . More »

(Newser) - How bad is the Pennsylvania result for Team Obama and what does it mean going forward? Three writers think it through: “He can’t finish her off,” says Dan Kennedy in the Guardian . Obama scooped up presumptive-nominee status too soon, and now Americans have “buyer’s remorse”—realizing Clinton is the scrappier fighter. But it’s probably too late to tap the former first lady. More »

(Newser) - The Pennsylvania primary didn't change the basic parameters of the race for the Democratic nomination in any significant way, Andrew Romano writes in Newsweek. But it had a huge effect on the narrative, handing Hillary Clinton Exhibit A for her claim that  Barack Obama can't win over white men. She will taunt him, as she did last night, for failing to knock her out, despite outspending her 3 to 1. Obama will boast, as he did last night, of cutting her Pennsylvania lead, and will hammer her for divisive tactics that are hurting the party. More »

(Newser) - The New York Times today runs a scathing takedown of the candidate they endorsed for the Democratic nomination, asserting that Hillary Clinton’s attack mentality “undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page ... to support her.” The paper's editorial board said the Pennsylvania primary race was “even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate” than those that came before—and the fault lies in the former first lady’s camp. More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton's 10-point win in Pennsylvania leaves the Democratic Party in the same quandary it was in before the primary, writes Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle, but with the pressure ratcheted up. While the race did not much improve Clinton's chances, it did expose Barack Obama's possible weaknesses as a general election candidate. More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton conquered Pennsylvania with the same coalition that drove her to victory in Ohio: white women, blue-collar workers and older voters. And once again, voters who decided in the last days of the primary skewed heavily toward the New York senator, reports Politico. The only surprise in her 55-45% win came among the young—while Barack Obama still won that demographic, the candidates split white voters age 29 and under. More »

(Newser) - Without a knockout blow in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama is going to have to keep jabbing back at Hillary Clinton. But those counterpunches could hurt his campaign, warns Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post. The Obama camp's swing to the negative in the closing days of the Pennsylvania campaign shows he can take on John McCain—but at the same time undercuts his message of fresh hope and an end to old-style politics, writes Weisman. More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton savored her win in the Pennsylvania primary tonight, pitching herself in her victory speech as the toughest Democratic contender for the job. She dismissed calls for her to drop out of the race, adding, "The American people don't quit and they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either."  She pledged to stand up for ordinary citizens, for people who "never waver in the face of adversity, who stand for what they believe and never stop believing in America." More »

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton gave her campaign a jolt of life tonight with a decisive win in the Pennsylvania primary, NBC News reports. With 99% of results in, Clinton led 55% to 45%, a margin of victory that gives her campaign enough credibility to remain in the race. "The tide is turning," she told supporters in a victory speech.