By: Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Black political analysts said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton’s victory in the Democratic Pennsylvania primary, while significant for the moment, will still ultimately leave her short of the pledged delegates she needs to secure the Democratic nomination in August.
"Senator Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania in tonight's Democratic primary has provided her with much needed momentum and a somewhat plausible reason to stay in the race," Michelle Bernard, a black conservative, president of the Independent Women’s Voice and a political analyst for MSNBS, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday.
"Despite her victory in Pennsylvania, it is a mathmatical certainty that Senator Clinton cannot win enough pledged delegates in the reamining primaries to win the Democratic nomination," Bernard said.
"Moving forward, the question for the superdelegates is whether they lend their support to the candidate who has won the vast majority of states and pledged delegates or whether they support the candidate who, after 11 straight losses, won large states like Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, but who is irrefutably behind in pledged delegates," she said.
Clinton gained a victory Tuesday over a better-funded Obama, staving off elimination in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The former first lady was winning 55 percent of the vote to 45 percent for her rival with 99 percent of the vote counted, and she hoped for significant inroads into Obama's overall lead in the competition for delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
"It's a long road to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and it runs right through the heart of Pennsylvania," she told supporters in Philadelphia. "I'm in this race to fight for you ... You know you can count on me to stand up strong for you every single day in the White House."
According to CNN, Obama racked up margins of more than 90 percent among Pennsylvania's black voters, who are heavily concentrated around Philadelphia. African-Americans made up about 14 percent of Tuesday's vote, and whites made up about 80 percent -- and voted 60-40 for Clinton.
"It seems Senator Clinton has got some wind to her back," Craig Kirby, a Democratic strategist, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "The next few weeks will bring out the best for both the Democratic party and the nation. I guess folks will really have the opportunity to get to know the superdelegates."
Clinton scored her victory by winning the votes of blue-collar workers, women and white men in an election where the economy was the dominant concern. He was favored by blacks, the affluent and voters who recently switched to the Democratic Party, a group that comprised about one in ten Pennsylvania voters, according to the surveys conducted by The Associated Press.
Peter C. Groff, a Colorado state senator, publisher of Blackpolicy.org and executive director of the Center for African-American Policy at the University of Denver, said "even though Clinton's win is not the biggest win considering how far ahead she was only a month ago, it's still a win and the continuation of a peculiar losing streak for Obama."
"But, he can still claim that he did way better than expected -- you can still argue this either way," Groff told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday night. "It could've been much worse for Obama, particularly in a state that was tailor-made for Clinton."
"It's a win in a large state that is considered a major battleground during the general election," he added. "Therefore, what matters at this stage is how much distance she can go despite being broke, compared to the campaign financing juggernaut that is Senator Obama. It's obvious that he's playing a game of attrition against Clinton, prompting her to spend more money than she has and extending her resources beyond what she's able to sustain."
Roland Martin, a political analyst for CNN, said Clinton needed a big win in Pennsylvania to keep her fund-raising on track.
"The press and the pundits have repeatedly counted Sen. Clinton out, and she has repeatedly proved them wrong," the Clinton campaign said in a statement. "The vote in the bellwether state of Pennsylvania is another head-to-head measure of the two candidates and of the coalition they will put together to compete and win in November."
Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist and a superdelegate, said in an appearance on CNN that she will make her decision about Clinton or Obama public in the coming weeks and hopes other superdelegates will decide on a nominee well before the Democratic convention in August.
Brazile said she has already made the choice for president in her "heart" but will wait to announce which candidate she will support in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, in his speech Tuesday night to supporters in Indiana, Obama said, "After fourteen long months, it’s easy to forget this from time to time -- to lose sight of the fierce urgency of this moment. It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics; the bickering that none of us are immune to, and that trivializes the profound issues -- two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril."
"But that kind of politics is not why we’re here," said Obama. "It’s not why I’m here, and it’s not why you’re here. We’re here because of the more than one hundred workers in Logansport, Indiana who just found out that their company has decided to move its entire factory to Taiwan."
Black political observers told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday that Obama appears to have an edge in most of the 10 remaining primaries and will likely split the delegates with Clinton in Pennsylvania, building on his lead with pledged delegates and making it nearly impossible for Clinton to catch up.
Clinton, Martin said on CNN, cannot "trade baskets" with Obama down the stretch.
The former first lady gained at least 28 delegates with her victory, with another 130 still to be awarded.
That left Obama with an overall lead of 1648.5 to 1537.5, totals that include the superdelegates who are not picked in primaries and caucuses.
"As the Democratic primary battle goes on, the candidacies of both Senator Clinton and Obama grow weaker in general election opinion polls," Bernard told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "The biggest winner tonight may in fact be John McCain."
Associated Press contributed to this story.
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