PHILADELPHIA — Barack Obama left Pennsylvania for Indiana yesterday before the polls here had even closed. He had two good reasons for going.
He knew he was going to lose the state to Hillary Clinton. And he knew that Indiana now offered his best chance to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, once and for all.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed a hard-fought win in Pennsylvania last night. She fought off the Obama campaign's advertising onslaught, she cashed in on her close connections with Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, and she successfully exploited Mr. Obama's clumsy comments about bitter voters clinging to God and guns.
With this decisive verdict, Ms. Clinton will be able to claim victory in seven of the eight biggest states. (Mr. Obama took his home state of Illinois.) She has won most of the major swing states. She has narrowed his lead in delegates and popular vote, though only marginally in the former case. She might even have given a shot of much-needed adrenalin to her flagging fundraising campaign. Be assured, each and every uncommitted superdelegate will be repeatedly reminded of the significance of this victory.
Related Articles
But the political market had already discounted the outcome in Pennsylvania. Attention has shifted to the last real battleground: the Hoosier State.
Indiana and North Carolina vote May 6. North Carolina has a large black population (22 per cent of the total) and has seen an influx of upscale professionals drawn to the state's impressive strength in banking and technology. Blacks and affluent liberals are the Obama campaign's bedrock.
So it's not surprising that the RealClearPolitics compendium poll shows Mr. Obama leading there by nearly 16 percentage points. North Carolina could be an Obama blowout.
Indiana and North Carolina combined offer up 187 delegates, 29 more than Pennsylvania. If Mr. Obama can take them both, then he will obliterate Ms. Clinton's Pennsylvania gains, guaranteeing that he will end the contest with many more delegates, votes and states. And there will be no good reason for Ms. Clinton to carry on.
Indiana, however, is no gimme for either candidate. It has a traditional industrial base - Indiana is one of the largest producers of steel in the United States - and it borders Ohio, which Ms. Clinton won by playing to fears of manufacturing jobs disappearing overseas. Its working- and lower-middle-class white population should support her just as their cousins did in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But Indiana also borders Illinois, Mr. Obama's political base, and Chicago exercises a strong media and cultural influence over parts of the state. And unlike Ohio, Indiana is actually doing comparatively well, thanks to its high-skilled and relatively low-paid work force. The state's 4.5 per cent unemployment rate is below the national average.
Ms. Clinton currently leads Mr. Obama by slightly more than two points in Indiana, according to RealClearPolitics, far less than the 20-point advantage she often enjoyed going into other key battlegrounds. One recent local poll actually put Mr. Obama ahead.
Ms. Clinton does, however, have the support of the Democratic Party establishment in Indiana, such as it is in the largely Republican state, including that of Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who is thought to be a strong candidate for vice-president on her ticket.
She will need help from Mr. Bayh and the party machine in Indiana every bit as much as she did from Mr. Rendell in Pennsylvania and in Ohio from Governor Ted Strickland. Ms. Clinton's campaign is in debt, and will be able to devote only a fraction of the resources at Mr. Obama's disposal to the campaign.
If Ms. Clinton wins Indiana, then she will be able to claim she virtually ran the table of Midwestern industrial states, which may persuade some of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates that she is more electable than Mr. Obama.
But if Mr. Obama can use his Illinois ties, his money and his ability to organize impressively even when the party machine is against him to capture Indiana, then he will have scored a triumph.
He will have widened his delegate lead even further, captured 100 per cent of the race's momentum, and demonstrated that he can, indeed, attract the votes of white, blue-collar workers. The superdelegates will surely then decide that the party has spoken, and Mr. Obama should be the nominee.
There have been other times when Mr. Obama has come oh-so-close to seizing the nomination, only to see Ms. Clinton claw her way back: in New Hampshire, in Texas.
Indiana is his last real hope to end this contest sooner rather than later. Otherwise it carries on into June, when primary season finally ends and all the superdelegates - please let it be - make their choices. If that result isn't emphatic, then this could go to the August convention, and the odds of Republican nominee John McCain will suddenly get much, much better.
Hillary Clinton has won the fight for Pennsylvania. The fight for Indiana begins today. It will be epic.
What's next?
The campaign moves on to Indiana and North Carolina, which vote May 6. Hillary Clinton will have a hard time in North Carolina, but Indiana is still anybody's race.
+2.2
Percentage points by which
Hillary Clinton is ahead in current Indiana polling
+15.5
Percentage points by which
Barack Obama is ahead in current North Carolina polling
Source: RealClearPolitics.com
8
