In my last post, I should have probably said a bit more about Noam Scheiber’s “Rendell Factor” theory about Barack Obama’s poor performance in certain Philadelphia suburbs. The theory is weakened by the fact that Obama beat Clinton two-to-one in Rendell’s home base, Philadelphia County (where Philly Mayor Michael Nutter’s endorsement didn’t cut much ice for HRC, either). Indeed, there’s not much evidence that endorsements in PA carried a whole lot of weight. After all, Obama’s marquee supporter, Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., is from Lackawanna County, which Clinton won with a crushing 74% of the vote.

There are two online articles today that take a closer look at the PA Democratic primary results, and even though they begin with different questions, obtain a similar answer.
TNR’s Noam Scheiber wants to know more about Barack Obama’s spotty performance in the Philadelphia suburbs, which surprised a lot of non-PA observers. He comes up with a couple of explanations, and this is the one I found particularly interesting:

Obama tends to win the counties that are either strongly Republican (like Lancaster) or strongly Democratic (like Delaware, or Philadelphia itself), while Hillary tends to do better in counties that are either narrowly Republican or narrowly Democratic—and, within that band, the more Democratic the better. Which makes sense. The narrowly Democratic counties have strong Democratic parties and are therefore places where [Gov. Ed] Rendell’s help would have really mattered.

Noam’s guess that relative weakness of the Rendell organization explains Obama’s relatively strong performance in heavily Republican Philly suburbs may be plausible, but we’ve seen this pattern before.
That brings me to Jay Cost’s article at RealClearPolitics. Jay does a careful and complex comparison of the vote in Ohio and Pennsylvania counties, and discovers, to his own surprise, that Barack Obama actually did better than expected in central Pennslyvania, and not just in university towns like State College.

[It] is noteworthy that central Pennsylvania is the most Republican part of the state. We have found again and again in this primary season that, outside of the South, white Democrats in heavily Republican areas tend to prefer Obama more than other areas. It is unclear what has caused this trend, but the observations in central Pennsylvania are consistent with it.

While Jay doesn’t get into explanations of the phenomenon in his article, it’s worth noting that in this state at least, it’s probably not attributable to tactical voting by Republicans, or to the legendary Republican Hillary-hatred. PA held a closed primary, and moreover, it’s not one of those EZ-Re-Registration states where GOPers can stroll to the polls and become a Democrat-For-A-Day. Something else is going on here, and as Jay notes, it’s a national pattern, at least outside the South.
Obama-skeptics rightly point out the general-election irrelevance of his primary and caucus strength in “Republican states.” But they sometimes forget that there are “Republican areas” in battleground states, and that in the end, a vote is a vote.

For all those Democrats who are worried, or, worse yet, depressed about the likely performance of our presidential nominee in November, the Doctor–Dr. Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, that is–makes a house call this morning to lift some spirits.
In The New Republic, Abramowitz patiently goes through the math and science of why Democrats are likely to win the general election, and why analogies that depend on a large defection of Democrats to the GOP candidate are simply anachronistic. It’s worth a careful read.

The hard time that Barack Obama’s had in “closing the deal” with primary voters has quite naturally raised the volume of various “electability” arguments about both Democratic candidates, some sound, some not so sound.
It’s important to begin by noting that the most objective (if grossly premature) evidence is in general election head-to-head polls. RealClearPolitics’ summary of recent Obama/McCain and Clinton/McCain national trial heats includes eight April surveys. Obama and McCain are tied in three, and Obama leads in the other five by margins ranging from one to five percent. Clinton and Obama are also tied in two polls, but the rest are all over the place, with Clinton up in three by margins ranging from three to six percent, and McCain leading in three by margins ranging from two to five percent. Overall, these polls are pretty much a wash between the two Democrats, and close to a wash with McCain. They certainly don’t exhibit the catastropic weakness some are attributing to Barack Obama.
Aside from general election polls, the main intra-Democratic electability arguments revolve around various extrapolations of primary results to the general election. And that’s where things start getting a little irrational.
As Noam Scheiber explains today at TNR’s The Stump:

[The] relevant question isn’t: Which demographic groups is each candidate winning the primary? The relevant question is: Which candidate is most likely to win the general-election version of their primary coalition (assuming they more or less hang on to the Democratic supporters of their primary opponent)?
In concrete terms, Hillary’s primary coalition consists of working-class people, seniors, and women. Obama’s consists of African-Americans, younger voters, and affluent/educated voters. Set aside African-Americans, who aren’t really a swing group. The question then becomes: 1.) How likely is Hillary to win non-Democratic working-class people, non-Democratic seniors, and non-Democratic women? 2.) How likely is Obama to win non-Democratic young people and non-Democratic affluent/ educated people?

Historically, primary strengths and weaknesses are not necessarily transmittable to general elections. As Matt Yglesias reminds us, Al Gore and John Kerry were essentially the “beer track” candidates in their nomination struggles with Bill Bradley and Howard Dean. They famously struggled to compete with George W. Bush among white-working-class voters in the general election (though both did, BTW, carry the lunch-bucket states of Pennsylvania and Michigan).
You can certainly argue that there are things about Barack Obama that will make him a difficult sale to white working-class voters in a general election, just as Hillary Clinton may have some problems with upscale “reform-oriented” independents. But that’s simply not self-evident from primary voting patterns.

Lots of interesting analysis across the political blogs today on the upcoming NC and IN primaries. Kos, especially has a succinctly-presented wrap-up of Pollster.com data:

Indiana Clinton/Obama
Downs Center 45 50
Times/Bloomberg 35 40
SUSA 55 39
ARG 53 44
R2K 49 46
The Pollster.com composite is Clinton 49, Obama 43. Indiana will be tight. I suspect both candidates can legitimately win this state, and neither will by more than 5 points in either direction. In fact, this is the only state left in the calendar in which the ultimate outcome is actually in doubt.
North Carolina Clinton/Obama
SUSA 41 50
PPP 32 57
ARG 41 52
IA 36 51
Times/Bloomberg 34 47
Rasmussen 33 56
The Pollster.com composite is Clinton 36.1, Obama 54.5.

Clinton’s edge in Indiana polls may be somewhat offset by Obama’s lead in fundraising, as Maureen Groppe reports in the Indy Star:

The Illinois senator raised $218,865 from Indiana donors in March compared with the $79,622 in Hoosier dollars contributed to Clinton, a New York senator who grew up in the Chicago area and has the support of much of the Indiana Democratic Party establishment.
Obama has raised a total $883,375 from Indiana since the race began, compared with $664,254 raised by Clinton.

SurveyUSA has a post on their Indiana poll conducted 4/11-13 (before PA) indicating:

In a Democratic Primary in Indiana today, 04/14/08, three weeks until the primary, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama 55% to 39%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati and WHAS-TV Louisville. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released two weeks ago, Clinton is up 3 points, Obama is down 4 points. Clinton had led by 9 at the beginning of April, leads by 16 mid-month. Here’s where the movement is occurring: Among men, Obama had trailed by 2, now trails by 12, a 10-point swing to Clinton. In greater Indianapolis, Obama had led by 12, now trails by 1, a 13-point swing to Clinton. Among Democrats, Obama had trailed by 12, now trails by 27, a 15-point swing to Clinton. Among voters focused on health care, Clinton had led by 10, now leads by 30, a 20-point swing to Clinton. Among the youngest voters, Obama had led by 19, now trails by 2, a 21-point swing to Clinton.

It’s just one poll, but it does suggest Clinton may have some mo’ in Indiana. It appears there may well be a split in May 6 state bragging rights. Regardless, the real battle is over the size of their respective margins which will divvy up North Carolina’s 115 delegates and Indiana’s 72. Hoosiers and Tarheels are going to see a lot of both candidates.

You knew it would ultimately happen, right? Now that Hillary Clinton’s survived another round of the presidential nominating process, we’re suddenly hearing once again about Florida’s demands that its delegates be seated.at the Convention. Indeed, Floridians are getting testy about it:

Florida Democrats — led by Hillary Clinton supporters — are turning to public protests to keep the pressure on the national party.
Rallies are planned Saturday in seven Florida cities, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, to demand that the national party count Florida’s delegates. Hundreds of activists are also expected to ride buses to Washington to rally Wednesday.
”This has to do with our civil rights,” said Millie Herrera, a potential Clinton convention delegate and the president of the Hispanic Democratic Caucus of Florida. “No one has the right to invalidate our votes.”

Sorting out the “civil rights” issues from those that are strictly related to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy won’t be easy. Most national Democrats hoped that Florida and Michigan could be dealt with discreetly after a nominee was selected. But the longer the contest goes on, the harder that becomes.

Hillary Clinton has followed up her solid primary win in PA yesterday with what appears to be a tactical victory today: laying down a story-line that the only contest that matters on May 6 is in Indiana, a state she has a decent chance of winning, making NC, where Obama has a big lead in the polls, essentially meaningless.
I call it a success because so far, the news media, and even some pro-Obama commentators, are buying it. In the midst of a generally negative assessment of Clinton’s ultimate, today’s Washington Post article by Dan Balz on the PA results says this:

Clinton expects victories in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Obama’s team expects to win Oregon, North Carolina, Montana, South Dakota and Guam. That makes Indiana the critical battleground. Obama was there last night and Clinton will arrive today.

Even more interestingly, Ezra Klein of the American Prospect–who usually reflects the pro-Obama leanings of the progressive blogosphere–has an article up today arguing that Obama needs a “knockout” over Clinton on May 6, meaning an Indiana win.
And the articles discussed here at TDS by J.P. Green earlier today all point to Indiana as the next big contest.
Implicit and sometimes explicit in the all-about-Indiana story-line is that Barack Obama can’t claim true and final victory in the nominating contest–delegate-math be damned–until he can finally exorcise the haunting fear that he can’t win states with substantial but not massive African-American populations. And that’s a concern for him beyond Indiana, if he loses there: if the contest is still alive, HRC is almost certainly going to win big in WV and KY, and Obama’s subsequent likely wins in MT, SD and perhaps OR may be written off as irrelevant to his “problem,” which superdelegates will be constantly asked to weigh.
Part of Obama’s current dilemma is that his own campaign can’t seem to get beyond an inevitability argument. Brandishing projected delegate and popular-vote charts, the Obama campaign and its media allies have been dismissing adverse primary results for weeks and even months now, on the reasonable but probably irrelevant theory that it would take a miracle for Clinton to catch him on either measurement. If he’s already won, then it’s psychologically difficult to lay down his own marker for when superdelegates should force Clinton from the race–e.g., the next time she loses, say, in NC.
So: Clinton gets to call the next “meaningful” battle, and thus gets to lose NC with no consequences beyond whatever net gains in delegates or popular votes Obama can squeeze from the Tar Heel State. Those gains would simply represent a small addition to the charts showing Obama’s inevitability, which much of the media and a critical mass of superdelegates have clearly decided to reject for now.
It was particularly crafty of the Clinton camp to get word out today that key supporters close to the candidate would gently push her to withdraw if she loses Indiana–a pretty empty pledge since no one thinks she could survive a loss there. No such promises were made with respect to a loss in NC.
When I called this framing of the contest a “tactical” victory for Clinton, I did mean just that. Obama can take the bait and win Indiana and not only nail down the nomination, but quiet some of the caterwauling about his “weaknesses.” Perhaps a NC win would add just enough to the inevitability argument to begin to tip superdelegates in his direction even if he loses Indiana. And in the end, the math that underlies the Obama inevitability argument is generally sound; something other than occasional must-win victories would have to happen to give HRC a plausible shot at the nomination.
But the chance to pick the battleground remains a precious asset to Clinton, and one rarely available to a trailing candidate.

If you are curious about the accuracy of all the comparisons last night between Hillary Clinton’s wins in PA and OH, check out Jay Cost’s article in RealClearPolitics this morning. As he demonstrates in category after category, the two candidates performed roughly the same in the two states. If anything, PA’s primary electorate turned out to be somewhat older, whiter, and more Catholic than OH’s, which helped Clinton. Her margins among white woman and white men actually dropped a bit in PA, but they represented a slightly larger percentage of the vote than in OH.
Here’s Cost’s bottom-line take:

What we see, then, is what we have seen again and again in this contest. Clinton continues to do well with “downscale” whites. Obama does well with “upscale” whites and African Americans. What is intriguing about this result is not just that it is similar to Ohio – but also that it is similar after seven weeks and millions of dollars in campaign expenditures. Clearly, these voting groups are entrenched.

I’d add another factor: as Cost himself demonstrated during the last round of primaries, there’s no real evidence that either candidate has enjoyed much of a “bounce” from winning any given contest, with the sole exception of Obama’s Wisconsin victory, which seems to have been influenced by his Potomac Primary sweep. So if demographics are indeed destiny in this nominating contest, HRC’s got an steep uphill climb in NC but a much better chance in IN. “Momentum,” negative or positive, doesn’t seem to matter to Democratic voters this year. But nor do gross ratings points of advertising bought. That’s the bad and good news for HRC right now.

Many states have been called a “must win” for Senator Clinton, and she has shown a remarkable ability to rally when it counts, PA being the most recent example. In the weeks ahead, however, Indiana looms especially large for the Clinton campaign.
Shane D’Aprile’s Campaigns & Elections post “Is Clinton’s Pennsylvania Win a Game-Changer?” sets the stage for the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. D’Aprile explains:

Clinton has an uphill fight to get just one win out of the next two states on the Democratic primary docket. Polls show a mixed bag in Indiana where Clinton stands the best chance on May 6. The numbers range from a 5 point lead for Obama in the latest LA Times/Bloomberg to a 16 point advantage for Clinton in a recent Survey USA poll.
In North Carolina, polls suggest an Obama landslide. A recent Insider Advantage poll gives Obama a 15 point lead, while the latest numbers from Public Policy Polling give the Illinois senator a staggering 25 point edge. That poll also shows Obama leading among women and within striking distance of Clinton’s 5 point lead among white voters.

“North Carolina is a lost cause,” echoes U. VA political scientist Larry Sabato in D’Aprile’s article.”Obama will win big because of the large African-American percentage” (about 22 percent in 2005). Sabato believes Clinton has a better chance in Indiana, where Senator Evan Bayh’s support may help, although it would be counterbalanced to some extent by Obama’s familiarity to Indiana voters, 20+ percent of whom are in the Chicago media market.
D’Aprile’s article quotes Democratic strategist Steve McMahon on the effect of Clinton’s PA win: “It makes her claim that she can win the nomination a bit more legitimate…but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a math problem that’s almost impossible for her to overcome.” But political analyst Rhodes Cook adds “She can probably pull out a victory in Indiana…And then even if she loses North Carolina, she still has Kentucky and West Virginia where she could conceivably win by 20 points each.”
One indication of how close it may be in Indiana is the stance of heartland rocker John Mellencamp, who has scheduled appearances for both Obama and Clinton next week. Tuesday he joins Obama at an Evansville rally and on Saturday he sings for Clinton in Indianapolis. Mellencamp has also performed at at fundraisers for John Edwards, Wesley Clark and Howard Dean. Mellencamp’s publicist, Bob Merlis said there was zero chance he would perform for McCain. “The Democratic Party is the agent for change (Mellencamp) has pinned his hopes on.”
Rock on, bad boy.

With the vote nearly all in from PA, it looks like Hillary Clinton will get her double-digit win, just barely (55-45). She’ll also get a bit over a 200,000 popular vote margin, which will cut Obama’s cumulative popular vote lead (excluding four caucus states, plus MI and FL) to about a half million.
The county map for PA looks a lot like OH’s–a few urban pockets going for Obama, and everything else going for HRC. Her wins in two Philadelphia suburban counties (Bucks by a landslide and Montgomery by a whisker) will get some post-election attention, along with her 74% victory in perennial NE PA general election bellweather Lackawanna County.
Since my earlier post mentioned Howard Fineman’s theory that Obama’s real strategy in PA was to spend HRC into bankruptcy, it’s worth noting that she seems to be raising some serious money online tonight. But the real question is whether PA will give her enough money or votes to survive May 6, when she must win Indiana and may need an upset win in NC.