PA: Bill campaigning for Hillary pushes "tired" and "old" as Obama's campaign continues to gain [View All]

[ProSense]

Bill's Vote for Tired, Old Hillary tour continues (in Bill's world, 60 is the new 100).

“Some of them, when they’re 60, they’ll forget something when they’re tired at 11 o'clock at night, too,’’ Bill Clinton said this week of Hillary Clinton’s comment.

Bill Clinton's Golden Oldies act

On the road and off the radar, playing small-town Pennsylvania with the former president.

By Walter Shapiro

At a wan rally at Wilkes University here Saturday morning, he squinted at a card listing local dignitaries and confessed, "You'll have to forgive me. I'm getting old. I can't read well this early in the morning." Burbling about building cars that could get 100 miles to the gallon at a Friday night town meeting in Fort Washington, just outside Philadelphia, Clinton remarked, "Whenever I say this about energy ... people start to look at me and say, 'You know, he's not as young as he used to be, but I actually think he's starting to lose it.'"

These out-to-pasture cracks are an easy way for Clinton to create an empathetic bond with his audience, especially in Pennsylvania, a state with the third highest median age in the nation. But watching Bill Clinton campaign for his wife on the eve of Tuesday's win-big-or-else Pennsylvania primary, it is easy to get the sense that the 42nd president worries that he has become yesterday's man. The crowds can be modest. Even the tricks of advance men, such as subdividing the Wilkes gym in half, could not hide the reality that only 300 people turned out for Bill Clinton in a place where Barack Obama recently played to a turn-away crowd. The underlying problem for Clinton is not his potential Denis Thatcher role if Hillary defies the odds and makes it to the White House, but rather that his political style and persona seem so anchored in the 1990s.

His Arkansas accent, which may be thicker than when he was governor, sets him apart in a political year in which it is difficult to hear any regional tinge in the words of Hillary (who long ago shed her suburban Chicago roots), Obama (whose boyhood homes were in Hawaii and Indonesia) and McCain (who grew up on naval bases). No candidate running dares attempt Bill Clinton's pile-on, bludgeon-you-into-submission style of political argument. As a rhetorician, Obama, in fact, is the anti-Clinton, since his artfully constructed speeches are in sharp contrast to the improvisational and-another-thing oratory of the former president.

When Clinton talks policy, which (no surprise) he does at length, his arguments always circle back to what may have been the signal accomplishment of his presidency -- defying the spendthrift history of the Democratic Party by bequeathing his successor a balanced budget. (What George W. Bush did with that legacy is a tragic tale best retold when small children have been removed from the room.) "This is underappreciated," Clinton said in Fort Washington, in what may have been a reference to himself as well as to fiscal restraint. "If you go to HillaryClinton.com, you will see how she pays for every program she advocates in this election because she really does believe that ... if we want to get these young people their economic future, we've got to provide for a balanced budget."

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Hillary needs as many sympathy votes as she can get.

Dem voter surge could cut Clinton margin

By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 4/21/08 4:29 AM EST

An historic spike in Democratic voter registrations in Pennsylvania could help Barack Obama cut into Hillary Clinton’s vote in Tuesday’s primary, robbing her of the big victory margin she needs to justify continuing the primary fight.

The changing party demographics also are contributing to an overall bluing of the Keystone State that could dim Republican John McCain’s hopes of competing there in the fall.

A county-by-county analysis by Politico suggests that the hard-fought primary between Obama and Clinton has accelerated an ongoing partisan shift in Pennsylvania that could soon move it out of the battleground presidential states and ripple across congressional races this fall, as well.

“We may have one or two more competitive presidential races, but I’m not sure what will come after that,” said Terry Madonna, a political scientist and director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

The first evidence of the changing Democratic demographics could be on display Tuesday.

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Report: Popular Vote Win For Hillary Is All But Impossible

By Greg Sargent - April 21, 2008, 10:03AM

Bloomberg News takes a look at what Hillary needs to do to earn a popular vote win, and finds that she basically needs to do the political equivalent of pitching a no-hitter, hitting for the cycle, and pulling an unassisted triple play -- all in one game:

Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon -- a prospect that's not at all certain.

More than just big margins, Clinton would need record voter turnout too. In Pennsylvania, she would need a turnout of 2 million, about half the state's registered Democrats; in the 2004 primary, about 800,000 voted. She would also need turnout to almost double in other states where she leads, and reach some 1 million in Puerto Rico, which is about how many Democratic- leaning voters went to the polls in a 2004 gubernatorial election.

As I reported here recently, Hillary advisers and major supporters are divided over the question of whether she can continue to woo super-dels without a popular vote win, with top adviser Harold Ickes saying it can be done, and many others saying they think it's politically untenable.

The problem for Hillary is that without a popular vote win she has no way of muddying the waters or arguing that the Democratic electorate didn't deliver a clear verdict in favor of Obama.

Obama's endorsements keep rolling in:

Democrats must choose Obama

Published: April 20 2008 18:59 | Last updated: April 20 2008 18:59

<...>

After Tuesday’s vote, the Democrats should move quickly to affirm Mr Obama’s nomination. That is not just because his lead in elected delegates is already unassailable and the contest should be brought to a swift conclusion. It is also because he is, in fact, the better candidate.

<...>

Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.

On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.

Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run.

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Delegate update: Obama gets one more

Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 11:03 AM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
The Obama campaign announced that it got the support of superdelegate/Ohio DNC member Enid Goubeaux.

The superdelegate count now is: Clinton 262, Obama 238.
Obama leads by 142 in the overall count: 1,655-1,513.
He also leads by 166 in the pledged delegate count: 1,417-1,251.

Since Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, Obama is +68, Clinton is +2.

Given that Hillary expected to win PA by a huge margin a few weeks ago, Obama's position looks fantastic.

BREAKING: Obama +3





Edited title and typo.


Video that just can't get enough play: Pennsylvania Governor Rendell Praises Farrakhan and N.O.I.