The Pennsylvania primary is tomorrow. The road to the Democratic nomination runs through a state that is described as “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in the middle.”
There’s much love for Barack Obama in the City of Brotherly Love. On Friday, 35,000 people jammed into Independence Mall to hear Obama declare:
I'm running to change the game in Washington. I'm not running to fit in Washington. I'm running to change Washington.
Though Mayor Michael Nutter has endorsed Hillary Clinton, Philadelphia is signed, sealed and delivered for Obama.
So Clinton is hunting for votes in the Philly suburbs. She has set her sights on Western Pennsylvania, where she picked up the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
There's also fertile hunting ground in the land of the cling-ons, South Central Pennsylvania, where Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” reportedly is the most requested song on country music stations in the weeks leading up to the primary.
Polls show Clinton leads Obama by between five and 13 points. Brad Coker, managing partner for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, told the McClatchy Newspapers:
I would be surprised if Obama won Pennsylvania. There are not enough African-American and young voters. It's one of the older states.
Indeed, with the nation’s third oldest population, the highest per capita membership in the National Rifle Association, union households, working-class voters and a black population of 11 percent, Pennsylvania looks like Clinton Country.
Demography and a pinch of bitters will keep Clinton “hanging on."
