Day Twenty-eight, April 22

So today was the big day, and Obama came in second. No surprises there, as even the man himself wasn't predicting a win in the Keystone State as recently as this Sunday. But this loss shouldn't even be that disappointing to Obama's supporters, or at least, if you were following the news. It might sound like sore loser talk, but the truth is that Barack's campaign had acknowledged that they were fighting a war of attrition every step of the way, trying to get Clinton's margin of victory slimmed down, if not stumped. And there's something to be said for winning a battle of the margins, especially when forecasts in March put Hillary as far as 25 points ahead of Obama. We only lost it by ten measely points, folks. She netted a whopping 16 delegates over Obama, who still leads by 138 delegates overall. Onwards and upwards, I say, pack the wagons for Indiana.

So instead of posting one of the countless articles accounting for Hillary's victory in Pennsylvania today, or any one that might recount the same polling statistics I so readily rattled off in my introductory paragraph, I thought I'd go with something more worthwhile. Today I dug up this article in the Associated Press, 'Party switchers lean toward Obama, exit polls show'. The headline's enough to raise a few eyebrows on its own, but the meat of the article packs some real surprises. For instance, it's interesting to know that almost a tenth of those who voted in today's primary were recently registered Democrats, about half of them former Republicans. But it's downright startling to find out that one fifth of Obama's supporters are among their ranks! So much for the 'voter switcheroo' to bring down Hillary idea, eh?

Another suprising statistic is that Clinton managed to split the 'under 30' vote, a constituency that has heavily favored Obama in previous contests. Perhaps the most unexpected--as well reassuring--number to come out of the pollshowever, is that rural voters preferred Clinton in roughly equal numbers to urban dwellers. We can then infer that, although the damage has been done by 'bittergate' (I hate using that word), that the effect of that one statement has subsided, at least in Pennsylvania, the state where it probably could have hurt him the most. On a day where it seems like only one set of numbers matter, it's the digits behind the headline that could make the biggest difference for Obama's campaign in the long-run.