Pennsylvania’s Role Slipping Away
By Mike Joseph, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
Feb. 21–Hillary Clinton supporters woke up to disappointment Wednesday after Barack Obama’s Wisconsin and Hawaii victories, and prospects for an important Democratic primary in Pennsylvania sank as Obama’s star soared.
“We’ve got some work to do,” said Pleasant Gap Democrat Ruth Luse, an elected Centre County jury commissioner and Clinton supporter. “We have got to get some organization right here in Centre County. We are working on that, and I hope to see some action on that before she gets wiped out.”
Centre Hall Democrat Keith Bierly, a former county commissioner who contributed money to Obama’s campaign, said Tuesday’s results mean Clinton will have to win in either Texas or Ohio on March 4 to keep her campaign alive for Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.
“Unless she wins at least one of those two states, I can’t see Pennsylvania being relevant,” Bierly said. “Clearly she’s got to win something that day. If she had done reasonably well in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania had a shot at being relevant.”
G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, said if Clinton manages to “hang on” in Texas and Ohio, she might continue her campaign through the Pennsylvania primary “just to see how it goes.”
But he added that “she’s not growing, he’s growing,” and if she loses Texas and Ohio, she’ll face widespread calls to quit.
“There’ll be huge pressure on her to get out — I think people will tell her to, elected people who don’t want to rip the party apart,” Madonna said. “But nobody tells the Clintons what to do.”
Issues that could split the party include the status of Michigan and Florida primaries and the influence of superdelegates. Clinton won the Michigan and Florida primaries, but the Democratic National Committee long before had stripped the states of delegates because they scheduled the primaries so early in the year.
Superdelegates — party leaders such as Centre Hall Clinton supporter Ruth Rudy — have been urged by Obama supporters to follow the preferences of rank-and-file primaries but urged by Clinton supporters to favor whomever they please. Clinton now has the edge in superdelegates. Rudy could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Obama’s 10 straight primary and caucus victories since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 have convinced many that his campaign is much more comprehensively organized than Clinton’s. Differences are evident in Centre County.
State College financial consultant Greg Stewart, co-chairman of Obama’s volunteer workers in Pennsylvania, has been publicly organizing and campaigning for Obama since at least last May. He said Wednesday the Obama campaign is preparing for April 22 “with the assumption it will be important.”
Stewart’s son Michael, a Penn State student, heads an Obama student organization that held an open house Saturday. The group will kick off a voter registration drive in the student union today and has signed up more than 40 students to travel to Ohio next weekend to canvass for Obama.
A student group for Clinton, the Penn State Hillblazers, has convened at least three meetings but has not had an off-campus organization to join forces with. Founder Sean Leonard, a Penn State junior, said Wednesday that no registration drives or canvassing trips are planned.
“Right now we’re holding off on large activities” until after the March 4 primaries, Leonard said. “We’ve been just trying to get organized for that (April 22 primary) but we’re kind of waiting for March 4.”
Luse said Wednesday that within the past week she apparently became Clinton’s Centre County campaign coordinator after “I made the mistake of making a phone call to the campaign looking for some information.” As a result of the phone call to Clinton’s Pennsylvania headquarters, she said, “I assume that that’s who it’s going to be — me.”
The Clinton campaign thought Obama couldn’t survive Super Tuesday and had done little planning for later primaries, including Pennsylvania’s, Madonna said.
Clinton’s Pennsylvania connections are extensive. Her father was born in Scranton and graduated from Penn State. Her younger brother, Hugh Rodham, was a bench-warming Penn State quarterback in Joe Paterno’s early years, and Bill Clinton aides worked for Harris Wofford’s U.S. Senate campaign.
“They know this state intimately,” Madonna said.
Madonna’s Center for Opinion Research will release the results of its latest survey of Pennsylvanians’ presidential candidate preferences today. His last survey, released Jan. 17, found Pennsylvania Democrats supporting Clinton over Obama by a large margin, 40 percent to 20 percent.
Madonna wouldn’t divulge the new survey results early, but added: “As you might expect, it’s a little tighter than it was the last time we did it.”
Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.
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