Hillary wins in Pennsylvania

Well, despite all the efforts on the part of the media to get Hillary out of this thing, I'd say that by winning Pennsylvania, she pretty well just guaranteed that she'll be able to be in this thing for the duration.

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania primary victory gave her campaign the boost it needed to keep going without diminishing Barack Obama's chances of ultimately capturing the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton got 55 percent of the vote to Obama's 45 percent in yesterday's Pennsylvania primary, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. With the race now shifting to Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton still needs a major event to loosen Obama's grip on the nomination because of his lead in the nationwide popular vote and in delegates to the national convention.

``She's in a difficult place,'' said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist who isn't affiliated with either candidate. Clinton needs a ``miracle'' or ``some magical negative story dropping on Obama from out of the sky.''

Obama came into yesterday with a delegate lead of 139, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press, and Clinton cut that margin by 14 delegates. She narrowed his popular-vote advantage in contested elections and caucuses by some 200,000 votes to about 600,000.

On the popular vote front, I'll have to say I think it's a little unfair that the press keeps reporting (and has all those wonderful graphics to demonstrate and drive the point home) that she's behind in the popular vote...when real people in Michigan and Florida DID vote for her...and when they are included, as they should be, she leads in the popular vote. I mean, yes, they don't count in terms of convention delegates due to a rules violation, but that doesn't mean those people didn't vote. What happened to "let every vote count!"?

And it's a sure thing that this win will bring a big wad of cash her way from supporters. As of this morning, the campaign claims they've brought in about three million since last night, and gained about 80,000 new donors in the process. I just checked out her site and noticed that the initial landing page for the site (www.hillaryclinton.com) isn't the home page...it's the contribution page...asking people to kick in at least five bucks. Smart move on their part.

And, as for the Obamans in the media, it's just funny to see them keep moving goal line for her every time she does what they say she "absolutely has to do" to stay in this thing. Yesterday they were saying it "had" to be by double digits, knowing that polls suggested it would be less than that. Then, lo and behold, she wins by double digits. Now they say she "absolutely" HAS to win Indiana, or else she should drop out. Hillarious.

In the meantime, the process is doing a wonderful job of diminishing both Hillary and Obama as effective general election candidates. It doesn't get any better than this.