Pennsylvania Primaries

On Tuesday, we will finally see the next of the Democratic and Republican primaries (although I think we can all safely say that McCain will receive the Republican endorsement). So I guess that a lot of people are asking what is expected to occur in this primary and what each scenario would mean for Obama or Clinton. The general consensus seems to be that Clinton is in the lead with a small margin. Clinton also seems to be in the lead in Catholic/Irish and blue collar areas, while Obama is more popular around Philadelphia and other larger cities. From what I’ve seen, it seems pretty unlikely that Obama will walk away with an actual win from this primary, but he could stop Clinton from taking the whole state. CNN commented (in the video linked above) that what Clinton really needs is to obtain about 54% of the votes to Obama’s 44% (or more) in order to gain more momentum. These are the results of the primaries in neighboring Ohio and New Jersey. Anything less than this sort of victory might cause a loss in momentum. So this scenario seems to be the actual goal of the Obama campaign.

Battle of the Democrats

As more and more primaries come in and we count up the delegates, it seems like things are getting really heated...at least on the Democratic side. While the Republican standpoint seems to leave little doubt as to who will end up with the most delegates (McCain), the Democratic race is very obviously in a dead heat. As of February 25th, CNN shows that the number of delegates for Obama is 1,378 and for Clinton is 1,269. While it seems like many hopefuls for Obama see this as a victory, it's still a far cry from the 2,025 needed to actually win the presidential spot. So understandably it's getting a bit tense between the candidates.

I understand tension, but this is just getting ridiculous. It began with former President Clinton jabbing at Obama and accusing his supporters of supporting him on the basis of his race. After that, it seems to have completely gotten out of hand. Every single time I turn on the news or look at an online source, I hear about the two of them trading jabs or that one of them has attacked the other and now the other is responding. This culminated into my favorite "Shame on you, Barack Obama" Clinton moment (which you can't help thinking while you're watching: My God, that is one pissed off woman) to which Obama responded that this is "silly season" for politics. Granted, a lot of my information was first introduced by my Obama-fan boyfriend, so it's mostly skewed in a Clinton-attacks-Obama way. But the thing that bothers me most is the unveiled animosity between two halves of the Democratic Party. How on Earth is everyone going to pull together as a group for the election if we all hate each other?