A collection of thoughts on the PA primary... (dedicated to BFF's DH)

Hi Ethan! Thanks for letting me have your wife last night. [wags eyebrows suggestively]

First of all, let me say, you are all aware of the 10% margin of victory for Hellary yesterday, but are you also aware it was really only a 9% margin? Yes, it's only a 1% difference. But since so much has been made of "single digits" versus "double digits" margins I thought I would point out that while the media is apparently and mathematically-correctly rounding Clinton's 54.6% of the vote to 55% and Obama's 45.4% to 45% and then incorrectly stating she won by double digits--which is SUCH a big deal, right?--anyway, that I would point out 54.6% minus 45.4% equals 9.2% which rounds to 9%. Single digit margin. "NYAH! to you Mainstream Media!!"

Let me also point out that Obama won in the urban and densely populated areas of the state--which makes it seem to me that the GOTV plan wasn't concentrated on enough in those rural areas which went to Hellary. The Obama GOTV plan is an elegant document; if applied properly my dog could probably win an election. The plan combined with Obama's excellence should have worked in these "spread out" rural areas just as well as in densely populated areas.

I won't even get into how furious I was that MSM declared Hellary the winner based on exit polls with less than 1% of the vote counted. Or that Hellary gave her victory speech with fifty-some percent of the vote counted and only an 8% spread. Exactly what year did they stop counting the votes? I cannot even remember...sigh...If democracy is my religion and it is so fucked up what does that say about me?

Furthermore, Hellary the Smunt (a term coined by BFF Vicki after I called Hellary a "smug cunt") is STILL actually LOSING!! Pennsylvania awards delegates proportionally so Clinton only closed the delegate gap by twelve pledged delegates, leaving Obama still in the lead by 156 pledged delegates (1487 vs 1331) and in the lead including the supedelegates (who may yet change over to Obama as they have already been doing) by a total of 133 (1719 vs 1586). He is also winning the popular vote by about half a million votes despite Hellary's claim to the contrary in Indiana today. She forgot that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan and didn't campaign at all in Florida, and regardless, those votes won't count for anything anyway when it comes time to award delegates, and will count for even less when he wins North Carolina, South Dakota and Oregon and pulls ahead in the popular vote no matter what fakakta math you are using.

A word on superdelegates: Obama has been steadily closing the gap since January including some superdelegates who have switched from Clinton (see here and here but there may be others I am missing, and there are many who remain committed to the vote leader--names in green, whomever that may be, or uncommitted altogether).

As for Hellary the Smunt's claims to have raised $3.5 million last night: I'll believe it when I see it on official campaign finance documents. Remember, the woman has made a lot of claims (also see: here, here and here) in her day and I don't believe much of what comes out of her mouth.

An aside to Vicki: there was a whole story on CNN about the Abercrombie & Fitch guys last nigh. Mystery still unsolved. But I did like Jeanne Moos suggestion for Aberobama & Fitch t-shirts.

Finally, I will leave you with this great column from The Huffington Post:

Ten Things to Remember on Tuesday Night

by Seth Grahame-Smith

Hillary Clinton will win Pennsylvania. Arguments over the meaning or meaninglessness of her win will dominate MSM and stretch bandwidth to its breaking point. Bloggers and pundits will dust off their favorite boxing metaphors: "Hillary's off the ropes!" "Obama can't land the knockout!" Hillbots will rejoice, Obamabots will panic, and McCainbots will watch Murder She Wrote and go to bed at six-thirty. I'll probably write a scathing post attempting to prove that Hillary is the devil incarnate. We'll all lose our minds. In hope of preventing some of this hysteria (especially my own), I thought it'd be helpful to keep a few things in mind during Tuesday night's results -- from Hillary's "victory" speech to the blizzard of spin that's sure to follow:
1. Remember that there's no way Hillary can become the nominee without a superdelegate coup -- which would alienate a generation of young Democrats and dangerously fracture the party.
2. Remember that her campaign leaked internals showing an eleven point lead (as a means of firing up her supporters and getting out the vote). Therefore, any win smaller than eleven points should be considered a disappointment by her own assessment.
3. Remember that every time Hillary begins a sentence with "you know," or "my opponent," the next thing out of her mouth is a lie.
4. Remember that when Clinton surrogates say "this proves Obama can't win the big states," they're ignoring the fact that he actually won more delegates in Texas -- not to mention twice as many states as she has.
5. Remember that when the pundits argue that Obama can't win in white rural areas because they broke for Hillary, they're ignoring the fact that he won (in alphabetical order): Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
6. Remember that when Hillary talks about who will be "better against John McCain in the fall," she's talking about the fall of 2012.
7. Remember that Hillary's campaign is $10M in debt, while Obama's has more than $40M in cash on hand.
8. Remember that Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania was as a high as 26 points only a month ago.
9. Remember that Hillary's late Pennsylvania rebound was forged in the fires of negativity and fear-mongering.
10. Remember that the only manufacturing job Hillary ever brought to Pennsylvania was the manufactured notion that she was a middle-class, whisky-swilling duck killer, and not an anti-union multi-millionaire.