Hillary Won the PA Primary, Now What?

Image details: Hillary Clinton Holds Pennsylvania Primary Night Rally served by picapp.com

Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary with 55% of the vote last night. She picked up 75 delegates, while Barack Obama picked up another 65. But for all the smiles and speeches, Democratic voters are pretty much in the same spot as they were last week: Obama still has a respectable lead over Clinton — although not enough to actually get him the nomination.

As the Democratic nomination process drags onward, I think that both Obama and Clinton are doing more harm than good: the only way that this contest will be decided before the convention is if one candidate literally wins every delegate left. That won’t happen, by the way. Even if someone decides to bow out gracefully, that person will still pick up a few delegates between now and the convention — heck, Mike Huckabee won 11% of Republican votes in Pennsylvania, and he isn’t even running anymore.

The primary system creates division in political parties, but there’s usually a clear front runner by this point for both parties. John McCain is doing what a presumptive nominee should be doing at this point in the race: he’s soothing ruffled feathers, getting the supporters of other Republican candidates to join his fight and putting together the fundraising machine that will handle the real fight. The Democratic party is losing time — and as both Clinton and Obama tap into more and more fundraising sources, the actual nominee, whoever that will be, is losing the opportunity to call on those supporters for money later on.

But Clinton will keep fighting. And it’s a close enough race that she might just win, especially after the first round of voting at the Democratic convention accomplishes nothing. 1952 was the last time that the Democratic convention took more than one vote to select a candidate, but it looks like they’re about to break their 56-year run.