I was watching a Barack Obama townhall in North Carolina on CNN.com earlier and the guy I saw on that stage was not the same old confident Barack Obama that I'm used to seeing on the campaign trail. My gut is that Pennsylvania has shaken him. He is sounding to me as though he thinks he has to be everyone's friend, like he has bought into the hype that he needs to be more down home, more accessible, less the caricature of the "out of touch elitist" his opponents would like us to think he is. His manner is more casual but in a sort of forced way and so to me he comes off as less genuine, which is about the worst thing a politician can appear to be. Which says to me he should probably listen to his own talking points more and to the media, which has actually absorbed the Clinton post-PA talking points, less. Looking at the CNN exit polls, turns out Pennsylvanians actually did not see Obama as any less "in touch" than Clinton at all.

Is Clinton in touch with people like you?

	Clinton	Obama
Yes (67%)	73%	27%
No (32%)	17%	83%

Is Obama in touch with people like you?

	Clinton	Obama
Yes (66%)	37%	63%
No (33%)	90%	10%

Who is in touch with people like you?

	Clinton	Obama
Only Clinton (26%)	98%	2%
Only Obama (25%)	4%	96%
Both (41%)	56%	44%
Neither (7%)	61%	39%

As you can see, the percentage of the PA electorate that felt that each candidate was in touch with "people like them" was virtually identical (67% & 66%), as was the percentage of support each candidate got from those that felt that he or she alone was in touch with people like them (98% & 96%). Ultimately, the race was won or lost among those who felt that both candidates were equally in touch; in other words, on other issues entirely.

Last night on MSNBC Rachel Maddow made an interesting observation: every time Hillary Clinton wins a primary, the narrative in the media becomes about counting down to the next "make or break" contest as though a loss for her would in fact end the campaign. Clinton keeps winning "when she needs to", of course, so the theory hasn't really been tested but Maddow I think quite rightly called this phenomenon the primary election equivalent of the Friedman unit. "2 more weeks...6 more weeks...2 more weeks." Adam Nagourney in today's NYTimes is a perfect example:

Even with her comfortable victory on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton still faces significant, though certainly not insurmountable, hurdles to securing the nomination, and it remains possible that her candidacy could come to an end in as little as two weeks, when Indiana and North Carolina vote.

Maddow's point, of course, is that this is a ridiculous assertion and the media needs to stop falling for it; no matter what happens on May 6th, this. primary. will. continue. Hillary Clinton signaled as much with the timing of a couple upcoming fundraisers. From Ben Smith:

My colleague Ken Vogel notes that Clinton has planned two fundraisers -- one with Hillary, Chelsea, and Dorothy; one with the Arkansas delegation -- for the day after Indiana and North Carolina.

Another media narrative that gets propagated every time Clinton wins another primary is how bad the continued race is for the Democratic Party. Again, Nagourney, whose article, I should point out, is linked on the frontpage of Huffington Post with the alarmist headline: "And The Winner Is: John McCain," provides a case study:

For better or worse -- and many Democrats fear it is for worse -- the race goes on.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania on Tuesday by enough of a margin to continue a battle that Democrats increasingly believe is undermining their effort to unify the party and prepare for the general election against Senator John McCain.

I must give credit though, MSNBC's post-primary coverage today has given much air time to the opposing view. The heads of both the North Carolina and Indiana Democratic Parties were interviewed separately but essentially said the same thing: the energy and the boosts in registration and operations on the ground that the extended primary is affording their states will be good for the Democrat in November. And I just caught Matt Stoller on MSNBC as well, essentially re-iterating the spirit of his "Democrats Are Going To Be Fine" post from last night:

ANCHOR: Do you think Pennsylvania even matters?

STOLLER: Yeah, we have a huge registration advantage in Pennsylvania, activists are excited, voters voted, it was really good for Democrats. Democracy is a good thing. Now I think both candidates, Obama and Clinton, are leading McCain in Pennsylvania, so it's good.

What Matt is referring to here is this morning's Rasmussen Reports story "While Campaigning for Primary, both Democrats Gain Ground on McCain":

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to compete against each other in Pennsylvania's Presidential Primary, both Democrats have opened a lead over John McCain in the Keystone State.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania finds Obama leading McCain 47% to 39% and Clinton with a 47% to 38% advantage. That's a significant change from a month ago when McCain was essentially even with both Democrats.

It's no accident that the talking heads who've been most ardently pushing the "Democrats in disarray" narrative have been rightwing pundits who have an interest in projecting their opposing party as weak. It would be nice if such a pillar of the liberal blogosphere as HuffPo didn't join the fun.

Update [2008-4-23 14:12:15 by Todd Beeton]:Along these same lines, Bill Daley, Obama's National Co-Chair, made a good point a few minutes ago on MSNBC:

But this is a tough process and as Senator Obama has said he's introducing himself, he is still new to the American people and so in a strange way this process may be very good for him in that he is able to go to parts of this country and make the case as a new fresh face on the American scene that he can make a difference.

via MAL Contends

Most rational, honest observers (those are not whom we see on cable TV) know that absent a historic meltdown by Obama, Hillary Clinton has virtually no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

Her nine-digit win in the quasi-machine state of Pennsylvania excites only those with a vested interest in seeing her continue in the race.

In the end, Zogby and Suffolk U both had Clinton by 10% and therefore win the PA poll sweepstakes. As for PPP, whose turnout model resulted in an Obama lead of 3% as recently as this weekend, tonight they're the ones who get to eat their words and swallow their pride. And I have to say, they do so with wit and integrity over at their blog (really, every pollster should have one.)

First off, please do not call us or e-mail us and tell us we suck! We are well aware, and it does not feel good.

It's pretty easy, based on the exit polls, to see where we went wrong. We had the black vote at 18% when it turned out to be 14-15%, and we had the under 45 vote at 41% when it turned out to be 31%.

I reweighted the results from our final Pennsylvania poll to those figures for race and age, and the result of our poll was flipped- Hillary leading 49-46. Assume she pulled 60% of the undecideds and that gives her the 52-48 lead that the extrapolation from the original exit polls does.

Now, this may have been written before Hillary's lead was revealed to be as large as 10% so I'm still curious to see how they explain a 13 point differential but as Tom Jensen writes, PPP has actually been quite good overall this cycle and this result should not give the outfit a black eye. I assume they'll do far better in NC, which is PPP's home turf. Of course, if they wanted to blend in with the crowd there they haven't done a very good job. Their latest poll has Barack Obama up 25% in NC, a lead that is 10% greater than RCP's 4-poll Ave. and 16% larger than Survey USA's latest.

  First off, hats off to the Clinton campaign...solid win! Congratulations!!

  Now let's analyze the importance of this win tonite. Hillary Clinton will go on...that's a given. But just how much have her nomination, and White House hopes improved? The smart money is they have hardly improved at all. I know I know, Hillary wins big states....Hillary is our first stringer, blah blah...the arguments for why I belive all these arguments are misguided are below the fold

Brian Williams on MSNBC tonight:

It's like mini-tornadoes...Think about how the primary process changes each state as it moves through. Pennsylvania is now altered politically because all of this happened. Bucks County started this process Republican, it's now considered a Democratic county. Montgomery County, Philadelphia suburb, ditto, went from majority Republican registration to majority Democrat because of these new voters. In that way this has kind of changed the political landscape.

Here are some actual numbers:

√ Hillary Clinton: 1,258,245 votes (55 percent)
Barack Obama: 1,042,297 votes (45 percent)

99 percent of precincts reporting (as of 2:03 AM Eastern)

Since Pennsylvania was called for Hillary Clinton 3 hours ago she has raised $2.5 million, 80% of which is from new donors.

Voters do not want this to be over.