Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.
Next stop, Pennsylvania. From now until April 22--that's seven straight weeks--the diverse, delegate-rich and potentially decisive Keystone State will be ground zero in the epic 2008 Democratic contest."It could be like Iowa on steroids," said state Democratic Party chairman T.J. Rooney today. "It will be wild, is what it will be." This morning, Stumper talked to pollster and poly-sci professor G. Terry Madonna of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., who knows the state inside and out, about what to expect--and what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have to do to win. Excerpts:
How important is Pennsylvania now?
The stakes are huge. Clinton has to prove that she can continue her streak. Obama has to stop her. The Democrats have an incredible dilemma on their hands. It starts in part from the fact that he can't win the nomination on pledged delegates alone--and she can't catch him.
Pennsylvania the last of the big states. It has 158 of the remaining 600 delegates to be elected. It's one of the three pivotal states in the last two elections. It was the sixth closest election in the general in percentage terms. It had the largest number of electoral votes among the most competitive states.
For Hillary, Pennsylvania gives her a chance to sustain the comeback and continue to make the argument that she's won the big electoral-vote states and the big swing states. She may not be able to catch Obama in terms of pledged delegates, but winning Pennsylvania would give her some claim, for what it's worth, that she should be the nominee down the line. On the other hand, if he can upset her here, it may be over. If it comes down to superdelegates, Obama can then make the case that he broke her streak in these big industrial states.
So Hillary is the favorite?
Definitely Hillary. I won't say that Obama can't win. I'm just saying that this is her state. One way to think about Pennsylvania is that it's like New Jersey and Ohio. The eastern part, particularly from Allentown south to Philly and in the burbs, is more like New Jersey, which went for her. And the western part of the state, the southwestern part of the state, it's more like northeastern Ohio--which also went for her. There's more of New Jersey and Ohio in Pennsylvania than there is Wisconsin and South Carolina.
You can see that in the polls so far. Clinton has had this commanding lead--15 to 23 points until last month in a poll that I did. Another poll shows about 10 to 11, 12, 13, in that range. Which is pretty typical of what we've seen before, where the race tightens up as the primary approaches and the campaigning gets more intense. But still, the advantage is hers right now. And don't forget: Pennsylvania is a closed primary. Republicans and Independents can't participate. So far, Obama has not won a primary with Democrats only. Pennsylvania will be a real test of that.
Frankly, this is Hillary's home turf. Her dad was born in Scranton and the Rodhams summered at Lake Winola when she was younger. The Clintons have deep roots in Pennsylvania. Paul Begala and James Carville... Carville ran Bob Casey's campaigns for governor. They ran Harris Wofford in 1991, who beat Dick Thornburgh in a special election. You could even say they got to where they are because they won Casey and won Wofford, and then Clinton hired them. So they know Pennsylvania backwards and forwards, probably more than any other state. They may be unofficial advisers, but you can bet they'll keep popping up. What's more, Bill Clinton is very close to the Democratic political community in the southeastern part of the state. He's been a frequent visitor. Gov. Ed Rendell supports her. The popular new mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, supports her as well.
You said that much of Pennsylvania looks a lot like Ohio. Are there any hints in last night's exit polls that point to a particular outcome in Pennsylvania?
Well, Clinton did better with white males than she did in previous primaries, and that will certainly help if it carries over to Pennsylvania. She did extraordinarily well with seniors--and Pennsylvania has the third-largest population of seniors (as a percentage of the electorate) in the country. They're a very good demographic for her. The other good demographic for her: Catholics. In Pennsylvania, 33 to 35 percent of our voters are Catholics, which is higher than the national average. Clinton won two-thirds of Catholics in Ohio, and they made up a smaller percentage (23 percent) there than they do here. So Catholics could give her a big boost. We also have fewer African-Americans. Only about 15 percent of the Democratic voters will be African-American. There was over 55 percent in South Carolina when Obama won.
Ohio was about 18 percent black, so it should be similar share of the electorate, right?
Right. Which means that they'll be about as helpful to Obama here as they were in Ohio.
In Ohio, about 20 percent of Democratic voters said that race was a factor in their decision--and three-quarters of them went for Clinton. So far, we've seen that Obama does worse among white working-class voters in states with moderate black populations, like Ohio, as compared to states like Wisconsin, which boast a smaller black vote but are otherwise demographically similar--perhaps, some have written, because historical tensions. Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, recently said that there is a meaningful number of Pennsylvania Dems who are "not ready to vote for an African-American candidate." Could race be a problem for Obama in Pennsylvania?
Well, 65 percent of our black population is in one city: Philadelphia. The working class parts of the state are pretty much all-white. There are very few African-Americans west of the Susquehanna River, and those are there areas where these white working-class voters dominate. Here's an example. I polled and followed carefully the election of Mayor Nutter in 2007. It was a primary with three white candidates and two black candidates in the city of Philadelphia. There was no race baiting and no race politics, and the winning black mayor got the largest percentage of white votes that any black candidate has received in the city's history. There's proximity with working-class neighborhood white guys in South Philly. Are there some people who won't vote for someone because he's black? Of course. Do I think it's a huge motivating factor? Absolutely not. I'm not going to tell you that racism is over. But it may not be much of a factor in Pennsylvania.
Let's talk about geography. Which areas will each of the candidates be mining for votes?
Obama will do well among upscale, educated Democrats in the Philadelphia suburbs. In fact, I would be surprised if he didn't win those voters. But if Clinton closes the gap and doesn't let him win there decisively, her advantages accrue in the southwest and the northwest--in the old mining and mill towns that are much like northeastern Ohio. They're Catholic, union, less well-off socially and economically. That's a whole cadre of counties in and around Pittsburgh, which is more of an atypical midwestern city than an eastern city. Culturally it's very different from Philly.
So that's where Hillary will be focusing?
Right. You've also got the northeast, Lackawanna and Luzerne, which is Casey country--as in the former governor, Bob Casey, Sr., and his son, the current U.S. senator, who's neutral in this race. [Jimmy] Carter and other centrist Democrats have done well in the northeast because of the same ethnic, Irish, Polish, Italian Catholics who dominate that region, much like the southwest. So she'll do well there.
How can Obama win?
There are two swing areas. The first is the Lehigh Valley, which is the Allentown region. It's a mixture--much more diverse ethnically, socio-economically and occupationally. The other is south-central Pennsylvania: Lancaster, Dauphin, Cumberland and York Counties. While they're Republican in total registration, they're big counties--meaning that there are plenty of Democratic votes to be had. I give him the edge in the 'burbs. If he wins Philly, he's got to hold her off in the southeast, southwest and northeast, as I indicated. He has to cut her edge down there. He's got to figure out a way not to lose 60-40 among seniors. Then winning the two swing areas would be helpful.
How does he make it happen?
In polls that I did in congressional races two years ago, we found that in the Philly and the 'burbs, the Iraq war was more important than it was in the state as a whole. Bush was more unpopular there than he was in the state as a whole. That means the Philadelphia region is one place where Obama can talk about foreign policy and the Iraq war. But overall, Iraq between January and February dropped among D's and R's as a concern. Only about one-in-five Democrats now say that it's their most important issue.
Plus it's most salient where he's already strong.
Right. Once you move outside of the Philly suburbs, it's much more about the economy, jobs and health care. In Pennsylvania, Democrats everywhere but the southeast are fairly conservative: pro-gun, pro-life. What we used to call Reagan Democrats.
Do you think Obama's strength among Republicans and independents could help him with Reagan Dems?
No. They're his weakest demographic. He didn't do well among them in Ohio. I wish for this sake of this argument that I could see a plan that he could use. But it's complicated. Perhaps what he can do is go out to the regions in the southwest and the northeast and make the argument that the Bush policies have been terrible, that he's about job creation, the same stuff... There aren't a lot of new arguments he can make.
Meaning that the next few weeks are going to sound a lot like Ohio.
Well, Pennsylvania's not in as dire straits in terms of job loss as Ohio and Michigan. The state will end the year with a surplus. There's moderate job growth--not as bad as you might think for an old industrial area. The economy is going through a transition. But yeah. There are still job losses, and it's still a concern that has to be dealt with.
How expensive will this crucial, seven-week battle be?
In the Philadelphia media market? Do you have a calculator? Philly is the fourth most expensive television market in the country. There are six television markets total in the state. Pittsburgh is the 19th, Harrisburg/Lancaster metro is 42nd, 43rd. You can spend $5 to $8 million on Philadelphia television. So we could see $10 to $15 million from TV alone. Wouldn't shock me at all. To give you a better sense of it, Gov. Rendell raised $42 million in 2002, and in 2006 he raised $30 million. In 2002, it took $15 to $18 million to beat Bob Casey in the primary.
So we'll see spending on a similar scale?
We're talking a $20 million primary. They can't afford to get scooped here. It may all be about the delegates in the end, but right now it's about momentum for the supers and the expectation of who can do well where. Each has a huge stake in the outcome.
The tone, especially from Clinton, has become much sharper over the past few weeks. Will Pennsylvanians mind all the snipping and sniping?
Pennsylvanians are used to rough-and-tumble elections. We're accustomed to pretty brutal campaigns. This isn't a state for the faint of heart. You go to Philadelphia, where there are indictments... It's a tough environment here. Plus, I think Hillary proved in Ohio and Texas that playing nice didn't win and not playing nice did. I imagine she'll continue on a similar track.
More of the same...
Absolutely. And maybe some new wrinkles.
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