NYT/Reuters: Pennsylvania: Safe Win For Clinton? Maybe Not ..
By REUTERS
Published: March 9, 2008
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Pennsylvania, the biggest remaining state in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, should be a safe win for Hillary Clinton but experts say there are pockets of vulnerability for Barack Obama to exploit. "If the election were held today it would probably be Senator Clinton by 10 points, but seven weeks in this crazy race, anything can happen," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute....
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Clinton was ahead in the polls by as much as 20 percentage points at the start of the year but Obama's string of victories in February pushed him closer, narrowing the gap to just 6 points in the latest Quinnipiac poll in late February.
"Pennsylvania has more Catholics, more union members, more older voters, and fewer African Americans," said Terry Madonna, politics professor at Franklin & Marshall College. "This is pretty much a Clinton state. It's hers to lose."...
Sean Smith, a spokesman for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, argued that the demographics claimed as friendly by the Clinton campaign had helped him win Wisconsin and could do so again. "We did extremely well in Wisconsin with the same types of voters," he said, pointing to older voters who were "absolutely open" to Obama's message of hope and change and "bringing the country together to solve our problems."
Richards of Quinnipiac said Obama needed to do three things to have a chance of winning: boost turnout among black voters, which is historically low in primaries, motivate students at the state's numerous universities and colleges, and win over affluent voters in the Philadelphia suburbs where Clinton is vulnerable....
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Clinton's biggest vulnerability may be that expectations are high for her. "If she loses or only wins narrowly, her candidacy will be weakened, perhaps fatally," Madonna said....
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-usa-politics-pennsylvania.html