Clinton’s survival ‘hangs on double-digit victory’

SIMPLE victory may not be enough for Hillary Clinton in tomorrow’s Pennsylvania Democratic primary, as Barack Obama tries yet again to kill off her never-say-die White House bid.

Many believe Clinton needs a double-digit triumph, in an economically struggling state packed with blue-collar voters who normally flock to her cause, to dispel the idea that Obama is becoming the inevitable nominee.

The former first lady, trailing Obama in nominating wins, delegates, and some national polls, needs to win big to freshen her rationale for staying in the protracted struggle for the nomination.

“She is facing a situation now where the numbers are virtually impossible. Now the question has come for many Democrats, why continue now if you can’t actually win?” said Julian Zelizer, a public affairs professor at Princeton University.

Clinton is making a fervent case to Democratic superdelegates, the party officials who will now effectively crown the nominee, since neither candidate is likely to reach the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to win outright.

She says only she can inspire the party’s core power-base of working-class voters, crucial in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which can go either Democratic or Republican in an election.

Clinton used a head-to- head debate with Obama last week to pound him over his understanding of American values, after he said some US workers were “bitter”, though polls seemed to show she hurt herself as much as him.

Over the weekend she faced her own struggle with her party’s base, after being caught on tape condemning the influence of MoveOn.org — an advocacy group and major fundraiser for the Democratic Party — in the caucus nominating contests won by Obama.

If Clinton wins tomorrow, the parameters of the party endgame and the subsequent nine nominating contests will be set by her margin of victory.

“I expect her to win; the question is, will it be by 10 or more, or 10 or less, and the question is, how much less,” said Tom Baldino, professor of political science at Wilkes University, Pennsylvania.

An average of Pennsylvania polls by independent website RealClearPolitics.com shows Clinton up by nearly 6%, though some recent polling has the race down to a few points.

Clinton aides are downplaying talk of a big win.

“This is not going to be a blowout,” said Clinton’s Pennsylvania state director Nick Clemons, saying Obama had narrowed his boss’s once gaping lead here by outspending her three- to-one in advertising.