Money can't buy love for Obama in Pennsylvania

Dan Balz:

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The senator from Illinois still leads in the number of pledged delegates and the popular vote. He is almost certain to hold the delegate lead and will probably maintain the popular-vote advantage when the primaries end in early June. Perhaps more important, Clinton's campaign is nearly broke, whereas Obama has an enormous amount of money in the bank to throw into the next two contests and beyond.

But for the second time in seven weeks, first in the Texas and Ohio primaries and now in Pennsylvania, Obama did not deliver a decisive blow against Clinton when he had an opportunity to bring the race to an end, despite heavily outspending her and waging an aggressive and negative campaign in the final days. His advisers had hoped to hold Clinton's victory margin to mid-single digits and appeared to have fallen short of that goal.

"He broke every spending record in this state trying to knock us out of this race," Clinton told her supporters in Philadelphia last night. "Well, the people of Pennsylvania had other ideas."

Obama's loss in Pennsylvania raised anew questions about his ability to win the big industrial states that will be critical to the Democrats' hopes of winning back the White House in November. In the coming days, Clinton's camp will try to play on those doubts with uncommitted superdelegates -- who have been moving toward Obama over the past two months -- urging them to remain neutral until the primaries are over.

Geoff Garin, Clinton's co-chief strategist, called Pennsylvania a potential turning point in the Democratic race. "Senator Obama had every opportunity to go out and make his case and show he could win an industrial state," he said. "The fact that Hillary not just held her own but gained strength at the end gives us real momentum going into Indiana and North Carolina."

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She probably has a shot in Indiana, but does not have much of one in North Carolina. What she has really shown is that despite all that MoveOn money pouring into Obama'a campaign they can't buy the election. George Bush showed the same thing in 2004 when he was out spent by the anti war left. These guys know how to make a real investment in defeat, but they don't know how to win. When you consider that Obama outspent Clinton by two or three to one and still lost by 10 points that tells you people are not buying his message.