What's a win for Hillary in PA today? For me, it's:

• winning the popular vote by any margin
• winning among rural, older, Catholic and women voters.
• Coming in second only or primarily among African American and younger voters.

The goalpost of PA in my view is neither the pledged delegate count nor a huge total vote margin. It's showing the superdelegates that Hillary has the better (if not only) chance of taking big states like PA, Ohio and Florida in the general election. [More...]

I will be posting any exit polls we get in this post. Right now I got nuthin. Here is a new Open Thread.

Drudge says 52-48 Clinton.

Waiting for Fox to give its exits. Developing . .

Also watching Tweety. He does not look happy. My Tweety Exit Poll tells me that Hillary probably beat expectations.

AP exit polls

VOTERS' DEMOGRAPHICS ... As expected, the Pennsylvania Democratic electorate was overwhelmingly white, while a little more than half of voters were women. About three in 10 were age 65 or over. A quarter had household family income of more than $100,000 last year and about as many reported having a postgraduate degree.

Ok, what do you folks think? Me, I am a believer in SUSA so, assigning undecideds, I go Clinton 54-46. How about you?

This is an Open thread.

I like Mark Halperin today. This is a fair assessment I think.

By Big Tent Democrat

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By Big Tent Democrat

Via Mark Halperin, here is the Obama expectations spin:

The Bar for Clinton in Pennsylvania. With all eyes on today’s contest, one thing is clear: Pennsylvania is considered a state tailor-made for Hillary Clinton, and by rights she should win big. She has family roots in the state, she has the support of the Democratic establishment—including Governor Rendell’s extensive network—and former President Clinton is fondly remembered.

What you would expect. More interesting is the ongoing contest spin:

NBC's Brian Williams just interviewed Clinton campaign Communications Director Howard Wolfson on MSNBC(noon ET.) Here's a recap:

Williams: Would a loss today end the race? A loss would be very bad indeed and that's why Obama is spending so much trying to knock us out. We feel good about today, even though he's outspent us 3:1, now its up to the voters.

On the polls: Williams: Young people don't have land lines. There's a chance Hillary will overskew in the polls. Is that a concern? Wolfson: I've learned not to believe too much in polls. Mentions New Hampshire. We don't know what's going to happen, that's the beauty of democracy.

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Marc Ambinder, the DNC sems intent on losing Florida and Michgian in November:

Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Alcee Hastings, both of Florida, are accusing the DNC of slow-walking several appeals to the party's rules and bylaws committee. Those appeals, if successful, could reinstate Florida's superdelegates or even part of its regular convention delegation. In a letter sent to the chairs of the rules and bylaws committee today, Hastings and Nelson say that the DNC staff is keeping secret its recommendation about the validity of those appeals. They imply that the DNC is trying to drag the process into June, so no action is taken until after the regular primary period ends.

. . . The letter suggests that Hastings and Nelson want the press to focus on two themes: (a) the idea that the DNC is trying to "solve" the Florida problem with the kind of back-room deal that DNC chairman Howard Dean promised to avoid. (b) that the RBC risks its legitimacy if it fails to litigate the matter quickly and publicly.

The DNC has proven to be the gang that can't shoot straight. The incompetence is stunning.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

In some ways, reactions like this one to Hillary Clinton's "umbrella of deterrence" proposal explains why some Dems shiver in fear at any mention of national security issues in an election. Matt Stoller writes (see also Matt Yglesias' flip flop, he did not object to this proposal BEFORE it became a Hillary proposal; CDS strikes againYglesias clarifies that he is not objecting to the proposal but to Wolfson's bizarre denial; fair point; see also Noam Scheiber ("Her answers on the policy questions were pretty lucid and authoritative--particularly on the Middle East "nuclear umbrella" idea, which sounds a little crazy when you first hear about it, but which she convinced me was an anti-proliferation proposal."):

A massive new security commitment in this volatile region is just insane. And the belligerent rhetoric - 'totally obliterate them' - what the hell? It's like 7th graders with nuclear weapons. I'm having a harder and harder time seeing the difference between McCain and Clinton. Perhaps Clinton will be more saddened than McCain's gleefully militarism as she launches an attack on Iraq [sic], but that's just tone.

Perhaps Stoller's comment just reflects ignorance or perhaps something more, but to equate a proposal that would actually obviate the possibility of a preemptive attack against an Iran that acquires nuclear weapons with John McCain's neocon view that the U.S. must take military action PRIOR to Iran's gaining nuclear weapons has the concept upside down.

Let me quote again from Harvard Middle East Studies article I discussed earlier:

By Big Tent Democrat

One of the biggest problems in the DNC remains the horrible Donna Brazile. Look at this divisive rhetoric:

There's a group around [Sen. Clinton] that really wants to take the fight to the convention. They don't care about the party. It scares me, and that's what scares a lot of superdelegates.

What a harmful figure Donna Brazile is to the Democratic Party. Apparently she cares not at all about unifying the Democratic Party. She should resign from the DNC immediately.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Hillary Clinton's "Umbrella of deterrence" proposal provides a compelling substantive issue that should be discussed in a continuing campaign. I think it is an excellent proposal. Noam Scheiber wrote:

Her answers [in the Olbermann interview]on the policy questions were pretty lucid and authoritative--particularly on the Middle East "nuclear umbrella" idea, which sounds a little crazy when you first hear about it, but which she convinced me was an anti-proliferation proposal.

Predictably, the A-List Obama blogs dwelled on inanities, ironic after these same blogs ripped ABC for just that type of nonsense. For the record, we have a detailed statement from Hillary Clinton on the issue:

Update: More from CNN on Obama refusing pressers for ten days or more and how the campaign teased them about it.

Barack Obama got cranky with a reporter today when asked a question at a diner about Jimmy Carter meeting with Hamas.

As Sen. Hillary Clinton was preparing to campaign here today, Sen. Barack Obama was meeting with voters at a diner and apparently pretty hungry. "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" he said, when asked a foreign policy question by a reporter at the Glider Diner.

What's the big deal? Why is this news? Because, as Jay Newton-Small at Time's Swampland explains, Obama hasn't given a press conference in 10 days and the reporters had no other opportunity to ask him.

Journalists in general don’t relish asking politicians questions in awkward situations, like on a golf course or over a waffle. But sometimes our hands are forced: Obama hasn’t given a press conference in 10 days and the questions, some of them -- like Hamas -- rather important, are starting to build up. If he wins the nomination he'll be running again John McCain, whose philosophy is to give the press total access to the point of saturation; Obama might consider holding avails with a little more regularity. Then, maybe, reporters would let him to eat in peace.

Like Kevin Drum says, this is baffling.

Obama just doesn't give the press much access, sometimes shutting them down for weeks at a time. Why? Does this make sense to anyone else as a campaign strategy? I'm baffled by it.

Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's Communications Director, has a blog post up on Hillary's site called "Primary Eve." It's chock full of links to good reading refuting all the latest attacks on Hillary.

It ends with a link to my post on electability:

In Case You Missed It: “Electability: Why Hillary Is More Likely to Beat McCain” Read more.

Thanks, Howard! And yes, I hope everyone reads it. Hillary Clinton is the better candidate to beat John McCain this fall.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

One of Hillary Clinton's best moments in the Olbermann interview (ironically, Olbermann revealed the limitations of his abilities in his discussion of the answer later in the program with Richard Wolffe, he has no knowledge at all of deterrence theory), was her answer about the "umbrella of deterrence" against future potential Iranian attacks, especially nuclear, against its neighbors. (Here is a Harvard Middle East strategy article discussing the theory.) I am borrowing the Countdown transcript from this dkos diary (which also reveals stunning ignorance of deterrence theory):