Why Hillary Clinton Won Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania Primary like a drum. It was as thorough a double digit thrashing as ever happened in American electoral politics. The reason why has Democrats, who yearn for an end to the quagmire, wondering why.

Here are the reasons why:

Barack Obama made a series of rooky mistakes that a more experienced politician (like Hillary Clinton) would have avoided. His first mistake was hanging around a number of people whom the voters found particularly alarming. To be sure Obama's friendships with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, and Tony Rezko occurred before he embarked on a quest for the Presidency. But surely even in Chicago, numbering among ones boon companions a hate filled bigot, a domestic terrorist, and a scion of organized crime should be seen as a career limiting move.

Next, Obama revealed, at what he thought was a private fund raiser in San Francisco, what he really thought of the voters. Most rich liberals have little but contempt for the common folk. The whole essence of modern liberalism is that the hoi polloi are too ignorant to run their own lives and need the liberal elite to do it for them.

However most liberal politicians are able to conceal this attitude and pretend to love the ragamuffin mob who they secretly despise. The Kennedys, all of them to the Manor born, have been honing this skill for decades. To be sure some politicians slip, like John Kerry, but then he lost his Presidential contest as well.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton did all the right things. While Obama was running around acting like a snob, she suddenly found her inner red neck. From putting back shots of whisky in a working class bar to reminiscing about hunting trips with her dad, Hillary Clinton was able to draw a contrast between her and that rich, city slicker Obama. Mind she likely only drinks heavily when hearing the latest news of her husband's erotic adventures and even more likely hated those hunting trips, but she acted Obama off the stage.

Hillary Clinton pulled a classic maneuver-the last minute attack ad. The ad, which featured the Great Depression, World War II, JFK, the Cold War, 9/11, and Katrina was brilliant. The ad focused on Obama's weak points, including his lack of experience and his tendency to be weak kneed when confronted with America's enemies. At the same time the ad suggested that Hillary Clinton would be a combination of Maggie Thatcher, Boudicca, and Elizabeth I. Threatening to obliterate Iran was also a good touch.

Finally there was Operation Chaos, the whimsical campaign by Rush Limbaugh to get Republicans to switch parties and vote for Hillary Clinton, the better to keep her in the fight and the fight going. Roughly one in ten voters in Pennsylvania were party switchers. The media tried to spin the phenomenon as evidence that the Democrats were popular. But it was, for the most part, Operation Chaos. There will be no living with Rush Limbaugh for a long time.

The result is that the Democratic nomination fight, or as some call it the Democrats' Second Vietnam, will go on. Clinton and Obama will continue to go picnicking one on another while, observing bemused from the side lines, John McCain enjoys himself. One cannot wait for the convention in Denver.