The Hawk

Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: News

Hillary Clinton wasn't jogging in gray sweatpants from South Philadelphia to the Art Museum steps or punching raw meat to prepare for the biggest fight of her political life, but she was making a personal appeal to Philadelphia on April 1, and it was no joke.

"Let me tell you something," said Clinton. "When it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people."

Not since 1980, has a Democratic presidential primary mattered in Pennsylvania. It was Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy who was challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination to face then Governor Ronald Reagan.

Now, 28 years later, it is Kennedy's friend Barack Obama facing Clinton in a fiercely contested election for the right to face Senator John McCain in the Nov. 4 presidential election where Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, will be in the political spotlight again.

With 188 delegates at stake on the April 22 primary, Obama and Clinton are circling the state with a central focus on the Philadelphia region. With 13 days until the Pennsylvania primary, Obama and Clinton advertisements are on every television, radio, and bus station. Political pandering techniques by the two candidates have even had a decidedly Philadelphia taste.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, on his recent six-day Pennsylvania bus tour, Obama sipped a Yuengling in Latrobe, fiddled with a Slinky in Johnstown, tasted a chili dog and bowled a 37 in Altoona, fed a calf in State College, sampled homemade chocolates in Lititz, toured a garment factory in Allentown, and nibbled on cheese at Philadelphia's Italian Market.

Between references to Rocky and stops to get a 'wiz wit', Obama and Clinton have battled on real issues. Disagreements over NAFTA, health care, and plans to stimulate the economy are of critical concern to local voters. According to the Population Reference Bureau, Pennsylvania is the second oldest state in the country. Clinton should fare well among Pennsylvania's reliable older voters. Obama, however, is reaching out to younger, college age voters.

To conclude his bus tour, Obama spent April 2 at West Chester University to appear on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. On April 4, Senator Kennedy was scheduled to appear on Hawk Hill to speak about Obama. However, the event was cancelled because Kennedy had to return to Massachusetts. A call to Kennedy's Massachusetts office confirmed that he was in his home state, but claimed to have no knowledge of why the event was cancelled.

Patty Martin of the Saint Joseph's University Office of Government Affairs received an e-mail from Ivan Kaplan of the Obama campaign on the night before the scheduled event to announce the cancellation. Additionally, Martin said students who support Clinton and McCain are reaching out to bring their candidates to campus in the future. Obama's push for the young vote in Philadelphia may be critical to his chances to defeat Clinton in the Keystone State. According to the Saint Joseph's Office of Communications, 46 percent of fulltime undergraduate students are Pennsylvania residents. With six major universities in the Philadelphia area alone, youth turnout may be the deciding factor in the April 22 primary.

Most polls continue to show Clinton with a slowly dissipating lead in Pennsylvania. According to Real Clear Politics, an organization that factors polling done by all institutions and computes an average, as of April 2, Clinton holds a 6.6 percent advantage over Obama.

The final two weeks of campaigning in Philadelphia will be critical to the Democratic Party's nomination process. For the voters, it means two more weeks of speeches, babies kissed, photos taken, and cheesesteaks ordered incorrectly by the abundance of political and media officials who have invaded Philadelphia.

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