LIVEBLOG: Pennsylvania presidential primary results

Michigan Messenger is providing live coverage of the Pennsylvania primary evening. Be sure to check regularly for new content as results are reported.

12:14 am EDT – Parting shot: Gaffe of the night belongs to Terry McAuliffe, who said that Clinton had won Michigan and Florida.

Money and power make some people say all kinds of things, eh?

11:55 pm EDT – And now from the PA Secretary of State’s site — 8,408 out of 9,263 Districts (90.77%) reported across the state:

Democratic Party:
Clinton, Hillary — 1,131,154 votes  54.9%
Obama, Barack — 930,594 votes  45.1%

Republican Party:
Huckabee, Mike –  77,988 votes  11.5%
McCain, John –  494,552 votes  72.8%
Paul, Ron –  107,145 votes  15.8%

Interesting, this: the talking heads on FOX News are asking about John Edwards and the likelihood that he’ll endorse before the North Carolina primary in two weeks.  The consensus is no.  If they’ve moved on to NC, it means we are ready to close up shop for the night.  Let’s check on the delegates and superdelegates in the morning.

11:48 pm EDT –We’re getting ready to wrap up here, and lo, The New York Times editorial for tomorrow’s edition — The Low Road to Victory — crosses my screen.  Here’s the first graf:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Wow. Quite the contrast to Wolf Blitzer’s claim at this very moment on CNN that Clinton needed and achieved a decisive win tonight.

Continued -11:35 pm EDT – CNN is reviewing the popular vote across three different scenarios (with, without, or only some of the delegates from Michigan and Florida). Obama wins in each case by popular vote, with a margin that varies from more than one million popular votes in one case to under 300,000 votes in the other extreme. The CNN folks are reading this and the day’s primary results to mean that the superdelegates should wait to decide. Does this make any sense to you?

11:18 pm EDT – With 7,362 out of 9,263 districts (79.48%) now reported:

Democratic Party:
Clinton, Hillary — 980,271 votes  54.1%
Obama, Barack — 830,829 votes  45.9%

Republican Party:
Huckabee, Mike –  65,423 votes  11.5%
McCain, John –  413,378 votes  72.6%
Paul, Ron –  90,920 votes  16.0%

Still a strong turn out for the Democratic Party, at nearly 2-to-1 to Republican voters.

11:05 pm EDT – Tim “Tweety” Matthews now says that Obama has a problem, “to be blunt about it, with the white working man vote.” At the very same moment that Tweety is uttering these words, the split screen coverage captures Obama shaking hands with an enthusiastic white working man in Evansville, Indiana. Um, whatever you say, Tweety.

11:05 pm EDT – The man has some serious stones. Obama just promised to work tirelessly for this country for “four (pause) or eight years”, which sends the crowd in a tizzy. But they don’t recognize the origin of the source of his next comment, as he reminds them that they “have the power to take their country back.”

10:53 pm EDT – Barack Obama is speaking from Evansville, Indiana, in front of a crowd that clearly doesn’t care what’s going on in Pennsylvania. Obama is speaking comfortably and easily like someone who is winning, not losing, and about his Republican opponent; the crowd cheers vigorously, waving “Change We Can Believe In” signs as Obama says that John McCain does not offer the change the country needs. They break into a chant of “Yes, We Can”, interrupting Obama’s speech briefly.

10:40 pm EDT – Paul Begala and Donna Brazile are picking apart Clinton’s speech; Begala notes as I did that the speech is different from her norm. He says that she’s reduced the wonkiness.

10:30 pm EDT – A total of 5,013 out of 9,263 districts (54.12%) have now reported, according to the PA Secretary of State’s site:

Clinton, Hillary — 643,044 votes  52.7%
Obama, Barack — 577,509 votes  47.3%

The Republican primary data has been straightened out:

Huckabee, Mike –  38,089 votes  11.5%
McCain, John –  238,581 votes  72.3%
Paul, Ron –  53,391 votes  16.2%

10:20 pm EDT – Clinton is speaking now; she is more animated and natural than she has been in any recently televised speech, but her speech is written and in some ways seems practiced.

It occurs to me that ‘walk around’ money may have played a bigger role than expected, now that we’ve heard both Terry McAuliffe make repeated pokes about making donations, and Clinton herself encouraging visits to her website. Did they use cash at the last minute for ‘walk around’ — a traditional practice in Pennsylvania politics that Obama’s campaign eschewed?

10:15 pm EDT – We may have ourselves a new talking point from the Clinton campaign; we’ve heard it twice now, and from different sources.  Lisa Caputo, a Clinton campaign advisor, just said that superdelegates will be asking why Obama can’t close the deal.  She was not in the same studio with Pat Buchanan, who’d made the same comment earlier this evening. Leave us a note in comments if you find this same talking point elsewhere.

10:06 pm EDT – MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann is quizzing Howard Feinman on current results; Feinman says Clinton is winning the ‘deer hunter vote’. Huh? I live in deer hunter country and I guess I didn’t realize they were a constituency.

9:57 pm EDT – With 33.04% of the votes now counted, here’s the tally from the PA Secretary of State’s site:

Clinton, Hillary — 339,099 votes  52.5%
Obama, Barack — 307,241 votes  47.5%

The Republican data at the site is a mess; there are multiple entries for Huckabee’s votes at the moment.  We’ll look at them again in an hour and hope that the Secretary of State’s office has them whipped back into shape.

Tim “Tweety” Matthews and Keith Olberman along with Tim Russert are hashing over the likelihood of a Clinton/Obama ticket. Consensus: No. The rivalry has been unprecedented and too fierce.

9:47 pm EDT – And over at CNN, we now have a panel hosted by Campbell Brown with Bill “Gambling Man” Bennett, Jamal Simmons, Paul Begala, and Donna Brazile. After listening to Bennett’s affirmation-bordering-on-endorsement that the Clintons are winners, Simmons cracks a funny about Bill Clinton, “…is he Gladys Knight, is he a Pip?” Yeah, what is Bill anyhow?

9:41 pm EDT – Oy. Now Terry McAuliffe has migrated to FOXNews. When asked about the perception that Clinton is not truthful, McAuliffe says it’s because Clinton’s campaign was outspent 3-to-1 by Obama’s campaign on advertising, including negative ads. Yup, that’s the key reason why Clinton is not seen as honest…ri-i-ight. Still waiting for laryngitis. Now would be a good time.

9:30 pm EDT – Eugene Robinson and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC with David Gregory and Rachel Maddow: what a combination. Buchanan sounds like he’s shilling for Clinton, arguing that “Obama can’t close the deal”; now that I never thought I’d ever see or hear on cable. Surely must be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

9:00 pm EDT – With only 5-6% of votes counted, most mainstream media outlets are calling the Pennsylvania primary for Hillary Clinton.

Here’s the breakdown from the PA Secretary of State’s office, with 6.76% of the vote now reported:

Clinton, Hillary — 114,408 votes  55.2%
Obama, Barack — 92,806 votes  44.8%

Ron Paul is doing far better than might have been expected in the Republican primary:

Huckabee, Mike –  1,782 votes 9.4%
McCain, John –  12,873 votes  67.9%
Paul, Ron –  4,305 votes  22.7%

The turn-out is obviously much stronger on the Democratic side of the aisle today, comparing total Democratic to total Republican votes.  Mainstream media is clearly ignoring the Republican primary as all coverage is focused on the Democratic race.

Terry McAuliffe is being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, responding for the Clinton campaign; Terry’s obviously hoarse from a lot of public speaking.  We can only hope for laryngitis and soon.