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 Well-heeled liberal Democrats are desperate to see Senator Hillary Clinton through the door. But she refuses to go. Having won Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, she now lives to fight until May 6 when the next primaries in North Carolina and Indiana are due.

That she would win in Pennsylvania was never in doubt. Clinton sceptics wanted to know if she could generate a substantive lead over Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania. Having secured a ten percentage point lead over Obama, Clinton sees no reason to quit.

Conventional wisdom throws seemingly solid math at her. It runs as follows: Despite Clinton’s good showing in Pennsylvania she cannot catch up with Obama’s lead either in the popular vote or the delegate count. She is also running out of money. If politics was math, robots would be running modern democracies. The very thrill of democratic politics lies in its unpredictability.

Clinton is trying to turn the conventional wisdom on its head. She is asking why Obama is unable to “close the sale” with the Democratic party voters. By underlining that Obama has not been able to win the big states that matter in the November elections, Clinton hopes to convince the super delegates that Obama is unelectable.

White working classes

The one important group that has kept Clinton’s candidacy alive and cast a shadow over Obama’s campaign is the white working class. According to exit polls in Pennsylvania, Clinton won 75 per cent of the vote from white Democrats with a high school diploma or less — three times Obama’s vote among these voters — compared to 56 per cent of those with more education.

Among white Democratic voters earning less than $50,000 a year, Clinton received nearly 66 per cent votes while Obama got 24. Clinton won 71 per cent of the vote from white members of labour union households, leading Obama by a striking 43 points.

Sixty-nine per cent of white voters who attend church once a week supported Clinton, while 31 per cent supported Obama. Among those non-religious white voters, Obama received a 52 per cent majority of the vote, compared to 48 per cent for Clinton.

Among white Catholics, who have traditionally picked the eventual winners, Clinton got 71 per cent of the vote. Clinton also did well among white Protestants, although with a much smaller margin — 59 per cent to 41 per cent for Obama.

Obama’s remarks about ‘bitter’ small towners clinging onto ‘religion and guns’ amidst economic frustrations, made him vulnerable to charges of ‘elitism’ and ‘political condescension’ and have cost him dearly in Pennsylvania.

The larger problem is that Obama, who gets strong support from white liberals and upper middle classes as well as an overwhelming majority of African American voters in the Democratic Party, has been unable to connect with the majority of simple, god-fearing blue collar folk in the American heartland. Clinton will highlight this vulnerability in the next few weeks to force the Democrats to rethink in her favour.

Southern discomfort

As the Democratic race continues, Clinton is expected to narrowly win in the mid-western state Indiana, which has a large white working class population like in Pennsylvania. Polls also suggest that Obama enjoys a significant lead over Clinton in the southern state of North Carolina. Together they offer 187 delegates, 29 more than Pennsylvania.

To convince the party that the tide has begun to turn in her favour, Clinton must not only win Indiana, but must stop Obama in North Carolina. African Americans form nearly 22 per cent of the southern state and form nearly 40 per cent of registered voters in the Democratic Party.

North Carolina has also become home to a range of new white upper middle class professionals who have rallied around Obama. According to some polls, Obama enjoys an unbeatable 16 per cent lead over Clinton. The challenge for Clinton lies in finding a way to regain at least a part of the African American vote that once swore by Bill and Hillary. It will take a miracle; but then two weeks is a long time in politics.

The writer is professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg