MORNING READ

by Walter Alarkon - 04/23/08 9:28 AM ET

The race goes on, according to the blogosphere. Liberal and conservative bloggers on Tuesday look at Hillary Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania and ask whether Clinton can take her party’s nomination, when Barack Obama will win a big state and how much a prolonged fight hurts Democrats.

Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo determines that the Pennsylvania vote hasn’t changed the race. Though Clinton got her decisive win, her victory was expected, writes Marshall, who has backed Obama. Just like it had done before Tuesday, Clinton’s campaign will claim momentum and try to raise doubts about Obama while Obama’s campaign will say the delegate math is what really matters, Marshall argues.

Though Obama still retains a big lead, Clinton backers are reveling in Tuesday’s result while Obama’s biggest supporter is bummed out. TalkLeft’s Jeralyn writes that superdelegates are going to do some “serious thinking about electability.” Clinton trounced Obama among rural and blue-collar Democrats, Jeralyn notes. Clinton can also win the popular vote and pick up more delegates in Michigan and Florida, Jeralyn writes.

Andrew Sullivan, however, sees Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania as a “near-triumph” of the divisive politics that GOP operatives Karl Rove and Lee Atwater practiced. Sullivan argues that Clinton turned to “smearing and labeling Obama as a far-left, atheist, elite, pansy Godless snob fraud.” But he takes heart in Obama’s support from young voters, whom Sullivan contends want a break from those tactics.

Bloggers on the right continue to enjoy the Democratic brawl. RedState’s Pejman Yousefzadeh believes that Clinton’s victory increases the chances that the Democrats will go to their convention deadlocked, a thought that has Yousefzadeh envisioning party elders “beside themselves with fury and terror.” Rich Lowry at The Corner believes Clinton, who is unlikely to win, is merely serving as a stalking horse for John McCain, softening up Obama before he gets to the general election.

Clinton earns the respect of several bloggers for her Pennsylvania win. The Corner’s Lisa Schiffren writes that Clinton has been able to transform herself from a “Wellesley bluestocking” into a “champion of the little guy.” Bill Kristol at The Weekly Standard tips his hat to Clinton for earning another “back-to-the-wall big-state win” against a candidate who has more money and gets better press.

And amid all the election hysteria, a few liberal bloggers call for reason. The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn sees no point in Democrats panicking. He thinks John McCain should be doing better in polls against the Democrats after stories — Bittergate and Bosnia, to name two — that haven’t put Clinton and Obama in the best light. And Open Left’s Matt Stoller points to Democrat Travis Childers’s near-victory in a Mississippi special election for Congress on Tuesday as evidence that the “public hates Republicans” and that larger factors — Iraq, the economy and McCain’s persona — will hurt McCain in November.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Status Quo Ante – Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo
Hillary Wins Pa. By 10 Points – Jeralyn, TalkLeft
The Near-Triumph Of Rovism – Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish
Worst of All Worlds For Dems – Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish
Pop. Vote: Listen Up, Obama Surrogates – PocketNines, Daily Kos
She Lives – Pejman Yousefzadeh, RedState
McCain’s Stalking Horse – Rich Lowry, The Corner
Grudging Respect – Lisa Schiffren, The Corner
An Impressive Candidate – William Kristol, Weekly Standard
Keith Olbermann’s Head Explodes – Todd Beeton, MyDD
Friends of Obama, Part I – John Hinderaker, Power Line
Race Goes On. Don’t Have a Conniption. – J. Cohn, The Plank
Groundhog Day – Jay Newton-Small, Swampland
MS-01 Special: Dems Are Going To Be Fine – M. Stoller, Open Left