Opinion: Hillary Clinton thanks Pennsylvania and looks beyond

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With Sen. Barack Obama reading the tea leaves and traveling to Indiana before results were known, an ebullient Sen. Hillary Clinton stayed in Pennsylvania tonight to thank its citizens for her convincing Democratic primary victory and to take advantage of a national TV audience to lay out the themes for the next several weeks.

In her remarks, Clinton said, ‘The stakes are high. The challenges are great. The possibilities endless.’ She said she would be ready as president from day one and promised to fight for the middle class that provided her approximate 10 point victory in the Keystone State.

With yet another convincing win in a major heartland state after next-door Ohio, Clinton indicated she was not even considering ending her uphill battle to catch Obama in delegates. To boos from her supporters in the downtown Philadelphia hotel, Clinton said some people had suggested she drop out of the race. ‘Some people counted me out,’ she said, ‘and told me to drop out. But Americans don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit either.’

As one indication of her desperate need for funds to match Obama’s flush campaign effort, she even slipped in mention of her website. ‘The future of this campaign is in your hands,’ she said. ‘You know you can count on me.’

Intelligently, she left the numerous required thank-yous to local politicians and dignitaries until near the end of her remarks, just in case, as before, Obama started to speak during her speech and the networks broke away to cover him. But this time she got everything in.

And she lead the crowd in a chant, ‘Yes, we will.’

‘We still have a lot of work ahead of us,’ Clinton told the receptive crowd. ‘I might stumble and I might get knocked down. But as long as you are with me, I’ll get right back up.’

Which, come to think of it, she did with this win. (See video below.)

-- Andrew Malcolm