Its not what happened, its what didn’t happen. Both Obama and Clinton did what they had to do in the debate tonight, Clinton hit her main points on electability and appealed to the so called “white men” demographic as her pollsters tell her and Obama hit his main points on changing how politics is done in Washington by putting aside petty partisanship to get things done. Here is what didn’t happen, Obama didn’t close. Thats why he is expecting to loose Pynnsylvania and drag this out to the end. So far he’s had two chances to put this one away, one in New Hampshire and again in Texas. He just hasn’t been able to end this race and I think thats what making the super delegates a bit nervous.

I was keeping an eye on the abc focus group reaction and it looks like Clinton actually might have come out on top in the Debate. While the poll numbers suggest her lead is closing down to 6 points in Pennsylvania, people don’t trust her and they don’t think she is more electable then Obama, she is still in this race looking like a fighter. Obama, on the other hand, looks like he is fighting with one hand tied behind his back worried about hitting her too hard. While he might be trying to build the party up, she is working hard to bring him down (even if it means tearing down the Democratic party) and its working. One perfect example is how he handled Clinton’s made up “sniper fire” story. That should have diminished her chances from slim to non but instead he ended up being on defense all week about the “bitter” comments and Clinton’s message ended up in the news.

I hate to say this but I expect he’ll loose Pennsylvania with enough of a margin for Clinton to continue to poke at Obama’s hercules heel, his unwillingess to land the final blow. Unfortunately, politics is a full contact sport and before he can change the rules, Obama and his war room need to win the negative campaign wars. He can do that and still mainain his inspirational message of hope. Obama’s campaign is clearly trying to win those battles, but they need to do better.

Expect Clinton to continue to make effective use of “free media” to make up the gap in spending. As before, she will try to get her message out by giving the meadia sound-bite punching material against Obama and then appearing on late night shows like Colbert Nation to counter whatever negative feelings may be generated through the negative campaign. It worked in Texas and Ohio. Look out for another record turnout.