UPDATE at the end–As I anticipated writing this piece, I asked my friend Neal Zaslavasky, an Obama supporter, if he would write a response. He has done so and I have posted that unaltered at the end. Please address his remarks with the same civility with which he addressed this post. And bear in mind, his politics notwithstanding, he’s a very cool guy.

Yesterday, I blogged that exit polls in Pennsylvania could tell us a lot about Obama’s chances in the fall. And after reviewing them, they don’t look all that good for the Illinois Senator. And even though Mrs. Clinton won, the exit polls point to some problems the former First Lady will face in the unlikely (yet still possible) event that she wins the Democratic nomination.

That’s not to say John McCain is out of the woods for he will be laboring under the baggage of being the Republican nominee in a year which doesn’t look good for the GOP.

Still, if he were matched up against either of his Democratic opponents and party affiliation were not an issue, he would win this fall in a cakewalk.

As expected, late deciders broke for Mrs. Clinton by a margin of 59-41. This suggests (as all too many have said ad nausem) that Obama has yet to “close the deal.” It should be an especially troubling trend (following similar numbers in Texas and Ohio) that he can’t swing a majority of undecideds even though the media (and some Democrats) have been touting him as the all-but-certain nominee. (55% of Democrats said “they expected him, not Clinton, to be the party’s eventual nominee.“)

How can he expect to win undecideds in the fall (and hold on to his share of Independents) if he can’t convince Democrats even at a time when a vote for him seemed to be a vote for party unity–and the good for the party.

Given Hillary’s negative campaign, it seems not so much that Hillary won, but that Obama lost last night. Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff speculated that the results showed that “Obama must be fairly unpopular in Pennsylvania.”

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Seems I was right on Monday when I blogged that the Democratic race is far from over. Winning by ten points, Hillary did five points better than she needed to do to justify remaining the race, but not well enough to significantly shift its dynamics. Obama remains the frontrunner, though she now has a more serious shot at her party’s nomination.

Republicans could hardly have asked for a better result (though I would have preferred margin a tad closer).

Hillary won even as “two thirds of voters” said she “attacked Obama unfairly,” further cementing her high negatives. Only half said the Illinois Senator unfairly attacked his New York colleague.

Once again, late deciders broke for the former First Lady. (I’ll have more on this in my followup tomorrow to this post.)

If Rush Limbaugh were truly behind Mrs. Clinton’s big win last night, as some have suggested, he certainly succeeded in keeping alive the divisions in the Democratic Party. Reporter David Lightman called the Democratic race “muddled” in “a stalemate without apparent end.” Hillary Clinton’s “harsh tactics” alienated a lot of Obama supporters (via Instapundit).

In their bitterness at their savior’s loss, expect Obama supporters to spew their bile on Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe for calling FoxNews “fair and balanced.” That former Democratic National Committee chair praised the network for being the first to call the Keystone State.

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