The pundits are wrong to say that Hillary Clinton’s nine-point victory in Pennsylvania last night helped her survive another day – and she was delusional (if not dishonest) to proclaim that her win will “turn the tide” in the presidential race. Clinton may have won in a state where nearly 60% of voters were over the age of 50, but she only netted approximately 11 delegates – while Barack Obama is ahead nationwide by about 160 delegates. Obama will win the North Carolina primary on May 6th (and will likely win Indiana on the same day), erasing any gain in delegates that Clinton made in the Keystone State. In a state that worked against him demographically, Obama made in-roads among white males and working-class voters – which bodes well for him in the general election. Meanwhile, the New York Times – which had earlier endorsed Clinton over Obama – published an editorial today blasting her “mean, vacuous and desperate” campaign.

Last night, as the polls were closing in Pennsylvania, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made an observation that media pundits should have fessed up to long ago: it’s their fault why this campaign has dragged on forever. “I think in the effort of the media to try to keep this game going,” he said, “we’ve created the delusion that somehow this race is still open. I don’t think it is open. I think if you look at the numbers, Barack has to really blow it in the weeks ahead to lose.”

Which is only what Beyond Chron has been arguing for a while. Over a month ago, I explained that if Clinton won Pennsylvania by 20 points – which is where polls showed the race back then – she would only net at most 32 delegates. Last night, she won by nine points – and will net about 11 delegates. North Carolina (where Obama is way ahead) and Indiana (where he’s slightly ahead) combined have the same number of delegates as Pennsylvania. In other words, the nomination fight is over: Hillary Clinton cannot win.

Pennsylvania was never a state whose demographics favored Obama – and his campaign wisely played down expectations about last night’s result. 32% of voters were over the age of sixty, and a whopping 59% were over fifty – the oldest electorate outside of Florida. Pennsylvania has a lot of white working-class voters – the Joe Six-Pack types who don’t vote Democratic – and even Governor Ed Rendell (a Clinton supporter) admitted that most people in his state won’t vote for an African-American.

Considering those odds, it’s remarkable how well Obama pulled it off – and exit poll data shows that he improved among voters that he’ll need in the general election.

In Ohio on March 4th, Obama lost the white male vote to Clinton by a 16-point margin. Last night in Pennsylvania, he cut her lead down to single digits. Among seniors, Clinton crushed Obama in Ohio by 41 points. Last night in Pennsyvlania, he narrowed that gap down to nineteen.

This is important because it suggests that these voters are warming to Obama, and come November will support him over John McCain. In the worst political analysis of last night’s results, the SF Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci concluded that the bittergate controversy had a big impact – because Clinton beat Obama among white, working-class voters. But Clinton was way ahead among those voters for weeks, so if anything last night’s results proved that this media-manufactured “scandal” didn’t sink Obama.

While Hillary Clinton was celebrating her victory in the Keystone State, her old allies at the New York Times wrote a scathing editorial about her campaign’s latest conduct. Calling it “mean, vacuous, desperate, and pander-filled,” the Times wrote that it is “past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.”

But that’s all she has left – unless Clinton realizes that she won’t be the Democratic nominee in 2008. The race has dragged on for too long, and Clinton’s rash of TV commercials featuring Osama bin Laden and character assassinations on Obama are taking its toll on the party’s chances in November. I don’t believe she should drop out because she can’t win – she has to step down because by her own tactics has forfeited the right to stay in the race.

Last night didn’t change anything, because by not losing Pennsylvania Clinton can justify to her supporters why she needs to stay in the race. But it did not alter the outcome of the nomination, because that conclusion has already been reached. And now it’s up to her supporters to acknowledge the obvious.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In his spare time and outside of regular work hours, Paul Hogarth volunteered on Obama’s field operation in San Francisco. He also ran to be an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.