It's possible that, irrespective of my actual political beliefs, I've been subconsciously rooting for Senator Clinton these past two months.
Like many Penn students, I was more than a little jealous of college campuses in states with primaries and caucuses falling on or before February 5, Super Tuesday. Some pundits thought that day's contests would settle both the Democratic and Republican races. But they didn't, at least on the Democratic side.
Clinton's campaign suffered 11 straight losses to Senator Obama after Super Tuesday, but its survival now means the April 22 Pennsylvania primary is critically important. And to say the least, that's made life quite interesting.
The Daily Pennsylvanian's writers and editors have quickly risen to the challenge of bringing you the intensifying race with insightful news coverage, analysis and opinion.
And at dailypennsylvanian.com, we've published video highlights of Philadelphia-area campaign events and observations from our political reporters in a new elections blog.
Throughout, we've also been vigilant about our objectivity. As a small community newspaper, it can be difficult to uphold "equal space" standards.
This semester, we have published 434 instances of the word "Clinton" (including those related to President Clinton's non-campaign visit to Penn), 143 of "McCain" and 398 of "Obama."
This analysis is only skin-deep, but I was pleased to learn that we mention Senators Clinton and Obama with such similar frequency. Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, receives far less attention because he is not actively campaigning in Pennsylvania.
There's a lot to look forward to in our upcoming primary coverage. In particular, we expect to bring you guest columns from each of the campaigns. And the Opinion Board plans to endorse both a Democratic and a Republican candidate on April 17.
As always, I encourage you to interact with the DP by commenting on articles online, writing letters to the editor and submitting guest columns.
David Lei is a Wharton sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y. and executive editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail is lei@dailypennsylvanian.com.
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