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Posted: Wednesday, 23 April 2008 3:51PM

The Osgood File: Clinton Keeps Presidential Hopes Alive with Pennsylvania Win; The Road Ahead For Clinton and Obama; America Leads the Way in Prison Population; Offshoring Jobs Marches On


New York (CBS)  -- CLINTON KEEPS PRESIDENTIAL HOPES ALIVE WITH PENNSYLVANIA WIN

Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania by a ten point margin over Barack Obama 55 percent to 45 percent. She picked up 82 more convention delegates to Obama's 69. So Clinton lives to fight another day.

"Here in Pennsylvania, you made your voices heard, and because of you, the tide is turning," said Clinton.

Obama knew he couldn't win in Pennsylvania.

"But we worked hard.  And we traveled across the state, to big cities and small towns -- to factories and VFW halls.  And now, six weeks later, we closed the gap," said Obama.

Obama now has 1710 delegates. Clinton has 1584.

Hillary Clinton is now taking a page out of her husband's "Comeback Kid" playbook.

"I might stumble and I might get knocked down.  But as long as you'll stand with me, I will always get right back up," said Clinton.

Obama's campaign still has more delegates than Clinton's.  And a lot more money. 

"More than ever, I need your help to continue this journey.  This is your campaign, and this is your victory," said Clinton.

By last night Obama had already moved on to Indiana. There are primaries there and in North Carolina on May 6th.

"We believe that the challenges that we face are bigger than the smallness of our politics.  And we know that this election is our chance to change it," said Obama.

His message?  That Hillary Clinton is typical of Washington.

"And instead of fighting for health care or jobs, Washington ends up fighting over the latest distraction of the week.  It happens year after year after year after year -- and this is our chance to say:  Not this year!" said Obama.

As for Clinton?

"The American people don't quit, and they deserve a President who doesn't quit, either!" said Clinton.

 

THE ROAD AHEAD FOR CLINTON AND OBAMA

To vote in yesterday's Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, You had to be a registered Democrat. And it turns out that nine percent of the primary voters yesterday had changed their party affiliation since the beginning of this year.  About half of these had been mobilized to vote for Obama and presumably did.  But the others were Republicans, who did so apparently so they could vote in the Democratic Party and keep the Obama/Clinton show going and the Democrats candidates beating each other about the head and shoulders as long as possible.

It's what conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh calls Operation Chaos. And if that was it's intention, it seems to be working.

If Hillary Clinton's victory in the Pennsylvania Primary was ten percent, and nine percent of the people who voted yesterday had only recently registered as Democrats, it means they could have had a telling effect in keeping Clinton's campaign going.  CBS News Chief Political Consultant Mark Ambinder doubts that it will change anything.

"Hillary Clinton's climb is nearly as uphill as it was before Pennsylvania -- even with a large victory," said Ambinder.

Vaughn Ververs, the senior political editor at CBSNews.Com, calls it a high hurdle race for Clinton.

"She's sort of in this leapfrog situation, where she's going from one obstacle to the next to the next to the next.  As long as she keeps clearing them, she's going to stay in this rac," said Ververs.

The Clinton camp needs more than just wins, says Jeff Greenfield, the Chief CBS News political correspondent.

"They need a narrative in which the coverage says: 'You know what?  The Democrats are beginning to take a second look -- and maybe Obama's not so certain to be the nominee,'" said Greenfield.

Another thing she needs, says Greenfield, is money.

"You know they say 'Money is the mother's milk of politics,' and the Clinton campaign is running dry.  Obama has about five times as much cash.  Clinton has a lot of debt.  Without a lot of money, she's done," said Greenfield.

What she did win in Pennsylvania is something money can't buy, says Mark Ambinder, and that's time.

"I think the only thing that's changed is that Hillary Clinton has two more weeks to make her argument -- and the doubts about Barack Obama have increased, but only slightly.  I don't think this changes the fundamental direction of the race, which seems to be headed toward an eventual Obama nomination," said Ambinder.

 

AMERICA LEADS THE WAY IN PRISON POPULATION

The People's Republic of China has the second biggest prison population in the world.  One-point-six million people are behind bars..and that's not including the hundreds of thousands of people being detained for political reasons. Not because they committed any crime but under China's re-education through labor program. 

China is the most populous country in the world.  But the country that has the most people in prison today has only a quarter of China's population.  That would be the United States of America.  We have 2.3 million people behind bars here.  That's right.  With only five percent of the people in the world, we have almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

That's a little ironic, don't you think?  For a people who treasure freedom? 

The information I gave you about the United States having more prisoners than any nation on earth comes from the International Center for Prison studies at Kings College in London, which listed 218 countries in the order of their prison populations.  We have the most prisoners.  San Marino, which has a population of thirty thousand, is at the bottom of the list. San Marino only has one prisoner.

The median imprisonment rate for these 218 countries is 125 prisoners for every 100 thousand people.  England has 151 prisoners per hundred thousand. Germany has 88 per thousand.  Japan has 63.  Here in the United States, 750 out of every hundred thousand of us are now in prison.  

Some of the reasons given are that we have have higher levels of violent crime here, harsher sentencing laws. We keep offenders in jail longer and are especially tough in combating illegal drugs.  The prison industry is a large and growing one here.  And we reward politicians who run for office on being tough on crime.

 

OFFSHORING JOBS MARCHES ON

If whatever you do for a living can be done more cheaply in some other country, your job is in danger of being off-shored.  Offshore is now used as a verb. I offshore, you offshore.  He, she or it offshore.  But not every employer offshores. Only thirteen percent do.

"The types of jobs that are being off-shored don't fall along classical, sort of high-skill versus low-skill lines. Lot of people tend to think that way when they think of off-shoring," said Prasanna Tambe, a doctoral student at The Wharton School and the author of a new study done there for career-builder.com. Identifying the kind of jobs most likely to be offshored.

"But it seems like a lot of high-skills jobs, what are deemed to be high-skill jobs, actually seem in danger of being off-shored. And low skill ones of the other hand may seem much safer," said Tambe.

When you outsource jobs to other countries its now called offshoring. And half the employers who do it say they have no choice in this global economy.  So if you're just starting out and looking for work that won't be offshored, says the Wharton study.

"We're finding out that it might be much more effective actually to  think about what kinds of skills might be delivered effectively over a computer network so if the job that requires face-to-face interaction might be a little less likely to be off-shore," said Tambe.

So the skills you might want to hone are the interpersonal ones rather than the computer ones.

"Firms and managers especially a lot of the way organizations are being designed these days...these sort of interpersonal skills are becoming more and more important. I think that's probably something useful for young people to keep an eye on as well as they sort of choose their path," said Tambe.

In other words, work that's easy to offshore are not the ones you should explore.  Avoid jobs easy to replace, and favor work that's face to face.

"That decision it seems like might be made more along occupational lines as opposed to any other criteria.  So particularly we'll look at a job, a particular occupation, and think about how easy is it to deliver that service remotely," said Tambe.


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