BILL WOLFF: From NPR News in New York, this is the Bryant Park Project.
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Overlooking historic Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, live from the NPR Studios, this is the Bryant Park Project from NPR News. News, information, on to Indiana with a stopover in Guam! I'm Rachel Martin.
MIKE PESCA, host:
And I'm Mike Pesca. It's Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008. Obviously, a reference to the Pennsylvania primary. Now, we have to be here at the BPP World Headquarters at 4:30, so that requires me getting up at three 3:30 just so I have enough time to put on my face. When a big political event happens at night, what do you do? Do you just sleep through it, or...?
MARTIN: You're making me cop to this on the radio? Well...
PESCA: I'll tell you what I did.
MARTIN: I usually try - I mean, last night, I watched like the first 30 minutes of the results. When they start making these big declarations about who won, and then you see in the little corner of the screen, three percent of all the votes tallied, it's like, really?
PESCA: Yes.
MARTIN: But yeah, I watched the initial part, and then I went to bed.
PESCA: So, you get the news at, you know, two hours later into coverage. That's when Chris Matthews and everyone start going crazy, looking for things to say.
MARTIN: I missed that part.
PESCA: I slept, and then I woke up, and then I slept again, and I just was reading a book that says that's how sleep patterns used to actually work for hundreds of years. And so, I was sort of congratulating myself on the, you know, setting myself to the rhythms of the ancients.
And I was congratulating myself, as I had TiVoed MSNBC, looking up politico.com on iGoogle. I said, I'm just like a man from 400 years ago. Oh, look, they've Twittered the results on Slate. Today on the...
MARTIN: Bridging the old and the new, Mike Pesca.
PESCA: What's on today's show, Rachel? You tell me.
MARTIN: Well, we're going to talk about many, many things. We are going to dig into the primary last night in Pennsylvania. We're going to speak with liberal blogger Bill Scher. He'll be with us to share some of his thoughts on that. Also, a story about Indian soap operas in Afghanistan.
This kind of programming is hugely popular in the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan. Now, some in the government, the Ministry of Culture and Information, a couple weeks ago has said no more. TV stations in Afghanistan are supposed to pull them. They say they're un-Islamic. One TV station is saying, no way, we're not doing it. Yeah.
PESCA: And singer Kate Nash was on top of the charts in Britain. Her album, "Made of Bricks," hit number one. Now she's in the States, and in our studios. I talked to her, and she was great.
MARTIN: Cool, looking forward to that. We're going to go to Mark Garrison for the day's headlines in just a minute. But first...
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Senator HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (Democrat, New York): The American people don't quit, and they deserve a president who doesn't quit either.
MARTIN: That's Senator Hillary Clinton last night in Pennsylvania, where she beat Senator Barack Obama in the state's Democratic primary by ten percentage points.
PESCA: Clinton said the victory gives her the support she needs to carry on.
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Senator HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (Democrat, New York): I'm in this race to fight for you, to fight...
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Senator CLINTON: To fight for everyone who's ever been counted out, for everyone fighting to pay the grocery bills or the medical bills, the credit card and mortgage payments and the outrageous price of gas at the pump today.
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MARTIN: And Clinton supporters were hanging on every word. In fact, one woman at the rally last night, Shug Davis (ph), gave NPR's David Greene a hard time when he asked for an interview.
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Ms. SHUG DAVIS (Clinton Supporter): Make it fast, buddy. I've waited a long time for this.
MARTIN: But Mr. Greene is a dogged and masterful reporter, and he eventually got Ms. Davis a-talkin' about Hillary Clinton.
(Soundbite of interview)
Ms. DAVIS: She talks to you, and she listens. I don't know why people feel that she's a bad person or insincere. She's a mensch, you know, she's a real person.
MARTIN: Exit polls show that Clinton won among women and voters over 60, and carried most of the state's smaller working-class communities.
PESCA: Obama did best in Philadelphia and its suburbs and in the center of the state, right around Penn State University, but it wasn't enough, and last night Obama congratulated Clinton on her victory. He also discussed a campaign that got especially bitter in the lead up to yesterday's primary. He said he wanted to stick to the issues.
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Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democrat, Illinois): It's easier to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics, the bickering that none of us are entirely immune to, and it trivializes the profound issues, two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril, issues that confront our nation.
MARTIN: Despite the loss, Obama remains in the lead in the delegate count, and the popular vote, and his political strategist, David Axelrod, told NPR last night that Obama will close the deal.
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Mr. DAVID AXELROD (Political Strategist, Obama for America): Six months ago, many of you were among the savants who were writing us off and saying that we had no chance. So, you know, fact is, we're accumulating delegates. We accumulated more tonight. The deal's going to be closed. It's just a question of when.
PESCA: Next up on the primaries schedule, you've heard of Super Tuesday. Get ready for South Pacific Saturday. They've got sunlight on the sand. They've got moonlight on the sea in Guam, and it's their turn on May 3rd. Then comes Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th. You can go to npr.org throughout the day for updates on this story. Now let's get some more of today's headline with the BPP's Mark Garrison. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.