posted May 07, 2008 10:17 PM
Obama gains new argument for his causeBarack Obama won a commanding victory in the North Carolina primary and lost narrowly to Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, an outcome that injects momentum into Obama's candidacy as the Democratic nominating contest enters its final month.
The results widened Obama's lead in pledged delegates over Clinton, providing him with new ammunition as he seeks to persuade Democratic leaders to coalesce around his campaign. He also increased his lead in the popular vote by winning North Carolina by more than 200,000 votes.
"Don't ever forget that we have a choice in this country," Obama said Tuesday in an address in Raleigh, North Carolina, that carried the unity themes of a convention speech, "that we can choose not to be divided, that we can choose not to be afraid, that we can still choose this moment to finally come together and solve the problems we've talked about all those other years and all those other elections."
In winning North Carolina by 14 percentage points, Obama recorded his first primary victory in nearly two months, a time in which he was embattled by controversy over the incendiary remarks of his former pastor.
Now his campaign is preparing to open a new front in his battle with Clinton, intensifying the argument to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates that he weathered a storm and that it is time for the party to concentrate on the general election.
But as Clinton addressed her supporters at a rally in Indianapolis, it was clear the fight is not over. In the first three minutes of her address, she asked supporters to contribute money, saying: "Tonight, I need your help to continue this journey."
Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the primaries were far less than they had hoped for and said they were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own supporters for Clinton to quit the race. They said they expected fund-raising to become even harder now; one adviser said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others refused to say whether Clinton had lent the campaign money from her personal account to keep it afloat.
The advisers said they were dispirited over the loss in North Carolina after her campaign - now working on a shoestring budget as spending outpaces fund-raising - decided to allocate millions of dollars, some key operatives and full days of the candidate and her husband in the state. Even with her investment, Obama outspent Clinton heavily in both states.
For several hours, incomplete results from Lake County, just across the state line from Chicago, left the Indiana tally in doubt. The delay meant that Clinton did not appear on television until well after Obama, allowing him to put his stamp of victory on the evening.
With six primaries left on the Democratic primary calendar, the fight between Obama and Clinton now turns to the party officials who may have to settle the issue. The Obama campaign said it would announce that even more of such superdelegates had joined its side, pressing its case that the results from Tuesday are reason enough to back Obama's candidacy and end the tortuous nominating fight.
In his speech, Obama congratulated Clinton "for what appears to be her victory in the great state of Indiana." Then, he used his televised forum to deliver a convention-like speech, highlighting how he was likely to come under attack. In doing so, he made an argument for his general-election viability, which the Clinton camp says has been damaged because of his association with his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., who made a series of incendiary comments about the United States.
"We know what's coming," Obama said. "We've seen it already: the attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences, to turn us against each other for political gain, to slice and dice this country into red states and blue states, blue collar and white collar, white and black and brown."
"This is the race we expect" regardless of who the Democratic nominee is, he went on. "The question, then, is not what kind of campaign they will run; it's what kind of campaign we will run."
Democrats said they expected to see more superdelegates flow to Obama in the next few days, including perhaps some now aligned with Clinton.
Senator Claire McCaskill, an Obama supporter from Missouri, called the results "a big, big night" for Obama, given the Wright episode. "This shows he can take major blows and kind of rise above it," she said. "I think there was a sense that she has some momentum, and I think it has just ground to a screeching halt tonight."
The voting in Indiana and North Carolina came at the conclusion of an acrimonious two-week campaign that found Obama on the defensive over the contentious remarks by Wright. Yet there was little evidence that the issue caused significant shifts in electoral patterns of previous states, with most Clinton voters saying the Wright episode affected their vote and Obama backers saying it did not.
Once again, Clinton drew the lion's share of her support from women and older voters. Obama held onto his mainstays of support - blacks, young voters and liberals - and made small gains in Indiana with lower-income white voters who have eluded him in the past.
In both states, the candidates' final arguments centered on a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax, which Clinton proposed as an economic lift for voters and Obama derided as a political gimmick.
At this stage in the nominating fight, after four months of primaries and caucuses across the United States, most voters seemed to have settled on their preferences before the battle intensified. Only a quarter of voters in Indiana decided whom to support in the last week, and a majority backed Clinton, while one in five voters in North Carolina also decided late, and most of them backed Obama.
The country's economic condition was listed as the chief concern of the Democratic primary voters, according to surveys of voters leaving polling places that were conducted across both states by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press. About 9 in 10 voters in Indiana and 8 in 10 voters in North Carolina said the economic slowdown had affected their family at least somewhat.
At least three in five voters in both states said the economy was the most important problem facing the country. About one in five voters said the war in Iraq was the top issues, with slightly less ranking health care.
Once again, race was a voting issue in the Democratic contest. In Indiana, about 80 percent of voters were white and about 15 percent were black. Six in 10 of the whites voted for Clinton, while about 9 in 10 blacks favored Obama. About 1 in 10 whites said race was a factor in their vote, and they voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. In North Carolina, Obama's performance was bolstered by a strong black vote. He captured more than 90 percent of those voters in that state, where blacks accounted for one in three voters. But over all, Clinton continued to draw strong support among whites, particularly older women.
Clinton pledged to take her campaign to West Virginia, Kentucky and the other states remaining on the primary calendar. And the campaign has been pushing the cause of seating disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan, states that were penalized for holding primaries before party rules allowed.
"You know it seems, it would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states," Clinton told her supporters in Indianapolis. "We've got a long road ahead, but were going to keep fighting on that path because America is worth fighting for."
The Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee will convene May 31 in Washington to settle the issue of whether to seat the delegates from those two states. In the days ahead, both candidates intend to spend considerable time in the capital courting superdelegates and party officials.
Lindaland
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posted May 07, 2008 10:17 PM
posted May 07, 2008 10:20 PM
posted May 07, 2008 10:37 PM
demoscats whine, wheeze and shriek when the unregistered, illegal aliens, felons and the dead are prevented from voting. Count every vote..illegal or not...is their motto.
posted May 08, 2008 12:15 AM
posted May 08, 2008 01:22 PM
posted May 08, 2008 06:17 PM
