Barack Obama sees himself with a disadvantage in Pennsylvania and with an advantage in North Carolina. "So Indiana may end up being the tiebreaker," he said this week.
As he completes a four-day tour of the Hoosier state, that's the Illinois senator's assessment of the Democratic presidential contests in the coming three weeks.
For Obama, that's a tough call. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has single digit leads in the state, according to recent polls. She has the support of the state's popular Democratic senator, Evan Bayh. And the state has a sizable number of blue collar industrial workers, a demographic group that has leaned in her favor.
But Obama is from neighboring Illinois, and is well-known in the Indiana counties around Lake Michigan that have access to Chicago's media market. He also has the support of two respected former members of Congress from Indiana — Lee Hamilton and Tim Roemer.
Pennsylvania holds its primary April 22. Indiana and North Carolina hold theirs two weeks later. A two-out-of-three outcome in favor of the Illinois senator at the end of that stretch may not drive Clinton out of the race, but it will permit Obama to argue that after primary losses in Texas and Ohio, he can win an industrial state.
"If he wins Indiana, that's a pretty strong signal that he's probably going to secure the nomination in my view," said Rep. Baron Hill, an Indiana Democrat who has not endorsed either Clinton or Obama. Significantly, Hill is a superdelegate, one of nearly 800 party leaders and elected officials who could determine the nomination.
Obama has been pouring money into the state with ads and field offices. His bus tour this week is his longest stay in the state. He visited six of the state's nine congressional districts, packing high school gymnasiums and rousing audiences with a condemnation of Washington and special interests.
In many ways, Obama's message is no different from what he was delivering months ago in Iowa and New Hampshire. But he has spiced up his economic themes, adding a populist bite aimed at the very blue collar workers that have gravitated to Clinton in previous contests.
"Working class white males hold the balance of power," said Lawrence J. Hanks, a political scientist at Indiana University.
Roemer, the former congressman who has endorsed Obama, said he gave the Illinois senator a book on how Robert Kennedy won the Indiana primary in 1968
"I think he's reading it because the Kennedy battle plan was to go to the cities and get the big crowds, but also to make sure that you aggressively recruit the blue collar community and convey to hem all you have in common with them," Roemer said.
That message took a hit Friday. Clinton and Republicans accused Obama of being an out of touch elitist for stating, during a private meeting with California donors, that economic bitterness had driven some working class people to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Obama modulated that assessment Friday night before an audience in Terre Haute:
"People end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."
He added: "People are fed up, they are angry, they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington."
But the criticism was not letting up as Republicans called on congressional Democrats to denounce Obama's remarks. And Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Obama should have apologized. "The Americans who live in small towns are optimistic, hardworking and resilient," he said. "They deserve a president who will respect them."
On the stump, Obama can get his share of advice. "You need to smile more," one man told him in Columbus. He's also heard some awkward praise: "I want to compliment you on you grammar," one woman told him.
In this state, voters seem delighted that they matter. Few believed that the presidential contest would still be undecided in May. But the ongoing campaign has given some voters the time to make up their minds.
"I didn't think he was for real," said Ramon Gerber, a 67-year-old retiree from Columbus. "So young and so fresh. So I thought, well, he looks nice and sounds nice, but I wasn't sure. But I think I'm sure enough to vote for him."
As for winning two out of three, Hanks, the Indiana University political scientist, believes Obama needs to win in states where he is favored and stay within 10 points in states where he is not. That would be enough to sustain his edge over Clinton in delegates, states won and the popular vote.
"The Clinton strategy is to construct a basis for winning without the big three — most states won, most delegates, and greater number of voters," he said. "In this sense, there is no tiebreaker."
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton is not only known as a brilliant public servant but a good and loving mother to her only daughter, Chelsea. Her longtime political career did not hold her back in fulfilling her duties as a mother. She is a devoted mother to Chelsea as she was a devoted First Lady, senator and now an aspiring US president.
In her younger years, Hillary had already shown signs of becoming a good mother in the future. She has this firm belief that no child should be mistreated and that every child deserves to be loved. This belief has led to her passion and advocacy for children, women and families. This also helped her to become a caring mother to Chelsea. Even with her busy schedule, Hillary tried to fulfill her duties to her family especially to her daughter. According to a friend, she never missed any of Chelsea's ballet recitals. When she was the First Lady, she made it a point to spend one whole day with her daughter in the White House. They shared bonding moments through cooking, playing cards and watching movies in the family theater.
This mother-daughter bond surely goes all the way through the campaign trail as Hillary aims for the White House. She could be the first female president of the United States while Chelsea could well be the first "first child" twice over.
Nobody knows if Chelsea might just as well follow her parents' path and become a successful politician in the future. She has promised in one of her essays that she will somehow serve her country. If that happens, Hillary would surely give her daughter useful advices that she has learned in her life as a daughter, mother and public servant.
Hillary Clinton is a Woman of Power-Do You Agree?
“There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.” By: Hillary Rodham Clinton
The Senator from New York, former first lady and currently one of the Democratic Party's presidential nominees has always been a staunch advocate of women's rights. This lady from Park Ridge, Illinois who was once rejected to be a NASA astronaut because of her gender has then committed to uphold equal rights among men and women.
Some analysts say that the possibility of having a female president in the White House for the first time has given Hillary an advantage among her rivals especially in getting the women's votes. Based from this observation, the Hillary camp has openly regarded the women as their weapon in this highly contested election. According to a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign, 54 percent of the electorate in 2004 was women and that figure could go up in this year's election. The Hillary camp must note that women votes alone could not ensure their victory. Balancing their campaign strategy is important to woo not only the women but the men's votes as well.
However, the recent results of the Democratic primaries show that Barack Obama has edged out Hillary Clinton among women in the states of Maryland and Virginia, winning 59 percent of the women's votes. With these alarming results, Hillary and her campaign advisers should immediately find a way to entice the women voters back to her side.
Most women already know her as a defender of their rights. They want to see her now as a defender of peace. Women feminists say that a strong position on the Iraq war is needed for Clinton to bring back the women's votes on her side.
In her younger years, Hillary had already shown signs of becoming a good mother in the future. She has this firm belief that no child should be mistreated and that every child deserves to be loved. This belief has led to her passion and advocacy for children, women and families. This also helped her to become a caring mother to Chelsea. Even with her busy schedule, Hillary tried to fulfill her duties to her family especially to her daughter. According to a friend, she never missed any of Chelsea's ballet recitals. When she was the First Lady, she made it a point to spend one whole day with her daughter in the White House. They shared bonding moments through cooking, playing cards and watching movies in the family theater.
This mother-daughter bond surely goes all the way through the campaign trail as Hillary aims for the White House. She could be the first female president of the United States while Chelsea could well be the first "first child" twice over.
Nobody knows if Chelsea might just as well follow her parents' path and become a successful politician in the future. She has promised in one of her essays that she will somehow serve her country. If that happens, Hillary would surely give her daughter useful advices that she has learned in her life as a daughter, mother and public servant.
Hillary Clinton is a Woman of Power-Do You Agree?
“There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.” By: Hillary Rodham Clinton
The Senator from New York, former first lady and currently one of the Democratic Party's presidential nominees has always been a staunch advocate of women's rights. This lady from Park Ridge, Illinois who was once rejected to be a NASA astronaut because of her gender has then committed to uphold equal rights among men and women.
Some analysts say that the possibility of having a female president in the White House for the first time has given Hillary an advantage among her rivals especially in getting the women's votes. Based from this observation, the Hillary camp has openly regarded the women as their weapon in this highly contested election. According to a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign, 54 percent of the electorate in 2004 was women and that figure could go up in this year's election. The Hillary camp must note that women votes alone could not ensure their victory. Balancing their campaign strategy is important to woo not only the women but the men's votes as well.
However, the recent results of the Democratic primaries show that Barack Obama has edged out Hillary Clinton among women in the states of Maryland and Virginia, winning 59 percent of the women's votes. With these alarming results, Hillary and her campaign advisers should immediately find a way to entice the women voters back to her side.
Most women already know her as a defender of their rights. They want to see her now as a defender of peace. Women feminists say that a strong position on the Iraq war is needed for Clinton to bring back the women's votes on her side.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Nader For President ???
Ralph Nader's announcement that he is running for president again in 2008 has provided us with perhaps the least surprising surprise of the campaign so far.
Mr Nader has played some sort of role in every race for the White House since 1992 although his record in public life stretches back further still.
As a writer and political activist, Mr Nader has been an influential figure in American public life for 40 years - the scourge of corporate greed and wasteful defence spending and champion of consumer rights and the need to protect the environment.
His public life as measured through the ballot box is not perhaps very successful - he achieved 2.74% of the popular vote in 2000 for example - but his supporters argue that he is a kind of grassroots visionary whose ideas start life on the fringes of political debate then move to the centre.
Consider how all serious politicians are now expected to talk about the environment, they say.
Mr Nader will be best-remembered for the central role he played in the dramas of the 2000 contest between George W Bush and Al Gore which still rankles with many Democrats to this day.
That contest hinged on a virtual dead-heat between the two main candidates in the state of Florida - which after a series of battles in the courts, eventually went the way of Mr Bush.
Democrats point out though that where only a few hundred votes separated Mr Bush from Al Gore, nearly 100,000 people voted for Mr Nader.
Those voters, say Democrats, would clearly have been likely to vote for Mr Gore had Mr Nader not been on the ballot - and so they blame Mr Nader for handing the presidency to George W Bush.
Third-party impact
Mr Nader and his supporters do not buy that argument - and of course America is a democracy where the voters are entitled to vote for the candidate of their choice - but there is no doubt that his candidacy in 2008 will once again raise the whole issue of how tight presidential races between Democrats and Republicans can be affected by third party candidates.
Now very few races will ever be as tight as Florida in 2000, but there is no doubt that a third candidacy can help to determine who wins the White House.
Would Bill Clinton ever have become president in 1992 for example if Ross Perot had not run and taken around 19% of the popular vote?
It is reasonable to assume that at least some of those voters would have plumped for the Republican candidate George Bush senior if Mr Perot had not been around.
There are two ways in which third-party candidates can have a real impact.
First, like Mr Perot they can simply attract a huge number of votes.
Second, like Mr Nader in Florida in 2000, they can attract votes in a finely balanced race and thus effectively hold a kind of balance of power.
It seems reasonable to assume - on the basis of his track record - that Mr Nader is not going to get anywhere near the 19% of the vote that Mr Perot once achieved, so any influence he may have in 2008 will depend on the race being a desperately tight one again.
If it is, then Mr Nader's presence on the ballot may once again be highly significant.
It is reasonable to assume that at least some of those voters would have plumped for the Republican candidate George Bush senior if Mr Perot had not been around.
There are two ways in which third-party candidates can have a real impact.
First, like Mr Perot they can simply attract a huge number of votes.
Second, like Mr Nader in Florida in 2000, they can attract votes in a finely balanced race and thus effectively hold a kind of balance of power.
It seems reasonable to assume - on the basis of his track record - that Mr Nader is not going to get anywhere near the 19% of the vote that Mr Perot once achieved, so any influence he may have in 2008 will depend on the race being a desperately tight one again.
If it is, then Mr Nader's presence on the ballot may once again be highly significant.
The first candidate to discuss the Nader candidacy, Barack Obama, did not appear troubled by the prospect, though, merely noting that it was the job of a Democratic contender to be so compelling that the prospect of a few per cent of the vote being diverted to another candidate would make no difference to the outcome.
But we should beware of treating the contest for the White House simply as a horse race - rather than as a battle for ideas.
Ralph Nader once characterised the Democrat and Republican contenders for the presidency as "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" - implying that there was very little to choose between them.
Mr Nader's consumer-focused, environment-driven brand of radicalism ensures that a whole other set of ideas will once again get an airing this time around.
But we should beware of treating the contest for the White House simply as a horse race - rather than as a battle for ideas.
Ralph Nader once characterised the Democrat and Republican contenders for the presidency as "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" - implying that there was very little to choose between them.
Mr Nader's consumer-focused, environment-driven brand of radicalism ensures that a whole other set of ideas will once again get an airing this time around.
Even if he does not affect the outcome, the candidate who now replaces John McCain as the oldest man in the race will at least make it more politically interesting.
Clinton Knocks Obama tactics
US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has made her fiercest denunciation so far of Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic Party nomination.
Mrs Clinton accused the Illinois senator of producing a misleading leaflet on her health care policy.
"Shame on you, Barack Obama!" the New York senator said at a rally in Ohio, which holds its primary in 10 days.
But Mr Obama said he stood by the leaflet, saying he was puzzled by what he called his rival's change in tone.
"Enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook," said the former first lady ahead of Ohio's crucial primary early next month.
Both the Ohio and the Texas primaries, both being held on 4 March, are being seen as must-wins for Mrs Clinton.
'Sharper elbows'
Mr Obama, who has won 11 consecutive primaries and caucuses in recent weeks, is now seen as the Democratic front-runner.
But Mrs Clinton's campaign has struggled to find an effective way to cope with her rival's extraordinary momentum and has decided to "go negative", says the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Washington.
She and her advisers have clearly calculated that the state of the race now calls for sharper elbows and a sharper tone, our correspondent adds.
Mr Obama now has at least 1,353 of the 2,025 delegates he needs to secure the Democratic nomination at the party's convention in August, according to an Associated Press projection.
Mrs Clinton has 1,264 delegates. Texas and Ohio have a combined total of 334 delegates up for grabs.
Correspondents say the blue-collar vote will be crucial in both contests, and the Clinton campaign has already begun targeting lower-income workers in its ads.
But in his drive to become the first black US president, Mr Obama has recently gained support from some powerful unions, including the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union.
Pacific delegates
Meanwhile, John McCain was given a further boost by the Pacific islands of Northern Marianas which chose its nine Republican delegates on Saturday.
The islands are among three US Pacific territories each sending nine delegates to the Republican convention in Minnesota this September, and delegates have praised the former Vietnam prisoner for his knowledge of their islands.
Republicans in American Samoa also announced that all nine of their delegates would support Mr McCain.
Guam Republicans take their decision on 8 March.
The latest results give the Arizona senator a total of 976 delegates, according to the Associated Press, and he needs 1,191 delegates to secure the Republican nomination.
His rival, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, trails far behind with 254 delegates.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Dems battle for Wisconsin, Hawaii; McCain wants knockout
Wisconsin and Hawaii become the latest battlegrounds in the struggle for the Democratic presidential nominee Tuesday, while Republican Sen. John McCain is looking for victories to finally knock his last remaining major rival out of the race.
Obama was able to stake a claim on the front-runner position after winning eight contests in a row, including the Potomac primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia last week.
Obama leads Clinton, a senator from New York, in the overall delegate count -- 1,262 to 1,213, according to CNN estimates. The estimate includes the support of superdelegates, the party officials and elected officials who are free to vote for any candidate at the party's national convention.
Both candidates are short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and it is very likely the roughly 800 superdelegates will ultimately decide who will be crowned the Democrat's presidential nominee.
Recent polls show Clinton has a chance in Wisconsin at ending Obama's winning streak. According to an American Research Group poll conducted February 15 and 16, the two candidates are in a statistical tie, with Clinton at 49 percent and Obama at 43 percent. The poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
In Wisconsin, Clinton is expected to do well in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and the the industrialized Fox River valley, which includes Appleton and Green Bay, in the northeastern portion of the state. Both areas have a high percentage of blue collar voters, a group Clinton has done well with in previous primaries.
In a campaign stop in the Green Bay-area town of De Pere, Wisconsin, Clinton continued to hit on economic issues.
Obama is expected to do well in the state's capital, Madison, which is known for its progressive politics. Obama, who has outperformed Clinton among younger voters, should also do well in the Madison area because of the large student body at the University of Wisconsin.
While on the campaign trail last week, Clinton questioned whether Obama could deliver on his rhetoric, saying "I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business."
While campaigning in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Obama responded to Clinton's criticism.
No polling is available for the Hawaii Democratic caucus. The Clinton campaign dispatched Chelsea Clinton, the candidate's daughter, to rally support. Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, has stumped for her brother.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is looking for big wins in the Wisconsin and Washington state primaries to demonstrate he is starting to unify the Republican party behind his nomination, including conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.
In a further sign the GOP establishment was starting to rally around him, former President Bush endorsed McCain Monday during an event in Houston, Texas.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is looking for big wins in the Wisconsin and Washington state primaries to demonstrate he is starting to unify the Republican party behind his nomination, including conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.
In a further sign the GOP establishment was starting to rally around him, former President Bush endorsed McCain Monday during an event in Houston, Texas.
Recent polls suggest the Republican race in Wisconsin is closer than McCain would like. The American Research Group poll conducted February 15-16 has McCain and Huckabee in a statistical tie, with McCain with 46 percent and Huckabee at 42 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
The WISC poll conducted February 13-14, however, gave McCain a clear lead over Huckabee, 48 percent to 32 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.
No recent poling is available for the Washington Republican primary, which the state party uses to allocate nearly half of the state's delegates. The other half of the state's delegates were allocated according to the results of caucuses held February 9.
McCain won a plurality of the caucus vote with 26 percent. Huckabee came in second with 24 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul came in third with 22 percent.
In the Democratic presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama is looking to increase his lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates with wins in the Wisconsin primary, one of the nation's oldest, and the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, the state were the Illinois senator was born and where he still has family.
Obama was able to stake a claim on the front-runner position after winning eight contests in a row, including the Potomac primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia last week.
Obama leads Clinton, a senator from New York, in the overall delegate count -- 1,262 to 1,213, according to CNN estimates. The estimate includes the support of superdelegates, the party officials and elected officials who are free to vote for any candidate at the party's national convention.
Both candidates are short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and it is very likely the roughly 800 superdelegates will ultimately decide who will be crowned the Democrat's presidential nominee.
Recent polls show Clinton has a chance in Wisconsin at ending Obama's winning streak. According to an American Research Group poll conducted February 15 and 16, the two candidates are in a statistical tie, with Clinton at 49 percent and Obama at 43 percent. The poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
Another poll of Wisconsin Democratic primary voters conducted by Research 2000 for Madison television station WISC also indicates the race is too close to call. The WISC poll had Obama at 47 percent and Clinton at 42 percent. The poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.
In Wisconsin, Clinton is expected to do well in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and the the industrialized Fox River valley, which includes Appleton and Green Bay, in the northeastern portion of the state. Both areas have a high percentage of blue collar voters, a group Clinton has done well with in previous primaries.
In a campaign stop in the Green Bay-area town of De Pere, Wisconsin, Clinton continued to hit on economic issues.
"The economy is not working, " she said. "What we really need in America is an economy that's producing good jobs with rising wages for everybody willing to work hard. I've been focused on the economy throughout the campaign."
Obama is expected to do well in the state's capital, Madison, which is known for its progressive politics. Obama, who has outperformed Clinton among younger voters, should also do well in the Madison area because of the large student body at the University of Wisconsin.
In the week leading up to Tuesday's primaries, Obama spent much of his time campaigning in Wisconsin, while Clinton split her time between Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio. Texas and Ohio hold primaries March 4, and even Clinton's own supporters suggest she must do well in those two delegate-rich states to keep Obama from winning the nomination.
While on the campaign trail last week, Clinton questioned whether Obama could deliver on his rhetoric, saying "I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business."
While campaigning in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Obama responded to Clinton's criticism.
"Speeches don't put food on the table, but the only way that we're going to bring about change is if all of you get excited about change, because that's the only way that we're going to take on the special interests," he said.
No polling is available for the Hawaii Democratic caucus. The Clinton campaign dispatched Chelsea Clinton, the candidate's daughter, to rally support. Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, has stumped for her brother.
Washington State Democrats are also heading to the polls Tuesday to vote in that state's primary, but the results will have no impact on how the Washington state delegates will be distributed. The delegate allocation was determined February 9 when Washington state Democrats held caucuses. Obama won those handily over Clinton, 68 percent to 31 percent.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is looking for big wins in the Wisconsin and Washington state primaries to demonstrate he is starting to unify the Republican party behind his nomination, including conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.
In a further sign the GOP establishment was starting to rally around him, former President Bush endorsed McCain Monday during an event in Houston, Texas.
Washington State Democrats are also heading to the polls Tuesday to vote in that state's primary, but the results will have no impact on how the Washington state delegates will be distributed. The delegate allocation was determined February 9 when Washington state Democrats held caucuses. Obama won those handily over Clinton, 68 percent to 31 percent.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is looking for big wins in the Wisconsin and Washington state primaries to demonstrate he is starting to unify the Republican party behind his nomination, including conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.
In a further sign the GOP establishment was starting to rally around him, former President Bush endorsed McCain Monday during an event in Houston, Texas.
"I'd like to think we've got enough support in Wisconsin, that we can actually win here, and it would be a very big thing for us," Huckabee said during a campaign stop in Hudson, Wisconsin, Monday. "But it would also be a good thing for Wisconsin for me to win, because it would show that the party was wrong to say this is over, and it would also be wrong to end the game before people in places like Wisconsin had a chance to vote."
Recent polls suggest the Republican race in Wisconsin is closer than McCain would like. The American Research Group poll conducted February 15-16 has McCain and Huckabee in a statistical tie, with McCain with 46 percent and Huckabee at 42 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
The WISC poll conducted February 13-14, however, gave McCain a clear lead over Huckabee, 48 percent to 32 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.
No recent poling is available for the Washington Republican primary, which the state party uses to allocate nearly half of the state's delegates. The other half of the state's delegates were allocated according to the results of caucuses held February 9.
McCain won a plurality of the caucus vote with 26 percent. Huckabee came in second with 24 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul came in third with 22 percent.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Fight For Superdelegates Heats Up
With the Democratic presidential race tied to a complex delegate system, the Clinton and Obama camps went after each other Sunday over "superdelegates."
Superdelegates -- delegates to the National Democratic Convention --are not selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, but rather based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials. They are free to choose the candidate they like.
"'Superdelegates' doesn't mean that they should leap over the will of the people in a single bound," joked Sen. Barack Obama's chief political strategist David Axelrod on CBS' "Face the Nation."
But Sen. Hillary Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson told CBS that those approximately 800 delegates "are supposed to vote their conscience."
And Lanny Davis, a former White House special counsel supporting Clinton, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Obama "very ironically wants to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game."
Obama leads in the overall delegate count and among pledged delegates, who are assigned based on primaries and caucuses. Clinton has more superdelegates supporting her, and the overall count is close. Neither is expected to have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination before the party's convention in August.
Making things even more complicated, the pledged delegate count does not directly reflect the popular vote. For example, in the Nevada caucuses, Clinton won by six points, but Obama ended up with one more delegate because of the way that state awards its delegates.
Upcoming contests this week in Wisconsin, Washington state and Hawaii are expected to favor Obama, but the campaigns are looking to March 4, when delegate-rich Texas and Ohio hold their contests.
Clinton is aiming for those critical victories that could help her recover in both the delegate count and the fight for political momentum.
Clinton is also hoping for a win in Pennsylvania in April.
The Clinton camp is also working to shore up its support among superdelegates. News reports in recent days have indicated that some African-American superdelegates are rethinking their support for her, given the strong support for Obama among their constituents.
But Wolfson wrote off those concerns Sunday, telling reporters, "I think that all Democrats have a difficult choice in this election. We have two strong candidates with broad appeal. We feel very good about our support in the African-American community and we are quite confident that our superdelegate support is holding firm."
While divided over which candidate to support, Democrats are largely agreed that the battle over delegates needs to be resolved without a sense that superdelegates -- which include Democratic lawmakers, governors, and other VIPs -- are making a decision that opposes what voters want.
"There has to be some agreement between the Clinton and Obama campaigns as to how to handle it," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a prominent supporter of her campaign, said Sunday. "We need to win in November and if one side tries to shove down the throats of the other side any rule, so that that camp today or all of her or his supporters walk away upset, we will lose."
And that's not the only potential looming battle. There's also the matter of seating delegates from Michigan and Florida. The Democratic Party penalized those two states for moving their primaries early, and determined their delegates would not be seated at the convention, where the nominee is decided.
Both states voted overwhelmingly for Clinton -- though in Michigan, her name was the only one on the ballot. In Florida, voters turned out in record numbers despite the party's decision.
If the party sticks to its plan, Democratic voters in those two key swing states may be turned off and be less likely to turn out in November.
Superdelegates -- delegates to the National Democratic Convention --are not selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, but rather based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials. They are free to choose the candidate they like.
"'Superdelegates' doesn't mean that they should leap over the will of the people in a single bound," joked Sen. Barack Obama's chief political strategist David Axelrod on CBS' "Face the Nation."
But Sen. Hillary Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson told CBS that those approximately 800 delegates "are supposed to vote their conscience."
And Lanny Davis, a former White House special counsel supporting Clinton, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Obama "very ironically wants to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game."
Obama leads in the overall delegate count and among pledged delegates, who are assigned based on primaries and caucuses. Clinton has more superdelegates supporting her, and the overall count is close. Neither is expected to have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination before the party's convention in August.
Making things even more complicated, the pledged delegate count does not directly reflect the popular vote. For example, in the Nevada caucuses, Clinton won by six points, but Obama ended up with one more delegate because of the way that state awards its delegates.
Upcoming contests this week in Wisconsin, Washington state and Hawaii are expected to favor Obama, but the campaigns are looking to March 4, when delegate-rich Texas and Ohio hold their contests.
Clinton is aiming for those critical victories that could help her recover in both the delegate count and the fight for political momentum.
Clinton is also hoping for a win in Pennsylvania in April.
The Clinton camp is also working to shore up its support among superdelegates. News reports in recent days have indicated that some African-American superdelegates are rethinking their support for her, given the strong support for Obama among their constituents.
But Wolfson wrote off those concerns Sunday, telling reporters, "I think that all Democrats have a difficult choice in this election. We have two strong candidates with broad appeal. We feel very good about our support in the African-American community and we are quite confident that our superdelegate support is holding firm."
While divided over which candidate to support, Democrats are largely agreed that the battle over delegates needs to be resolved without a sense that superdelegates -- which include Democratic lawmakers, governors, and other VIPs -- are making a decision that opposes what voters want.
"There has to be some agreement between the Clinton and Obama campaigns as to how to handle it," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a prominent supporter of her campaign, said Sunday. "We need to win in November and if one side tries to shove down the throats of the other side any rule, so that that camp today or all of her or his supporters walk away upset, we will lose."
And that's not the only potential looming battle. There's also the matter of seating delegates from Michigan and Florida. The Democratic Party penalized those two states for moving their primaries early, and determined their delegates would not be seated at the convention, where the nominee is decided.
Both states voted overwhelmingly for Clinton -- though in Michigan, her name was the only one on the ballot. In Florida, voters turned out in record numbers despite the party's decision.
If the party sticks to its plan, Democratic voters in those two key swing states may be turned off and be less likely to turn out in November.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Obama knocks Clinton
Sen. Barack Obama Friday knocked Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking lobbyists' money and said she was too much a part of "business-as-usual in Washington" to bring about reform.
The Illinois Democrat's comments come after Clinton Thursday questioned his record of standing up to special interests.
"The problem we have is not a lack of good ideas," Obama said in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Friday. "It's that Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die."
"In this campaign, [Clinton has] taken nearly double the amount of money from lobbyists than any Democrat or Republican running for president," he said. "That's not being a part of the solutions business. That's being a part of business-as-usual in Washington."
Clinton has sharpened her attacks on Obama in recent days, possibly in response to the do-or-die situation she is facing over the next couple of weeks.
"I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business," Clinton has said many times on the campaign trail this week.
Clinton has also questioned her rival's ability to deliver on his rhetoric.
"There's a big difference between us -- speeches versus solutions, talk versus action. ... Speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank or fill your prescription or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night," she said during a campaign stop Thursday in Youngstown, Ohio.
The New York senator Thursday also questioned Obama's willingness to stand up to the nuclear and oil industries. In particular, she pointed to a 2006 bill that originally would have required the nuclear power plants to report any release of radiation into groundwater. Clinton suggested subsequent drafts were watered down after the nuclear industry objected to the new requirements.
On Friday Obama defended the nuclear bill, noting that Clinton supported the bill at the time, and said he could not move a stronger bill because the Republicans controlled the Senate at the time.
"It turns out that Sen. Clinton, who voted for this bill that I introduced and touted it on her Web site, thought it was pretty good then," he said. "Only in Washington can you vote for a bill, take credit for it, and then criticize the sponsor of the bill."
Obama also defended his vote for energy legislation -- a bill that Clinton dubbed "the Dick Cheney energy bill" and said gave "billions of dollars of breaks for the oil industry" -- in 2005, saying, "it was the best that we could do right now, given the makeup of Congress."
On Friday, Clinton didn't make any direct comments about Obama during a campaign stop at a Lockheed Martin plant in Akron, Ohio.
She said she was "deeply saddened" by the shootings at Northern Illinois University Thursday and "we just have to figure out how we're going to get smart about protecting our kids."
"I am bullish on America. I think our best days are ahead. It takes more than hoping for it to get it done," she added.
Obama received significant boost to his campaign Friday when he received the backing of the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union.
"We have an enormous amount of respect for Sen. Clinton, but it's now become clear members and leaders want to become part of an effort to elect Barack Obama the next president," union president Andy Stern said during a conference call announcing the union's endorsement.
Three sources told CNN that union leaders had deliberated on the endorsement via a conference call Thursday. Obama was the overwhelming choice of the union's state and national leadership, they said.
Obama also received the endorsement of the 1.3-million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union Thursday afternoon.
A union's endorsement can give a candidate much needed support because union members often act as "ground troops" that can canvas neighborhoods and staff phone banks for a campaign.
The two union endorsements could also help Obama in his increasingly heated struggle with Clinton for blue-collar voters in the delegate-rich states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Clinton's own supporters suggest the New York senator must do well in Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4 if she is to stop the momentum Obama has built by winning eight states in a row. The Clinton campaign has also said it is looking for a strong showing in the Pennsylvania primary April 22.
Obama now leads Clinton in the overall delegate count -- 1,253 to 1,211, according to CNN calculations.
News of the union endorsements comes as a superdelegate -- one of the Democratic Party officials or elected officials who could decide the nomination at the party's convention in Denver, Colorado, this summer -- said he would vote for Obama instead of Clinton, as he had previously pledged to do.
Rep. David Scott, an African-American from Georgia, told The Associated Press he would vote for Obama because he did not want to go against the will of the voters. Obama won the Georgia primary on Super Tuesday, February 5, and 80 percent of Scott's district voted for him, the AP reported.
"You've got to represent the wishes of your constituency," Scott told the AP on Wednesday. "My proper position would be to vote the wishes of my constituents."
The New York Times reported Friday that another black lawmaker from Georgia, Rep. John Lewis, was also going to shift his support to Obama from Clinton. Lewis is one of the most senior African-American members of Congress and a respected voice on civil rights.
Lewis' office, however, told CNN that The Times misrepresented his intentions and said Lewis had not decided to switch his support to Obama. But the AP reported many sources close to the Georgia lawmaker said he was torn over his earlier endorsement of
Friday, February 15, 2008
Powerful Union Expected To Endorse Obama
Sen. Barack Obama is expected to be endorsed Friday by the Service Employees International Union, one of the nation's most powerful, union officials have told The Associated Press.
The sought-after endorsement would be Obama's largest from organized labor, and give him a powerful boost against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the March 4 presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas.
The 1.8 million-member union is likely to endorse Obama on Friday, the union officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
SEIU backing is one of the most important labor endorsements available. The organization has donated more than $25 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, since 1989. In addition, the union has a powerful get-out-the-vote structure and has been courted by all the Democratic candidates since the beginning of the race.
SEIU has delayed an endorsement since September, when it had Obama, Clinton and other Democratic candidates speak to its members in Washington. It eventually narrowed the field to Obama, Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, but could not make a decision.
The union allowed its state affiliates to make endorsements, and many backed Edwards.
Edwards dropped out of the race just before the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, leaving the field to Obama and Clinton.
Union leaders decided after a conference call Thursday night to go with Obama.
The officials who spoke anonymously cautioned that the union was still voting, but Obama was "99 percent" likely to get the endorsement, one of the insiders said.
The union had announced earlier Thursday that "President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger will discuss a major political announcement with reporters" on Friday.
Separately Thursday, Obama also won the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a politically active union with significant membership in the upcoming Democratic battlegrounds.
The 1.3-million member UFCW has 69,000 members in Ohio and another 26,000 in Texas.The food workers also have 19,000 members in Wisconsin, which holds a primary Tuesday.
The union is made up of supermarket workers and meatpackers, with 40 percent of the membership under 30 years old. Obama has been doing especially well among young voters.
With an SEIU endorsement and the United Food and Commercial Workers' backing, Obama would only need to pick up one more union endorsement to be eligible to collect the Change to Win labor federation's support. There are seven unions in the federation, and it would take endorsements from at least four of them to make the federation consider a joint endorsement.
Obama was endorsed in January by UNITE HERE, which along with SEIU and the United Food and Commercial Workers, would give him three of the seven member unions. The Teamsters, the Laborers' International Union of North America, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America have yet to endorse a candidate.
The seventh union, the United Farm Workers, endorsed Clinton in January.
Obama also was endorsed earlier this month by the Transport Workers Union and the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
The sought-after endorsement would be Obama's largest from organized labor, and give him a powerful boost against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the March 4 presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas.
The 1.8 million-member union is likely to endorse Obama on Friday, the union officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
SEIU backing is one of the most important labor endorsements available. The organization has donated more than $25 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, since 1989. In addition, the union has a powerful get-out-the-vote structure and has been courted by all the Democratic candidates since the beginning of the race.
SEIU has delayed an endorsement since September, when it had Obama, Clinton and other Democratic candidates speak to its members in Washington. It eventually narrowed the field to Obama, Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, but could not make a decision.
The union allowed its state affiliates to make endorsements, and many backed Edwards.
Edwards dropped out of the race just before the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, leaving the field to Obama and Clinton.
Union leaders decided after a conference call Thursday night to go with Obama.
The officials who spoke anonymously cautioned that the union was still voting, but Obama was "99 percent" likely to get the endorsement, one of the insiders said.
The union had announced earlier Thursday that "President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger will discuss a major political announcement with reporters" on Friday.
Separately Thursday, Obama also won the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a politically active union with significant membership in the upcoming Democratic battlegrounds.
The 1.3-million member UFCW has 69,000 members in Ohio and another 26,000 in Texas.The food workers also have 19,000 members in Wisconsin, which holds a primary Tuesday.
The union is made up of supermarket workers and meatpackers, with 40 percent of the membership under 30 years old. Obama has been doing especially well among young voters.
With an SEIU endorsement and the United Food and Commercial Workers' backing, Obama would only need to pick up one more union endorsement to be eligible to collect the Change to Win labor federation's support. There are seven unions in the federation, and it would take endorsements from at least four of them to make the federation consider a joint endorsement.
Obama was endorsed in January by UNITE HERE, which along with SEIU and the United Food and Commercial Workers, would give him three of the seven member unions. The Teamsters, the Laborers' International Union of North America, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America have yet to endorse a candidate.
The seventh union, the United Farm Workers, endorsed Clinton in January.
Obama also was endorsed earlier this month by the Transport Workers Union and the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
USA Election Update : Oba Gets Three
DAY IN A NUTSHELL
Barack Obama sweeps to victory in the three Democratic primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.
For the Republicans, presumptive nominee John McCain also wins all three contests, although his rival Mike Huckabee mounts a strong challenge in Virginia, taking more than 40% of the vote. Hillary Clinton unveils a stellar endorsement from former astronaut and Ohio Senator John Glenn.
KEY QUOTES
"My friends, I promise you, I am fired up and ready to go."
John McCain ends his victory speech with one of Barack Obama's signature lines
"With all of the challenges facing Ohio and America, we need a leader who can deliver real solutions on her first day in office."
Former senator and astronaut John Glenn endorses Hillary Clinton
"The nomination is not secured until one candidate has 1,191 delegates."
Mike Huckabee
"John McCain is an American hero. We honour his service to our nation... But his priorities don't address the real problems of the American people, because they are bound to the failed policies of the past."
Barack Obama turns his sights on the Republicans in his victory address
"In the dark days when Iraq's al-Anbar province was the bloodiest place on the planet - John McCain was one of the few in Congress brave enough to venture into that cauldron. I know, because I saw him there."
Col Oliver North
NUMBER NEWS
Because many pollsters assumed that the presidential races would be settled after Super Tuesday, little polling has been done in the states holding contests later on in the primary calendar.
So polls published today from Wisconsin and Ohio shed some much-needed light on the state of the races in those states.
A Public Policy Polling survey of Wisconsin voters suggests that Barack Obama and John McCain have the advantage there. The poll has Mr Obama leading Hillary Clinton by 50% to 39% and Mr McCain leading Mr Huckabee 53% to 32%.
Mr McCain also leads Mr Huckabee in the SurveyUSA poll of Ohio voters (50% to 36%), but for the Democrats in Ohio, Mrs Clinton has the lead - with 56% to Mr Obama's 39%
Barack Obama sweeps to victory in the three Democratic primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.
For the Republicans, presumptive nominee John McCain also wins all three contests, although his rival Mike Huckabee mounts a strong challenge in Virginia, taking more than 40% of the vote. Hillary Clinton unveils a stellar endorsement from former astronaut and Ohio Senator John Glenn.
KEY QUOTES
"My friends, I promise you, I am fired up and ready to go."
John McCain ends his victory speech with one of Barack Obama's signature lines
"With all of the challenges facing Ohio and America, we need a leader who can deliver real solutions on her first day in office."
Former senator and astronaut John Glenn endorses Hillary Clinton
"The nomination is not secured until one candidate has 1,191 delegates."
Mike Huckabee
"John McCain is an American hero. We honour his service to our nation... But his priorities don't address the real problems of the American people, because they are bound to the failed policies of the past."
Barack Obama turns his sights on the Republicans in his victory address
"In the dark days when Iraq's al-Anbar province was the bloodiest place on the planet - John McCain was one of the few in Congress brave enough to venture into that cauldron. I know, because I saw him there."
Col Oliver North
NUMBER NEWS
Because many pollsters assumed that the presidential races would be settled after Super Tuesday, little polling has been done in the states holding contests later on in the primary calendar.
So polls published today from Wisconsin and Ohio shed some much-needed light on the state of the races in those states.
A Public Policy Polling survey of Wisconsin voters suggests that Barack Obama and John McCain have the advantage there. The poll has Mr Obama leading Hillary Clinton by 50% to 39% and Mr McCain leading Mr Huckabee 53% to 32%.
Mr McCain also leads Mr Huckabee in the SurveyUSA poll of Ohio voters (50% to 36%), but for the Democrats in Ohio, Mrs Clinton has the lead - with 56% to Mr Obama's 39%
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Obama's Chance ?????????
Democratic rivals Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton squared off Tuesday in primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, home to the White House, their long-sought prize
With 175 delegates at stake, Obama hoped to erode if not erase the lead Clinton has held since the campaign began.
The Illinois senator won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state and Maine.
Early turnout in Virginia was reported high and city officials in the District of Columbia were hoping that a swath of new registered voters would show up at the polls. Maryland election officials were also projecting a strong turnout, particularly in the Democratic race.
The final Maine returns had not been tallied when Clinton's campaign manager announced she was stepping down. Coming several days after the former first lady loaned her own campaign $5 million, it was a fresh indication of the trouble the one-time front-runner is having fighting off Obama's strong challenge for the nomination.
Aides to the former first lady concede she is in the midst of a difficult period in which she could lose 10 straight contests. She is hoping to rebound on March 4, in primaries in Ohio and Texas, states where both candidates have already begun television advertising.
Clinton began the night with 1,147 delegates, to 1,124 for Obama. Both are far from the 2,025 needed to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain, the faraway front-runner, hoped to rebound in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia from a poor weekend showing. There were 116 GOP delegates at stake.
McCain lost caucuses in Kansas and a primary in Louisiana on Saturday to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, his last remaining major rival. He won caucuses in Washington state.
The AP count showed McCain with 729 delegates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race last week, had 288. Huckabee had 241 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.
It takes 1,191 delegates to clinch the nomination, and McCain appears to be on track to reach the target by late April.
Obama has campaigned before huge crowds in recent days, and far outspent his rival on television advertising in the states participating in the regional primary in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
He began airing commercials in the region more than a week ago, and spent an estimated $1.4 million. Clinton began hers last Friday, at a cost estimated at $210,000.
With Clinton facing a series of possible defeats, and Obama riding a wave of momentum, the two camps debated which contender is more likely to defeat McCain in the general election.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Obama with a narrow lead over the Arizona senator in a potential match-up, and Clinton running about even.
"We bring in voters who haven't given Democrats a chance" in the past, said Obama pollster Cornell Belcher, citing support from independents.
Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, countered that she holds appeal for women voters and Hispanics. "Hillary Clinton has a coalition of voters well-suited to winning the general election," he said.
With 175 delegates at stake, Obama hoped to erode if not erase the lead Clinton has held since the campaign began.
The Illinois senator won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state and Maine.
Early turnout in Virginia was reported high and city officials in the District of Columbia were hoping that a swath of new registered voters would show up at the polls. Maryland election officials were also projecting a strong turnout, particularly in the Democratic race.
The final Maine returns had not been tallied when Clinton's campaign manager announced she was stepping down. Coming several days after the former first lady loaned her own campaign $5 million, it was a fresh indication of the trouble the one-time front-runner is having fighting off Obama's strong challenge for the nomination.
Aides to the former first lady concede she is in the midst of a difficult period in which she could lose 10 straight contests. She is hoping to rebound on March 4, in primaries in Ohio and Texas, states where both candidates have already begun television advertising.
Clinton began the night with 1,147 delegates, to 1,124 for Obama. Both are far from the 2,025 needed to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain, the faraway front-runner, hoped to rebound in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia from a poor weekend showing. There were 116 GOP delegates at stake.
McCain lost caucuses in Kansas and a primary in Louisiana on Saturday to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, his last remaining major rival. He won caucuses in Washington state.
The AP count showed McCain with 729 delegates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race last week, had 288. Huckabee had 241 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.
It takes 1,191 delegates to clinch the nomination, and McCain appears to be on track to reach the target by late April.
Obama has campaigned before huge crowds in recent days, and far outspent his rival on television advertising in the states participating in the regional primary in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
He began airing commercials in the region more than a week ago, and spent an estimated $1.4 million. Clinton began hers last Friday, at a cost estimated at $210,000.
With Clinton facing a series of possible defeats, and Obama riding a wave of momentum, the two camps debated which contender is more likely to defeat McCain in the general election.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Obama with a narrow lead over the Arizona senator in a potential match-up, and Clinton running about even.
"We bring in voters who haven't given Democrats a chance" in the past, said Obama pollster Cornell Belcher, citing support from independents.
Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, countered that she holds appeal for women voters and Hispanics. "Hillary Clinton has a coalition of voters well-suited to winning the general election," he said.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Clinton, Obama Pitch to Va. Democrats
Relishing a clean sweep of elections held Saturday, Sen. Barack Obama appealed to Virginia Democrats to help him turn the page away from the "same old Washington games with the same old Washington players," an indictment meant for presidential rivals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCain.
Obama addressed about 4,000 Democratic officials and activists at the state party's annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner, taking the stage fresh from victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and the Virgin Islands.
Clinton addressed the crowd before he arrived. The gala served as a can't-miss stop in their short, intense campaign for contests Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Obama exulted in his wins but mentioned them only briefly. He said his victories from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast and in the heartland were a rousing "yes we can" from voters fed up with divisive politics and failed policies. Like Clinton before him on the stage, he painted McCain, the likely Republican nominee, as more of the same from the party of President Bush.
"He has made the decision to embrace the failed policies of George Bush's Washington," Obama said of McCain. "He speaks of a hundred-year war in Iraq and sees another on the horizon with Iran."
The New York senator made no reference to her losses in the Washington and Nebraska caucuses or to the Louisiana primary, which was still unsettled when she spoke. She left the dinner immediately after her remarks, ensuring no overlap with Obama, who was on his way.
The crowd greeted Clinton enthusiastically but was largely supportive of her rival. Chants of "Obama" rang through the hall as she made her way offstage, and they grew much louder when the Illinois senator arrived.
The Clinton campaign said 100,000 donors had given $10 million since Super Tuesday, the money-sapping mega-contest that left Obama and Clinton close to a tie in delegates won. After Tuesday, Clinton acknowledged lending her campaign $5 million of her own money — a disclosure that seemed to help open the money taps from supporters to try to counter Obama's fundraising prowess.
Both candidates spent most of Saturday campaigning in Maine for the state's nominating caucuses Sunday.
Saturday's results were clearly disappointing for Clinton, although not entirely a surprise. Obama has generally done well in smaller states and those holding caucuses rather than primaries.
Clinton's prospects in Tuesday's Maryland, Virginia and D.C. primaries were uncertain, because of high numbers of black voters and highly educated voters — groups that have favored her rival. She planned to fly Tuesday night to Texas, where she hoped to perform well in the state's March 4 primary.
Before Clinton arrived at the spirited Richmond dinner, Obama supporters in the crowd waved placards and chanted the stump-speech line that has become a slogan — "Yes we can" — while Clinton supporters roared back "Hill-a-ry."
Clinton brought both camps to their feet when she blistered the Bush administration and, by inference, a likely Republican nominee she had no problem branding a conservative — even if he's struggling to sell that label to his party's right.
"We have tried it President Bush's way," she said, and now "the Republicans have chosen more of the same."
"President Bush has already put his stamp of approval on Senator McCain's conservative credentials," she said, adding wryly, "and I'm sure that will help." The line won cheers and laughs. Bush has nudged his party to unite but not explicitly endorsed McCain.
The Arizona senator lost the Kansas caucuses Saturday against long-shot rival Mike Huckabee, who draws support from conservatives.
Clinton described Bush 's way as "hoard power, disregard science, shred the Constitution, smear dissenters, impugn patriots, go it alone in the world wherever you can and cooperate only when you have to."
She told the audience: "You know, for me, politics isn't a game. It's not about who's up or who's down. It's about your lives, your families and your futures. And isn't it about time you had a president who brought your voice and your values to your White House?"
Former President Clinton campaigned vigorously for his wife in Virginia, but his rhetoric was restrained after the criticism he took earlier for remarks about Obama that raised racial sensitivities, including one suggesting Obama's opposition to the Iraq war was a fairy tale.
Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, an Obama backer and Richmond's mayor, took a swipe at Bill Clinton during a news conference Saturday. "Barack Obama is not a fairy tale," Wilder said. "He is real."
Of Bill Clinton, Wilder said: "A time comes and a time goes. The president has had his time."
Obama addressed about 4,000 Democratic officials and activists at the state party's annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner, taking the stage fresh from victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and the Virgin Islands.
Clinton addressed the crowd before he arrived. The gala served as a can't-miss stop in their short, intense campaign for contests Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Obama exulted in his wins but mentioned them only briefly. He said his victories from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast and in the heartland were a rousing "yes we can" from voters fed up with divisive politics and failed policies. Like Clinton before him on the stage, he painted McCain, the likely Republican nominee, as more of the same from the party of President Bush.
"He has made the decision to embrace the failed policies of George Bush's Washington," Obama said of McCain. "He speaks of a hundred-year war in Iraq and sees another on the horizon with Iran."
The New York senator made no reference to her losses in the Washington and Nebraska caucuses or to the Louisiana primary, which was still unsettled when she spoke. She left the dinner immediately after her remarks, ensuring no overlap with Obama, who was on his way.
The crowd greeted Clinton enthusiastically but was largely supportive of her rival. Chants of "Obama" rang through the hall as she made her way offstage, and they grew much louder when the Illinois senator arrived.
The Clinton campaign said 100,000 donors had given $10 million since Super Tuesday, the money-sapping mega-contest that left Obama and Clinton close to a tie in delegates won. After Tuesday, Clinton acknowledged lending her campaign $5 million of her own money — a disclosure that seemed to help open the money taps from supporters to try to counter Obama's fundraising prowess.
Both candidates spent most of Saturday campaigning in Maine for the state's nominating caucuses Sunday.
Saturday's results were clearly disappointing for Clinton, although not entirely a surprise. Obama has generally done well in smaller states and those holding caucuses rather than primaries.
Clinton's prospects in Tuesday's Maryland, Virginia and D.C. primaries were uncertain, because of high numbers of black voters and highly educated voters — groups that have favored her rival. She planned to fly Tuesday night to Texas, where she hoped to perform well in the state's March 4 primary.
Before Clinton arrived at the spirited Richmond dinner, Obama supporters in the crowd waved placards and chanted the stump-speech line that has become a slogan — "Yes we can" — while Clinton supporters roared back "Hill-a-ry."
Clinton brought both camps to their feet when she blistered the Bush administration and, by inference, a likely Republican nominee she had no problem branding a conservative — even if he's struggling to sell that label to his party's right.
"We have tried it President Bush's way," she said, and now "the Republicans have chosen more of the same."
"President Bush has already put his stamp of approval on Senator McCain's conservative credentials," she said, adding wryly, "and I'm sure that will help." The line won cheers and laughs. Bush has nudged his party to unite but not explicitly endorsed McCain.
The Arizona senator lost the Kansas caucuses Saturday against long-shot rival Mike Huckabee, who draws support from conservatives.
Clinton described Bush 's way as "hoard power, disregard science, shred the Constitution, smear dissenters, impugn patriots, go it alone in the world wherever you can and cooperate only when you have to."
She told the audience: "You know, for me, politics isn't a game. It's not about who's up or who's down. It's about your lives, your families and your futures. And isn't it about time you had a president who brought your voice and your values to your White House?"
Former President Clinton campaigned vigorously for his wife in Virginia, but his rhetoric was restrained after the criticism he took earlier for remarks about Obama that raised racial sensitivities, including one suggesting Obama's opposition to the Iraq war was a fairy tale.
Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, an Obama backer and Richmond's mayor, took a swipe at Bill Clinton during a news conference Saturday. "Barack Obama is not a fairy tale," Wilder said. "He is real."
Of Bill Clinton, Wilder said: "A time comes and a time goes. The president has had his time."
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Obama, Clinton compete in 3 states
Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton competed for Democratic convention delegates across three states on Saturday, locked in a landmark struggle for the party's presidential nomination.
A total of 158 delegates was at stake in the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington. Caucuses in the Virgin Islands offered three more.
Clinton began the day with a slender delegate lead in The Associated Press count. She had 1,045 delegates to 960 for Obama. A total of 2,025 is required to win the nomination at the party convention in Denver.
Republican contests in Louisiana, Kansas and Guam provided John McCain a chance to advance closer to the 1,191 delegates he needs to make his nomination official.
The Arizona senator began the day with 707 delegates. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with 195, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with 14, were his only remaining rivals following Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the race.
The day's contests opened a new phase in the Democratic race between Clinton, attempting to become the first woman in the White House, and Obama, hoping to become the first black.
The Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses in 22 states, which once looked likely to effectively settle the race, instead produced a near-equal delegate split.
That left Obama and Clinton facing the likelihood of a grind-it-out competition lasting into spring — if not to the convention itself.
With the night's events, 29 of the 50 states have selected delegates.
Two more — Michigan and Florida — held renegade primaries and the Democratic National Committee has vowed not to seat any delegates chosen at either of them.
Maine, with 24 delegates, holds caucuses on Sunday. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas are next, on Tuesday, with 175 combined.
Then follows a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not.
The date of March 4 looms large, 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Mississippi is alone in holding a primary one week later, with a relatively small 33 delegates at stake.
Puerto Rico anchors the Democratic calendar, with 55 delegates chosen in caucuses on June 7.
If Super Tuesday failed to settle the campaign, it produced a remarkable surge in fundraising.
Obama's aides announced he had raised more than $7 million on line in the two days that followed.
Clinton disclosed she had loaned her campaign $5 million late last month in an attempt to counter her rival's Super Tuesday television advertising. She raised more than $6 million in the two days after the busiest night in primary history.
The television ad wars continued unabated.
Obama has been airing commercials for more than a week in television markets serving every state that has a contest though Feb 19.
Clinton began airing ads midweek in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska, and added Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Friday.
A total of 158 delegates was at stake in the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington. Caucuses in the Virgin Islands offered three more.
Clinton began the day with a slender delegate lead in The Associated Press count. She had 1,045 delegates to 960 for Obama. A total of 2,025 is required to win the nomination at the party convention in Denver.
Republican contests in Louisiana, Kansas and Guam provided John McCain a chance to advance closer to the 1,191 delegates he needs to make his nomination official.
The Arizona senator began the day with 707 delegates. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with 195, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with 14, were his only remaining rivals following Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the race.
The day's contests opened a new phase in the Democratic race between Clinton, attempting to become the first woman in the White House, and Obama, hoping to become the first black.
The Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses in 22 states, which once looked likely to effectively settle the race, instead produced a near-equal delegate split.
That left Obama and Clinton facing the likelihood of a grind-it-out competition lasting into spring — if not to the convention itself.
With the night's events, 29 of the 50 states have selected delegates.
Two more — Michigan and Florida — held renegade primaries and the Democratic National Committee has vowed not to seat any delegates chosen at either of them.
Maine, with 24 delegates, holds caucuses on Sunday. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas are next, on Tuesday, with 175 combined.
Then follows a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not.
The date of March 4 looms large, 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Mississippi is alone in holding a primary one week later, with a relatively small 33 delegates at stake.
Puerto Rico anchors the Democratic calendar, with 55 delegates chosen in caucuses on June 7.
If Super Tuesday failed to settle the campaign, it produced a remarkable surge in fundraising.
Obama's aides announced he had raised more than $7 million on line in the two days that followed.
Clinton disclosed she had loaned her campaign $5 million late last month in an attempt to counter her rival's Super Tuesday television advertising. She raised more than $6 million in the two days after the busiest night in primary history.
The television ad wars continued unabated.
Obama has been airing commercials for more than a week in television markets serving every state that has a contest though Feb 19.
Clinton began airing ads midweek in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska, and added Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Friday.
Obama has advantage in head-to-head with McCain
Sen. John McCain became the likely Republican nominee after Mitt Romney decided to suspend his campaign Thursday. Now, the Democrats are debating who would do better against the Arizona Republican.
Two polls this month have asked registered voters nationwide how they would vote if the choice were between McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton.
A CNN poll, conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation February 1-3, shows Clinton three points ahead of McCain, 50 percent to 47 percent. That's within the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points, meaning that the race is statistically tied..
A Time magazine poll, conducted February 1-4, also shows a dead heat between Clinton and McCain. Each was backed by 46 percent of those polled.
Sen. Barack Obama believes he can do better, arguing "I've got appeal that goes beyond our party."
In the CNN poll, Obama leads McCain by 8 points, 52 percent to 44 percent. That's outside the margin of error, meaning that Obama has the lead.
And in the Time poll, Obama leads McCain by 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent -- a lead also outside of the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In both polls, Obama looks stronger than Clinton. Why?
Obama's explanation: "I think there is no doubt that she has higher negatives than any of the remaining Democratic candidates. That's just a fact, and there are some who will not vote for her."
That was three weeks ago. Now, only two Democratic candidates remain.
Clinton does have higher negatives than Obama -- and McCain. Forty-four percent of the public say they don't like Clinton, compared with 36 percent who don't like McCain and 31 percent who don't like Obama, according to the CNN poll conducted February 1-3.
Why does Obama do better against McCain than Clinton? Obama does do a little better than Clinton with independents and Republicans.
But the big difference is men: Men give McCain an 18-point lead over Clinton, 57 percent to 39 percent, according to the CNN poll. The margin of error for that question was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
But if McCain and Obama went head to head, McCain's lead among men shrinks to three, 49 percent to 46 percent -- statistically a tie.
Women, on the other hand, vote for either Clinton or Obama by similar margins.
Some Democrats may be worried about how Obama will fare with white voters. Whites give McCain a 15-point lead over Clinton, (56 percent for McCain, 41 percent for Clinton).
But Obama actually fares better than Clinton with white voters. McCain still leads, but by a smaller margin, (52 to 43 percent).
Obama argues that he can reach across party lines. And he does do a little better than Clinton with Independents and Republicans, at least in these polls.
But the big difference is that Clinton doesn't draw very well with men. Obama does.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Twisters kill at least 52 in Southern states
LAFAYETTE, Tenn. - Rescue crews, some with the help of the National Guard, went door-to-door looking for more victims a day after a cluster of tornadoes tore through the South, killing at least 52 people and injuring several hundred.
Residents in five states tried to salvage what they could Wednesday from homes reduced to piles of debris. Tens of thousands were without power after dozens of twisters were reported in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.
Seavia Dixon, whose home in Atkins, Ark., was shattered, stood in her yard, holding muddy baby pictures of her son, who is now a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq. Only a concrete slab was left.
The family’s new white pickup truck was upside-down, about 150 yards from where it was parked before the storm. Another pickup truck the family owned sat crumpled about 50 feet from the slab.
“You know, it’s just material things,” Dixon said, her voice breaking. “We can replace them. We were just lucky to survive.”
In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.
At least 28 people were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said.
Among the victims were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old daughter in Atkins, a community of about 3,000 approximately 60 miles northwest of Little Rock.
The family died from trauma when their home “took a direct hit” from the storm, Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout said.
Ray Story tried to get his 70-year-old brother, Bill Clark, to a hospital after the storms leveled his mobile home in Macon County, about 60 miles northeast of Nashville. Clark died as Story and his wife tried to navigate debris-strewn roads in their pickup truck, they said.
“He never had a chance,” Story’s wife, Nova, said. “I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me.”
President Bush said he called the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee and assured them the administration was ready to help and to deal with any emergency requests.
“Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the government,” Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them.”
Ala., Fla., Ga. on tornado watch
The system moved eastward to Alabama Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and gusty wind, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. The National Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia. Weather service experts also investigated damage in Indiana to see if it was caused by tornadoes.
An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, Ala., and a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the wind, said county emergency management director Johnny Burnette.
“I was there before daylight and it looked like a war zone,” he said.
Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping station. The station took a direct hit from the storm, but no deaths connected to the fire were reported.
About 200 yards from the edge of the plant, Bonnie and Frank Brawner picked through the rubble of their home for photographs and other personal items. The storm sheared off the second story of the home.
“We had a beautiful neighborhood, now it’s hell,” said Bonnie Brawner, 80.
University hit hard
In Jackson, Tenn., more than 20 students on Tuesday night found themselves stuck behind wreckage and jammed doors in battered dormitories at Union University.
“I’ve never been through anything like that before — the noise. Your ears pop. It makes your skin kind of crawl. It’s really creepy,” said sophomore Andrew Norman, 20, one of eight men who huddled in a bathroom during the storm. Afterward, they had to crawl out a bathroom window because wreckage blocked other exits.
Tornadoes had hit the campus in the past, and students knew the drill when they heard sirens, said Union University President David S. Dockery. “When the sirens went off the entire process went into place quickly,” Dockery said. Students “were ushered into rooms, into the bathrooms, interior spaces.”
He said about 50 students were taken to a hospital and nine stayed through the night. But all would be fine, he said. The students “demonstrated who they are and I’m so proud of them.”
“We’ve seen damage on this campus before but nothing that even comes close,” Dockery told reporters in the televised news conference. “You see these major buildings — $20 million academic buildings — that roofs are off of them. It’s hard to even think about what is in front of us in terms of rebuilding.”
In Memphis, high wind collapsed the roof of a Sears store at a mall. Debris that included bricks and air conditioning units was scattered on the parking lot, where about two dozen vehicles were damaged.
A few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away in the Wolf River, but they were pulled out with only scrapes, said Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department.
In Mississippi, Desoto County Sheriff’s Department Cmdr. Steve Atkinson said a twister shredded warehouses in an industrial park in the city of Southaven, just south of Memphis.
“It ripped the warehouses apart. The best way to describe it is it looks like a bomb went off,” Atkinson said.
Winter tornadoes are not uncommon. The peak tornado season is late winter through midsummer, but the storms can happen at any time of the year with the right conditions.
But this batch was the nation’s worst in a 24-hour period since May 3, 1999, when some 50 people died in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Severity tied to La Nina?
The tornadoes could be due to La Nina, the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region.
Recent studies have found an increase in tornadoes in parts of the southern U.S. during the winter during a La Nina. On Jan. 8, tornadoes were reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Two died in the Missouri storms.
In this round of storms, there were 67 witness accounts of tornadoes but the number of twisters likely won’t be that high because some probably saw the same funnel cloud, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. He said a reasonable guess is that 30 to 40 tornadoes touched down.
Most communities had ample warning that the storms were coming — forecasts had warned for days that severe weather was possible. But in at least one rural community, there was no siren to alert residents the severe weather had arrived.
In Kentucky’s Allen County, officials have requested funding for a siren at the fire station, but don’t have one yet. Even if they did, officials wondered if it would have helped.
“It came in quick,” Judge-Executive Bobby Young said. “Probably, warning devices wouldn’t have helped any.”
Residents in five states tried to salvage what they could Wednesday from homes reduced to piles of debris. Tens of thousands were without power after dozens of twisters were reported in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.
Seavia Dixon, whose home in Atkins, Ark., was shattered, stood in her yard, holding muddy baby pictures of her son, who is now a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq. Only a concrete slab was left.
The family’s new white pickup truck was upside-down, about 150 yards from where it was parked before the storm. Another pickup truck the family owned sat crumpled about 50 feet from the slab.
“You know, it’s just material things,” Dixon said, her voice breaking. “We can replace them. We were just lucky to survive.”
In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.
At least 28 people were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said.
Among the victims were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old daughter in Atkins, a community of about 3,000 approximately 60 miles northwest of Little Rock.
The family died from trauma when their home “took a direct hit” from the storm, Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout said.
Ray Story tried to get his 70-year-old brother, Bill Clark, to a hospital after the storms leveled his mobile home in Macon County, about 60 miles northeast of Nashville. Clark died as Story and his wife tried to navigate debris-strewn roads in their pickup truck, they said.
“He never had a chance,” Story’s wife, Nova, said. “I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me.”
President Bush said he called the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee and assured them the administration was ready to help and to deal with any emergency requests.
“Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the government,” Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them.”
Ala., Fla., Ga. on tornado watch
The system moved eastward to Alabama Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and gusty wind, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. The National Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia. Weather service experts also investigated damage in Indiana to see if it was caused by tornadoes.
An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, Ala., and a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the wind, said county emergency management director Johnny Burnette.
“I was there before daylight and it looked like a war zone,” he said.
Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping station. The station took a direct hit from the storm, but no deaths connected to the fire were reported.
About 200 yards from the edge of the plant, Bonnie and Frank Brawner picked through the rubble of their home for photographs and other personal items. The storm sheared off the second story of the home.
“We had a beautiful neighborhood, now it’s hell,” said Bonnie Brawner, 80.
University hit hard
In Jackson, Tenn., more than 20 students on Tuesday night found themselves stuck behind wreckage and jammed doors in battered dormitories at Union University.
“I’ve never been through anything like that before — the noise. Your ears pop. It makes your skin kind of crawl. It’s really creepy,” said sophomore Andrew Norman, 20, one of eight men who huddled in a bathroom during the storm. Afterward, they had to crawl out a bathroom window because wreckage blocked other exits.
Tornadoes had hit the campus in the past, and students knew the drill when they heard sirens, said Union University President David S. Dockery. “When the sirens went off the entire process went into place quickly,” Dockery said. Students “were ushered into rooms, into the bathrooms, interior spaces.”
He said about 50 students were taken to a hospital and nine stayed through the night. But all would be fine, he said. The students “demonstrated who they are and I’m so proud of them.”
“We’ve seen damage on this campus before but nothing that even comes close,” Dockery told reporters in the televised news conference. “You see these major buildings — $20 million academic buildings — that roofs are off of them. It’s hard to even think about what is in front of us in terms of rebuilding.”
In Memphis, high wind collapsed the roof of a Sears store at a mall. Debris that included bricks and air conditioning units was scattered on the parking lot, where about two dozen vehicles were damaged.
A few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away in the Wolf River, but they were pulled out with only scrapes, said Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department.
In Mississippi, Desoto County Sheriff’s Department Cmdr. Steve Atkinson said a twister shredded warehouses in an industrial park in the city of Southaven, just south of Memphis.
“It ripped the warehouses apart. The best way to describe it is it looks like a bomb went off,” Atkinson said.
Winter tornadoes are not uncommon. The peak tornado season is late winter through midsummer, but the storms can happen at any time of the year with the right conditions.
But this batch was the nation’s worst in a 24-hour period since May 3, 1999, when some 50 people died in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Severity tied to La Nina?
The tornadoes could be due to La Nina, the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region.
Recent studies have found an increase in tornadoes in parts of the southern U.S. during the winter during a La Nina. On Jan. 8, tornadoes were reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Two died in the Missouri storms.
In this round of storms, there were 67 witness accounts of tornadoes but the number of twisters likely won’t be that high because some probably saw the same funnel cloud, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. He said a reasonable guess is that 30 to 40 tornadoes touched down.
Most communities had ample warning that the storms were coming — forecasts had warned for days that severe weather was possible. But in at least one rural community, there was no siren to alert residents the severe weather had arrived.
In Kentucky’s Allen County, officials have requested funding for a siren at the fire station, but don’t have one yet. Even if they did, officials wondered if it would have helped.
“It came in quick,” Judge-Executive Bobby Young said. “Probably, warning devices wouldn’t have helped any.”
Why Blacks Should Consider McCain
Feb. 6, 2008 -- The old saying holds that in politics you don't have to win, you just have to not lose. But what the saying doesn't tell you is that sometimes what looks like victory is actually a step backward. And that will be the case for black folk should Hillary Clinton win the Democratic Party nomination and the presidency.
It was clear from the first vague rumblings of her presidential ambitions that H.C. would be the definitive establishment candidate. Her husband is likely the most powerful individual in the Democratic Party and his charisma, cache and connections are largely responsible for the aura of inevitability that surrounded her campaign early on.
Sen. Barack Obama's stunning Iowa and South Carolina victories, along with his strong showings during the other primaries, neutralized Clinton's argument that she was the most electable candidate. But, she has another unspoken advantage: The Democratic Party nominating system includes 800 "super-delegates" who can, theoretically, vote however they choose but are most likely to back the candidate most favored by the party establishment. If it comes down to the super-delegates deciding the nominee and Clinton emerges victorious, you can count on the 2008 Democratic Convention looking a whole lot like the one in 1968.
The Clintons have thus far run one of the most underhanded and bitter political campaigns in recent history. And while there is no reason to suspect that they are racist, they are clearly willing to play upon the sympathies of whites who are--which is probably worse. This was evident by the twin "accidents" in which Clinton staff member Billy Shaheen and that pillar of the booty-shake community BET founder Bob Johnson attacked Sen. Obama for his youthful dalliances with drugs. Any lingering doubt about who they were playing to was erased when Bill Clinton essentially dismissed Obama's South Carolina victory by comparing it to Jesse Jackson's wins there in 1984 and 1988.
Apparently none of the high-profile black leaders who are backing Hillary Clinton have been able to prohibit the kind of cynical race hustling that marked the South Carolina primary. (This recalls the old saying that the problem is not that black leaders so often sell out, but that their asking price is so pitifully low.)
But in the wake of the Sister Souljah episode (not to mention Bill Clinton's stiff-arming of his black nominee for the Justice Department (Lani Guinier) and his short-lived Surgeon General (Jocelyn Elders) it must appear that there is nothing the black community won't forgive you for provided you show up at one of our churches and hum a spiritual every so often. As a matter of principle, no candidate, no matter how deep their alleged ties to the black community, should be allowed to race-bait a black politician and still receive the majority of our vote.
All this points to one clear – if unlikely – conclusion: if Hillary Clinton receives the Democratic Party nomination, African Americans should consider voting for John McCain. But before you fix your lips to call me a sellout consider this: Carter G. Woodson once remarked that any race that consistently gives its vote to one political party is asking to be taken advantage of.
If politics is the art of advancing one's interests, the 2008 election, and the Clinton campaign in particular, indicate that the Democratic Party has become so cavalier with black folk that our interests are nearly invisible. In short, South Carolina (not to mention that LBJ did more than MLK comment) revealed that the Clintons operate on the presumption that they can alienate black voters and still rely upon our support in the general election.
At present no reasonable third party candidate has emerged (unless you count Cynthia McKinney, the fisticuff-prone Green Party candidate who might take "fighting for your rights" literally.) So a vote for McCain would be a short-term loss that would facilitate a long-term win.
With the congressional balance tilting in favor of Democrats, McCain would have a hard time getting reactionary legislation passed or right-wing Supreme Court nominees approved (not that he is a darling of the GOP right-wing anyway.) He has made a big show of his support for remaining in Iraq but truthfully no one will be able to guarantee a quick withdrawal from the region. And to his credit, McCain clearly opposed the Bush Administration's mad attempts to justify torture and broke with the right-wing on immigration reform.
More importantly, John McCain would be 72 by the time he took office, and 76 in 2012. Given the fact that he is a divisive figure in the GOP -- and that he would turn 76 during the 2012 campaign -- it is likely that he would face a strong challenge from within the party during the next election cycle. From the outset, McCain's candidacy has had the look of a one-termer.
I am a lifelong registered independent, operating on the belief that the Democratic Party should at least have to work for our support. If even 20 percent of the black vote went to McCain it would send a clear message to the Democrats that our days of being a cheap date are over.
McCain in command; Obama, Clinton battle
WASHINGTON - John McCain earned himself a super Wednesday, a day to savor coast-to-coast primary victories that ratified him as the Republican front-runner, while Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama dug in after a night of divided spoils in a Democratic presidential contest that could stretch to the spring.
McCain, whose campaign once verged on collapse, piled up more delegates than his two rivals combined, pushing over the halfway mark on what's needed to clinch the nomination. His victories stretched from New York to California, the biggest prize. Still, Mitt Romney in the West and Mike Huckabee in the South proved to be go-to candidates for conservatives, and they vowed to press forward.
Clarity of any sort eluded the Democrats as campaigns turned to the next rounds — contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state Saturday and primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday.
Obama won 13 Super Tuesday states; Clinton, eight plus American Samoa. Clinton scored the advantage in delegates, bring her total to 845 to Obama's 765, by the latest accounting. The road ahead was long for the Democrats: It takes 2,025 delegates to claim their nomination.
Delegate tabulations continued Wednesday, possibly longer, and the victor in one race remained unsettled — the Democratic caucuses in New Mexico.
Clinton won the biggest state, California, capitalizing on backing from Hispanic voters. Obama scored victories in Alabama and Georgia on the strength of black support, and won a nail-biter in bellwether Missouri.
McCain's own victory in California dealt a crushing blow to his closest pursuer, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor.
"We've won some of the biggest states in the country," the Arizona senator told cheering supporters at a rally in Phoenix, hours before California fell his way. An underdog for months, he proclaimed himself the front-runner at last, and added. "I don't really mind it one bit."
In the competition that counted the most, the Arizona senator had 613 delegates, to 269 for Romney and 190 for Huckabee in incomplete counting. It takes 1,191 to win the GOP nomination.
Neither Democrat could plausibly claim an overall victory and didn't try.
"I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate about how to leave this country better off for the next generation," Clinton said.
Obama told a boisterous election night rally in Chicago, "Our time has come. Our movement is real. And change is coming to America."
Polling place interviews with voters suggested subtle shifts in the political landscape.
For the first time this year, McCain ran first in a few states among self-identified Republicans. As usual, he was running strongly among independents. Romney was getting the votes of about four in 10 people who described themselves as conservative. McCain was winning about one-third of that group, and Huckabee about one in five.
Overall, Clinton was winning only a slight edge among women and white voters, groups that she had won handily in earlier contests, according to preliminary results from interviews with voters in 16 states leaving polling places.
Obama was collecting the overwhelming majority of votes cast by blacks — a factor in victories in Alabama and Georgia.
Clinton's continued strong appeal among Hispanics — she was winning nearly six in 10 of their votes — was a big factor in her California triumph, and in her victory in Arizona, too.
McCain, the early Republican front-runner whose campaign nearly unraveled six months ago, won in California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Delaware and his home state of Arizona — each of them winner-take-all primaries. He also pocketed victories in Oklahoma and Illinois.
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, won a series of Bible Belt victories, in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee as well as his own home state. He also triumphed at the Republican West Virginia convention, and told The Associated Press in an interview he would campaign on. "The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," he said.
Romney won a home state victory in Massachusetts. He also took Utah, where fellow Mormons supported his candidacy. His superior organization produced caucus victories in North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Alaska and Colorado, and he, too, breathed defiance. "We're going to go all the way to the convention. We're going to win this thing," he told supporters in Boston.
Democrats played out a historic struggle between two senators: Clinton, seeking to become the first female president, and Obama, hoping to become the first black to win the White House.
Clinton won at home in New York as well as in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona and Arkansas, where she was first lady for more than a decade. She also won the caucuses in American Samoa.
Obama won Connecticut, Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Utah and his home state of Illinois. He prevailed in caucuses in North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and Colorado. His Missouri victory was so close in the vote total that there was no telling whether he or Clinton would end up with a majority of the state's 72 delegates.
Clinton had a 117-vote lead in New Mexico when the party shut its vote counting operation until 11 a.m. EST.
The allocation of delegates lagged the vote count by hours. That was particularly true for the Democrats, who divided theirs roughly in proportion to the popular vote.
Nine of the Republican contests were winner take all, and that was where McCain piled up his lead.
Alabama and Georgia gave Obama three straight Southern triumphs. Like last month's win in South Carolina, they were powered by black votes.
Democrats and Republicans alike said the economy was their most important issue. Democrats said the war in Iraq ranked second and health care third. Republican primary voters said immigration was second most important after the economy, followed by the war in Iraq.
The survey was conducted in 16 states by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks.
McCain, whose campaign once verged on collapse, piled up more delegates than his two rivals combined, pushing over the halfway mark on what's needed to clinch the nomination. His victories stretched from New York to California, the biggest prize. Still, Mitt Romney in the West and Mike Huckabee in the South proved to be go-to candidates for conservatives, and they vowed to press forward.
Clarity of any sort eluded the Democrats as campaigns turned to the next rounds — contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state Saturday and primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday.
Obama won 13 Super Tuesday states; Clinton, eight plus American Samoa. Clinton scored the advantage in delegates, bring her total to 845 to Obama's 765, by the latest accounting. The road ahead was long for the Democrats: It takes 2,025 delegates to claim their nomination.
Delegate tabulations continued Wednesday, possibly longer, and the victor in one race remained unsettled — the Democratic caucuses in New Mexico.
Clinton won the biggest state, California, capitalizing on backing from Hispanic voters. Obama scored victories in Alabama and Georgia on the strength of black support, and won a nail-biter in bellwether Missouri.
McCain's own victory in California dealt a crushing blow to his closest pursuer, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor.
"We've won some of the biggest states in the country," the Arizona senator told cheering supporters at a rally in Phoenix, hours before California fell his way. An underdog for months, he proclaimed himself the front-runner at last, and added. "I don't really mind it one bit."
In the competition that counted the most, the Arizona senator had 613 delegates, to 269 for Romney and 190 for Huckabee in incomplete counting. It takes 1,191 to win the GOP nomination.
Neither Democrat could plausibly claim an overall victory and didn't try.
"I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate about how to leave this country better off for the next generation," Clinton said.
Obama told a boisterous election night rally in Chicago, "Our time has come. Our movement is real. And change is coming to America."
Polling place interviews with voters suggested subtle shifts in the political landscape.
For the first time this year, McCain ran first in a few states among self-identified Republicans. As usual, he was running strongly among independents. Romney was getting the votes of about four in 10 people who described themselves as conservative. McCain was winning about one-third of that group, and Huckabee about one in five.
Overall, Clinton was winning only a slight edge among women and white voters, groups that she had won handily in earlier contests, according to preliminary results from interviews with voters in 16 states leaving polling places.
Obama was collecting the overwhelming majority of votes cast by blacks — a factor in victories in Alabama and Georgia.
Clinton's continued strong appeal among Hispanics — she was winning nearly six in 10 of their votes — was a big factor in her California triumph, and in her victory in Arizona, too.
McCain, the early Republican front-runner whose campaign nearly unraveled six months ago, won in California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Delaware and his home state of Arizona — each of them winner-take-all primaries. He also pocketed victories in Oklahoma and Illinois.
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, won a series of Bible Belt victories, in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee as well as his own home state. He also triumphed at the Republican West Virginia convention, and told The Associated Press in an interview he would campaign on. "The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," he said.
Romney won a home state victory in Massachusetts. He also took Utah, where fellow Mormons supported his candidacy. His superior organization produced caucus victories in North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Alaska and Colorado, and he, too, breathed defiance. "We're going to go all the way to the convention. We're going to win this thing," he told supporters in Boston.
Democrats played out a historic struggle between two senators: Clinton, seeking to become the first female president, and Obama, hoping to become the first black to win the White House.
Clinton won at home in New York as well as in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona and Arkansas, where she was first lady for more than a decade. She also won the caucuses in American Samoa.
Obama won Connecticut, Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Utah and his home state of Illinois. He prevailed in caucuses in North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and Colorado. His Missouri victory was so close in the vote total that there was no telling whether he or Clinton would end up with a majority of the state's 72 delegates.
Clinton had a 117-vote lead in New Mexico when the party shut its vote counting operation until 11 a.m. EST.
The allocation of delegates lagged the vote count by hours. That was particularly true for the Democrats, who divided theirs roughly in proportion to the popular vote.
Nine of the Republican contests were winner take all, and that was where McCain piled up his lead.
Alabama and Georgia gave Obama three straight Southern triumphs. Like last month's win in South Carolina, they were powered by black votes.
Democrats and Republicans alike said the economy was their most important issue. Democrats said the war in Iraq ranked second and health care third. Republican primary voters said immigration was second most important after the economy, followed by the war in Iraq.
The survey was conducted in 16 states by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
McCain Seizes Command Of GOP Race
Sen. John McCain seized command of the race for the Republican presidential nomination early Wednesday, winning delegate-rich primaries from the East Coast to California. Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama traded victories in an epic struggle with no end in sight.
Clinton won the biggest state, California, in the Democratic campaign, capitalizing on backing from Hispanic voters. Obama fashioned victories in Alabama and Georgia on the strength of black support.
McCain's own victory in the Republican race in the Golden State dealt a crushing blow to his closest pursuer, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"We've won some of the biggest states in the country," McCain told cheering supporters at a rally in Phoenix, hours before California made his Tuesday Super. An underdog for months, he proclaimed himself the front-runner at last, and added. "I don't really mind it one bit."
In the competition that counted the most, the Arizona senator had 522 delegates, more than 40 percent of the 1,191 needed for the nomination — and far ahead of his rivals.
Even so, Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said they were staying in the race.
Neither Clinton nor Obama proclaimed overall victory on a Super Tuesday that sprawled across 22 states, and with good reason. Obama won 12 states and Clinton eight plus American Samoa. But with victories in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, the former first lady led in the early tabulation of Super Tuesday delegates.
Democratic races in Missouri and New Mexico were too close to call. No returns had been tabulated in Republican caucuses in Alaska.
"I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate about how to leave this country better off for the next generation," said the former first lady, looking ahead to the primaries and caucuses yet to come.
Obama was in Chicago, where he told a noisy election night rally, "Our time has come. Our movement is real. And change is coming to America."
Polling place interviews with voters suggested subtle shifts in the political landscape.
For the first time this year, McCain ran first in a few states among self-identified Republicans. As usual, he was running strongly among independents. Romney was getting the votes of about four in 10 people who described themselves as conservative. McCain was wining about one-third of that group, and Huckabee about one in five.
Overall, Clinton was winning only a slight edge among women and white voters, groups that she had won handily in earlier contests, according to preliminary results from interviews with voters in 16 states leaving polling places.
Obama was collecting the overwhelming majority of votes cast by blacks — a factor in victories in Alabama and Georgia.
Clinton's continued strong appeal among Hispanics — she was winning nearly six in 10 of their votes — was a big factor in her California triumph, and in her victory in Arizona, too.
McCain, the early Republican front-runner whose campaign nearly unraveled six months ago, won in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Delaware and his home state of Arizona — each of them winner-take-all primaries. He also pocketed victories in Oklahoma and Illinois.
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, won a series of Bible Belt victories, in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee as well as his own home state. He also triumphed at the Republican West Virginia convention, and told The Associated Press in an interview he would campaign on. "The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," he said.
Romney won a home state victory in Massachusetts. He also took Utah, where fellow Mormons supported his candidacy. His superior organization produced caucus victories in North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and Colorado, and he, too, breathed defiance. "We're going to go all the way to the convention. We're going to win this thing," he told supporters in Boston.
Democrats played out a historic struggle between two senators: Clinton, seeking to become the first female president, and Obama, hoping to become the first black to win the White House.
Clinton won at home in New York as well as in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona and Arkansas, where she was first lady for more than a decade. She also won the caucuses in American Samoa.
Obama won Connecticut, Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Utah and his home state of Illinois. He prevailed in caucuses in North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and Colorado.
After an early series of low-delegate, single-state contests, Super Tuesday was anything but small — its primaries and caucuses were spread across nearly half the country in the most wide-open presidential campaign in memory.
The result was a double-barreled set of races, Obama and Clinton fighting for delegates as well as bragging rights in individual states, the Republicans doing the same.
The allocation of delegates lagged the vote count by hours. That was particularly true for the Democrats, who divided theirs roughly in proportion to the popular vote.
Nine of the Republican contests were winner take all, and that was where McCain piled up his lead.
The Arizona senator had 522 delegates, to 223 for Romney and 142 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to clinch the presidential nomination at next summer's convention in St. Paul, Minn.
Overall, Clinton had 706 delegates to 611 for Obama, out of the 2,025 needed to secure victory at the party convention in Denver. Clinton's advantage is partly due to her lead among so-called superdelegates, members of Congress and other party leaders who are not selected in primaries and caucuses — and who are also free to change their minds.
Alabama and Georgia gave Obama three straight Southern triumphs. Like last month's win in South Carolina, they were powered by black votes.
Democrats and Republicans alike said the economy was their most important issue. Democrats said the war in Iraq ranked second and health care third. Republican primary voters said immigration was second most important after the economy, followed by the war in Iraq.
The survey was conducted in 16 states by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks.
Already, the campaigns were looking ahead to Feb. 9 contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state and Feb. 12 primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. And increasingly, it looked like the Democrats' historic race between a woman and a black man would go into early spring, possibly longer.
The de facto national primary was the culmination of a relentless campaign that moved into overdrive during Christmas week.
After a brief rest for the holiday, the candidates flew back to Iowa on Dec. 26 for a final stretch of campaigning before the state's caucuses offered the first test of the election year. New Hampshire's traditional first-in-the-nation primary followed a few days later, then a seemingly endless series of campaign days interspersed by debates and a handful of primaries and caucuses.
Along the way, the poorest performers dropped out: Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio; and Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.
Former Sen. John Edwards pulled out of the Democratic race last week, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani left the Republican field.
Edwards offered no endorsement as he exited, instead leaving Obama and Clinton to vie for help from his fundraisers and supporters.
Giuliani quit the race and backed McCain in the same breath, clearing the way for the Westerner in New York and New Jersey.
Giuliani's departure also made it possible for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to back McCain. Schwarzenegger said he would not have done so as long as the former mayor was in the race.
Obama and Clinton spent an estimated $20 million combined to advertise on television in the Feb 5 states.
Obama spent $11 million, running ads in 18 of the 22 states with Democratic contests. Clinton ran ads in 17, for a total of $9 million.
Clinton won the biggest state, California, in the Democratic campaign, capitalizing on backing from Hispanic voters. Obama fashioned victories in Alabama and Georgia on the strength of black support.
McCain's own victory in the Republican race in the Golden State dealt a crushing blow to his closest pursuer, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"We've won some of the biggest states in the country," McCain told cheering supporters at a rally in Phoenix, hours before California made his Tuesday Super. An underdog for months, he proclaimed himself the front-runner at last, and added. "I don't really mind it one bit."
In the competition that counted the most, the Arizona senator had 522 delegates, more than 40 percent of the 1,191 needed for the nomination — and far ahead of his rivals.
Even so, Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said they were staying in the race.
Neither Clinton nor Obama proclaimed overall victory on a Super Tuesday that sprawled across 22 states, and with good reason. Obama won 12 states and Clinton eight plus American Samoa. But with victories in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, the former first lady led in the early tabulation of Super Tuesday delegates.
Democratic races in Missouri and New Mexico were too close to call. No returns had been tabulated in Republican caucuses in Alaska.
"I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debate about how to leave this country better off for the next generation," said the former first lady, looking ahead to the primaries and caucuses yet to come.
Obama was in Chicago, where he told a noisy election night rally, "Our time has come. Our movement is real. And change is coming to America."
Polling place interviews with voters suggested subtle shifts in the political landscape.
For the first time this year, McCain ran first in a few states among self-identified Republicans. As usual, he was running strongly among independents. Romney was getting the votes of about four in 10 people who described themselves as conservative. McCain was wining about one-third of that group, and Huckabee about one in five.
Overall, Clinton was winning only a slight edge among women and white voters, groups that she had won handily in earlier contests, according to preliminary results from interviews with voters in 16 states leaving polling places.
Obama was collecting the overwhelming majority of votes cast by blacks — a factor in victories in Alabama and Georgia.
Clinton's continued strong appeal among Hispanics — she was winning nearly six in 10 of their votes — was a big factor in her California triumph, and in her victory in Arizona, too.
McCain, the early Republican front-runner whose campaign nearly unraveled six months ago, won in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Delaware and his home state of Arizona — each of them winner-take-all primaries. He also pocketed victories in Oklahoma and Illinois.
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, won a series of Bible Belt victories, in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee as well as his own home state. He also triumphed at the Republican West Virginia convention, and told The Associated Press in an interview he would campaign on. "The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," he said.
Romney won a home state victory in Massachusetts. He also took Utah, where fellow Mormons supported his candidacy. His superior organization produced caucus victories in North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and Colorado, and he, too, breathed defiance. "We're going to go all the way to the convention. We're going to win this thing," he told supporters in Boston.
Democrats played out a historic struggle between two senators: Clinton, seeking to become the first female president, and Obama, hoping to become the first black to win the White House.
Clinton won at home in New York as well as in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona and Arkansas, where she was first lady for more than a decade. She also won the caucuses in American Samoa.
Obama won Connecticut, Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Utah and his home state of Illinois. He prevailed in caucuses in North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and Colorado.
After an early series of low-delegate, single-state contests, Super Tuesday was anything but small — its primaries and caucuses were spread across nearly half the country in the most wide-open presidential campaign in memory.
The result was a double-barreled set of races, Obama and Clinton fighting for delegates as well as bragging rights in individual states, the Republicans doing the same.
The allocation of delegates lagged the vote count by hours. That was particularly true for the Democrats, who divided theirs roughly in proportion to the popular vote.
Nine of the Republican contests were winner take all, and that was where McCain piled up his lead.
The Arizona senator had 522 delegates, to 223 for Romney and 142 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to clinch the presidential nomination at next summer's convention in St. Paul, Minn.
Overall, Clinton had 706 delegates to 611 for Obama, out of the 2,025 needed to secure victory at the party convention in Denver. Clinton's advantage is partly due to her lead among so-called superdelegates, members of Congress and other party leaders who are not selected in primaries and caucuses — and who are also free to change their minds.
Alabama and Georgia gave Obama three straight Southern triumphs. Like last month's win in South Carolina, they were powered by black votes.
Democrats and Republicans alike said the economy was their most important issue. Democrats said the war in Iraq ranked second and health care third. Republican primary voters said immigration was second most important after the economy, followed by the war in Iraq.
The survey was conducted in 16 states by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks.
Already, the campaigns were looking ahead to Feb. 9 contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state and Feb. 12 primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. And increasingly, it looked like the Democrats' historic race between a woman and a black man would go into early spring, possibly longer.
The de facto national primary was the culmination of a relentless campaign that moved into overdrive during Christmas week.
After a brief rest for the holiday, the candidates flew back to Iowa on Dec. 26 for a final stretch of campaigning before the state's caucuses offered the first test of the election year. New Hampshire's traditional first-in-the-nation primary followed a few days later, then a seemingly endless series of campaign days interspersed by debates and a handful of primaries and caucuses.
Along the way, the poorest performers dropped out: Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio; and Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.
Former Sen. John Edwards pulled out of the Democratic race last week, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani left the Republican field.
Edwards offered no endorsement as he exited, instead leaving Obama and Clinton to vie for help from his fundraisers and supporters.
Giuliani quit the race and backed McCain in the same breath, clearing the way for the Westerner in New York and New Jersey.
Giuliani's departure also made it possible for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to back McCain. Schwarzenegger said he would not have done so as long as the former mayor was in the race.
Obama and Clinton spent an estimated $20 million combined to advertise on television in the Feb 5 states.
Obama spent $11 million, running ads in 18 of the 22 states with Democratic contests. Clinton ran ads in 17, for a total of $9 million.
White House Hopefuls Make Super Tuesday Pitches
Democratic and Republican White House hopefuls are making their final Super Tuesday pitches as voters in 24 states and American Samoa are heading to the polls.
Super Tuesday is virtually a national primary day, and some of the biggest prizes of the primary season -- California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia -- are up for grabs.
More than four-fifths of the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and more than 1,000 of the 1,191 necessary delegates on the Republican side are at stake.
Tuesday's results are more likely to decide the presumptive presidential nominee in the Republican contest than in the Democratic contest because of the way the GOP allocates delegates.
Victors in the Republican primaries and caucuses usually enjoy a winner-take-all delegate system, while Democrats parcel out delegates on a proportional basis
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton cast her ballot in her home state of New York Tuesday morning. She was joined by her husband, former President Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea.
The stakes are huge for our country, a lot of big challenges, but America's up to it," Clinton said after casting her vote. "We just need a president who's ready on day one to turn the economy around and become commander in chief and get our country back on the right track."
Obama started his Super Tuesday on the opposite coast. During an interview with CNN from San Francisco, California, the Illinois Democrat promoted his health care plan, a key issue for California voters.
"Our focus has been on reducing costs, making it available. I am confident that if people have a chance to buy high-quality health care that is affordable, they will do so," Obama said.
GOP nominees Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will be scrambling for votes throughout the day.
Two front-runners, McCain and Romney, have engaged in some bitter exchanges over each others conservative records
McCain started his day at a rally in New York flanked by former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain told supporters on a Manhattan street that he would "take the battle to the enemy."
"I guarantee you, as the nominee of my party, I can and will carry the city of New York as well as the state of New York, because we know how to appeal to independents," he said.
McCain was scheduled to fly to California, a key Super Tuesday state, for events in San Diego and was set to finish his day in Phoenix, Arizona.
McCain's closest rival for GOP nomination, Romney, told delegates at the West Virginia Republican convention Tuesday that wins in California and other Super Tuesday states would put him in position to win his party's nomination.
"It will indicate the conservative voices in our party are standing up and saying, 'wait a second, we want to make sure that this party does not leave the house that [former President] Ronald Reagan built," Romney said in Charleston, West Virginia.
"And if that happens, I think we're going to see a very clear pathway to gain additional delegates from the ongoing contests, and put together the winning combination to get the nomination."
While last-minute polls indicate Romney has gained ground against McCain in California, Romney is likely to split races with Huckabee in the South, Republican strategist John Feehery said.
In the Northeastern states and Midwest, I think John McCain is going to win," Feehery said. "I think it's really hard for Mitt Romney to get this nomination."
On the Democratic side, the surviving contenders -- Obama and Clinton -- are likely to split the delegates more evenly, Democratic analyst Peter Fenn said.
"I think that Obama clearly has an advantage in those seven states that are doing caucuses," Fenn said. "I think she's got to carry the big states that she had planned on. California is clearly up for grabs now ... Unless one or the other gets annihilated, I think they go on to many more Tuesdays."
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll out Monday, the two Democratic front-runners were virtually tied
Obama, who trounced Clinton in January's South Carolina primary, garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats in Monday's poll, while Clinton trailed by just 3 percentage points. View the latest poll results »
With a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, that margin is too close to say which Democrat is leading
Super Tuesday ; Who is you Candidate
US voters have begun going to the polls in primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday - the biggest day in the presidential nominating race so far.
The 24 states involved account for over half the delegates who will choose the candidates for November's election.
The Republican race, in which John McCain is leading his main challenger, Mitt Romney, may be decided on Tuesday.
But Democratic rivals Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are so close that this contest is set to go further.
Both parties' presidential hopefuls have been making last minute pushes for votes on the early morning US TV shows.
Mrs Clinton told CNN: "There are a lot of people who worry that the president just doesn't pay attention. I want them to know that I get it and I'll be there for them if they're willing to go out and vote for me today."
Meanwhile, Mr Obama told NBC: "The fact that we've made so much progress I think indicates that we've got the right message, and the question is are we going to be able to pull some states out."
For his part, Mr Romney asserted his conservative credentials, telling Fox News that voters would be saying to themselves: " If I want the conservative [candidate] I've gotta vote for Mitt Romney - he's the only one who's got a realistic chance of getting this nomination."
Mr McCain said he was cautiously optimistic that the next 24 hours would settle his party's race in his favour.
"I'm happy that we're doing as well as we are, but this could be a long night," he told NBC.
The BBC's James Coomarasamy in Washington says that in what seems like the blink of an eye, a sprawling, multi-candidate presidential race has shrunk and transformed itself into an intense and highly focused one.
In both the Republican and Democratic contests, it now comes down to a scramble for delegates on what is, without doubt, the most significant day of the campaign so far, our correspondent says.
In three states, only the Democratic Party is involved, and in two, only the Republican Party. In the other 19, which together account for nearly half the US population, both parties are in action.
Georgia is the first state to end voting at 2400 GMT, although West Virginia Republicans will make their choices at a convention earlier in the day. Voting in California ends at 0400 GMT.
Nine of the states holding their Republican primaries, including big states such as New York and New Jersey, have a winner-takes-all system.
Whoever gets the most voters in those states is awarded all of their delegates to the party's convention, where the candidate who wins more than 1,191 votes becomes the nominee for the presidential election.
A national poll for the Washington Post and ABC showed Mr McCain well ahead of his rivals. The Arizona senator had 48% against Mr Romney's 24%, with Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul trailing far behind.
A Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll gave Mr McCain double digit leads over Mr Romney in New York, New Jersey and Missouri, although the former Massachusetts governor was ahead 40% to 32% in California.
The Republican front-runner kicked off his final push on Monday with a rally in Massachusetts, before heading for New Jersey and New York. He also made a last-minute change to his schedule to appear one more time in California.
Mr Romney, meanwhile, had an exhausting schedule of events in Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma and California.
'Exhausting and exhilarating'
The Democratic Party race is likely to be less decisive, our correspondent says.
Their delegates are allocated along more complex, proportional lines that can vary from district to district, making it more difficult to predict when one of the two remaining candidates will cross the decisive delegate threshold.
Further complicating the nomination contest is the presence of what are known as "super delegates" - members of the party hierarchy who will make up about a fifth of all those attending the party convention in late August.
They can choose whom to support at any point between now and then. In close presidential races, their votes have proved decisive, our correspondent adds.
Monday's Washington Post/ABC poll showed Senator Clinton's lead over Senator Obama had narrowed to 4%, while other polls showed the two neck-and-neck in the key state of California.
Of the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, California carries 370.
Despite this, both candidates spent Monday campaigning on the East Coast.
Mrs Clinton began the day with a visit to a child study centre at Yale University, where she volunteered as a law student, before later making stops in Massachusetts and New York.
Mr Obama flew out of Chicago and landed in New Jersey, where he attended a rally in East Rutherford.
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