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Clinton wins Ohio, Texas; McCain clinches Republican nod (Roundup)
Mar 5, 2008, 16:57 GMT
Democratic presidential hopeful New York Senator Hillary Clinton delivers a speech to supporters at her primary night watch party in Columbus, Ohio, USA, 04 March 2008. Clinton won the Ohio Democratic Primary with a majority of the vote. EPA/MICHAL CZERWONKA
Washington - Hillary Clinton on Wednesday appeared to have stormed back in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, after winning the key states of Texas and Ohio and halting rival Barack Obama's 11-state winning streak a day earlier.
On the Republican side, John McCain captured the Republican nomination with wins in all four states voting on Tuesday as his last challenger, Mike Huckabee, conceded defeat and promised to help unite the party behind the Arizona senator.
Clinton trounced Obama in Ohio, winning 54 per cent to 44 per cent with 99 per cent of the votes counted, and took a narrow victory in the Texas primary, where she won 51 per cent to 48 per cent.
The Democratic rivals split Tuesday's small-state primaries with Obama winning Vermont and Clinton taking Rhode Island.
'You know what they say - as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back, and so is this campaign,' Clinton told ecstatic supporters in Columbus, Ohio.
'Ohio has written a new chapter in the history of this campaign, and we're just getting started.'
Her three victories ended Obama's winning streak in 11 straight state contests, which built nationwide momentum and established him as the clear Democratic frontrunner with a small but meaningful lead in the delegate count.
But despite Clinton's wins, Obama still leads the key count of delegates needed to secure the nomination at the party's convention in August. A CNN tally on Wednesday gave Obama 1,451 delegates to Clinton's 1,365, with 2,025 needed for the nomination.
The close count boosts the importance of the so-called super delegates, party leaders and elected officials who are free to choose their own candidate at the convention. Clinton has had more super delegates vow support, but that could change as they are free to back another candidate at any time. CNN said Wednesday that she has 238 supporters among the super delegates to Obama's 194 out of a total 796 such delegates.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her wins but stressed that his edge in delegates to the centre-left Democratic Party's nominating convention in August remained intact, given that all states award delegates proportionately.
'No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as this morning, and we are on the way to winning this nomination,' Obama told supporters in San Antonio, Texas.
Clinton and Obama will likely split the delegates awarded in Texas, where the state party's arcane rules distribute only two- thirds of the delegates based on the primary vote.
The remaining third were awarded through caucus meetings held late Tuesday. Obama led that contest by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, with 36 per cent of precincts reporting Wednesday morning.
Before Tuesday, Clinton's campaign had been running short of money while combatting Obama's growing image of inevitability. Even former president Bill Clinton had said that his wife had to win in Texas and Ohio to keep alive her hopes of becoming the first female president.
Obama had already been reinforcing his frontrunning position by confronting McCain on his support for the Iraq war.
The now-certain Republican nominee McCain, 71, told cheering supporters Tuesday that the general election 'begins tonight,' and he offered broad outlines of his future campaign strategy.
'My friends, now we begin the most important part of our campaign,' McCain told cheering supporters at a rally in Dallas, Texas.
McCain effectively sealed the Republican nomination weeks ago and has increasingly refocused his presidential campaign on the November 4 general elections.
He was expected to receive President George W Bush's endorsement on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, McCain promised victory in Iraq and chided Democrats for focussing on the 2003 invasion.
'It is of little use to Americans for their candidates to avoid the many complex challenges of these struggles by re-litigating decisions of the past,' McCain said.
'The next president must explain how he or she intends to bring that war to the swiftest possible conclusion without exacerbating a sectarian conflict that could quickly descend into genocide, destabilizing the entire Middle East.'
Huckabee said he and his wife would do 'everything we can to help Senator McCain and to help our party' in a concession speech in Texas.
'We will work hard for our country, we will work hard for our party and the nominee, because we love this country and that's why we got in,' he said.
The Clinton and Obama camps have become nastier in recent weeks, exchanging barbs over campaign tactics and highlighting their differences over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), enacted during Bill Clinton's administration.
Clinton aides have lately questioned Obama's relationship with a Chicago developer indicted in a kickback scheme to win state government contracts. Obama charged that Clinton was throwing the 'kitchen sink' in an effort to rescue her bid for the White House.
Clinton has touted her experience in the White House and longer tenure than Obama in the US Senate to argue that she is better prepared for the presidency, and repeated Tuesday that she is ready to take the helm on 'day one.'
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...I just think the press wants a democrat. This is why McCain drives them nuts: He's not all that Republican...
Less than a month ago, our esteemed host noted the manner in which the establishment media serves as potential kingmakers, while operating under the cover of “objectivity.” New studies now quantify the phenomenon.
The latest report (.pdf) from the Center for Media and Public Affairs from December 16, 2007 through February 19, 2008, found:
Since mid-December, five out of six on-air evaluations of Senator Obama (84%) have been positive, while Senator Clinton’s coverage has been about evenly balanced (53% positive). Since Super Tuesday, however, Obama’s proportion of good press has dropped to 67%, his worst performance during any phase of the campaign, while Clinton’s coverage remained balanced (50% positive). For example, from the South Carolina primary (Jan 26) to Super Tuesday, a remarkable 96% of comments about Obama were positive.
Obviously, not all of that is attributable to a pro-Obama bias. For example, positive coverage after Obama’s win in South Carolina is to be expected. However, 96% positive coverage is a level probably not seen since Pres. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, there may well be a feedback loop that develops — glowing coverage boosts Obama in the polls, resulting in positive horse race coverage, etc. Furthermore, a net-by-net break down of the coverage is revealing:
Senator Obama has received 90% positive evaluations on both ABC and CBS, along with 73% positive comments on NBC. Senator Clinton’s coverage has varied more across the networks, ranging from 68% favorable comments on ABC to only 38% favorable on NBC, along with 50% favorable comments on CBS. Thus, the spread between the two candidates is greatest on CBS – a forty percentage point difference in proportion of good press.
The fact neither Obama nor Clinton gets a roughly similar level of positive coverage across networks demonstrates the subjectivity in the reportorial and editorial judgments made with regard to each candidate. The best example of this is the thirty-point gap in positive coverage of Clinton between ABC and NBC.
Since Super Tuesday, Obama’s positive coverage has dropped to 67% — but that is still higher than Clinton’s 50% positive coverage. Moreover, during this period, “98% of comments about Sen. Obama’s prospects for winning the Democratic nomination have been optimistic, compared to only 53% optimistic comments on Sen. Clinton’s prospects.”
On the other side of the aisle, John McCain got 97% positive coverage before the New Hampshire primary, but 30% positive coverage since.
Wednesday, March 5th 2008, 2:47 AM
Barack Obama speaks to supporters gathered for a postprimary rally in San Antonio, Tex., Tuesday. Hillary Clinton took the state in a close race.
The red phone rang and Hillary Clinton was there to answer it. Yes she can!
Yes, she can keep going. Yes, she can win.
Clinton has not only earned the right to keep fighting for the nomination. She has a duty to. Cracks are showing in Barack Obama's campaign and he looks mortal and, dare I say it, almost ordinary. He picked a lousy time to get off his game.
Clinton can take much of the credit. Her ringing phone ad about her experience in a time of crisis was a gamble, but it paid off. Say the word telephone and the ad comes to mind. That's a smashing political success.
So, too, was her hammering on Obama's consistency and her complaints he had escaped media scrutiny. Those themes came together Sunday and Monday and helped save her dream. He may still have the hope, but she got the votes.
She finally found a formula that worked. She would be a fool to do anything else from now on.
She had two goals yesterday and achieved them both. She had to stop Obama's string of 12 popular vote victories and she did that with double-digit bangs in Ohio and Rhode Island.
She also had to cut into his delegate lead, which she did. One estimate had her picking up a net gain of perhaps 20 or more. When the close Texas count finishes, he will probably have a reduced lead of fewer than 100. With more than 900 delegates still uncommitted, her climb is not nearly as steep as it was.
Unless she won something last night, she had no argument for going forward. Now no one can reasonably say she shouldn't.
The fight is good for the party. If Obama can't knock her out, he shouldn't be the nominee.
I said two days ago that Obama was facing his third chance to do that. Twice before he failed - in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday. Yesterday makes three failures and that could mean three strikes against him. Voters are increasingly unwilling to commit to him.
The finding by exit polls, for example, that late deciders in Texas and Ohio went heavily for Clinton is revealing.
Monday was one of the worst days on the trail for him, with a tainted contributor starting a corruption trial in Chicago, and the emergence of evidence that his campaign repeatedly lied about what an aide told Canadian officials on his trade policies.
Obama's effort to explain away those issues turned into a debacle, with him finally giving up at a press conference and walking away from shouted questions. He looked like an ordinary pol on the hot seat instead of the party savior who strides the stage in front of thousands of adoring Obamamaniacs.
The scene was striking. There's blood in the water now and it's all his. It won't be the last time.
By my calculations they have each received a little over 13 million votes and are in a tie for now, if you only count actual votes from actual voters.
page: 1
The Media is in the Tank for ObamaMar 5th, 2008 - 19:47:00
Another Media Delusion Punctured
John Podhoretz - 03.04.2008 - 19:22
Journalists love a good story, right? Just love one. Love the competition. Love a good race, especially in politics. Yes, there’s nothing like conflict — that’s the bread and butter of modern-day journalism. What media bias?
The last month disproves this fantasy. The relentless hunger of the mainstream media to run Hillary Clinton out of the race is palpable — even though there exists a real possibility of a battle that will continue all the way to the Democratic convention in August. What’s more, this battle is generating excitement and ratings, with MSNBC crowing about the 8 million plus viewers it got for last week’s Obama-Clinton debate. That’s ten to fifteen times its ordinary rating on a weekday night.
The great story would be — Hillary stays in. She’s tough. Obama feels the heat. Neither one of them has it nailed down. The superdelegates are up for grabs. It’s a fight for every last superdelegate.
But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, you will see, tomorrow and for the rest of the week, no matter what happens tonight, a constant drumbeat that Hillary must drop out. Politicians will be sought to deliver this message. Talking heads will talk themselves hoarse on MSNBC and others. Op-eds will be drafted on the nobility Hillary will show by giving way to Obama. And so on.
The night Obama slaughtered Hillary in Iowa, and delivered that brilliant stemwinder, media liberal hearts were lost to him forever. They want her gone because they want him. Oh, how they want him. And how they will fight, fiercely, the notion that it will be good for them that there be a hot race between Obama and John McCain. They won’t want that race. They want a coronation.
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