Obama Sweeps Saturday Races; Maine Event Today
It was a clean sweep for Sen. Barack Obama in the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday, slicing into Sen. Hillary Clinton’s slender delegate lead in the Democratic nomination fight.
“Today, voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say ‘yes we can”‘ Obama told a cheering audience of Democrats at a party dinner in Richmond, Va.
He jabbed simultaneously at Clinton and Arizona Sen. John McCain, echoing one of his familiar themes, saying the election was a choice between “who has the most experience in Washington, or debating [McCain] about who’s most likely to change Washington. Because that’s a debate we can win.”
Barack Obama’s wins Saturday ranged from substantial to crushing.
He won about two-thirds of the vote in Washington and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands, which also voted. Nearly complete Louisiana returns showed Obama with 57 percent to Clinton’s 36.
In all, the Democrats scrapped for 161 delegates in the night’s contests.
In incomplete allocations, Obama won 72, Clinton 40.
Barack Obama campaigns in Virginia, which holds its primary Tuesday.
The Democratic race moved into a new, post-Super Tuesday phase as John McCain bombed in the first races since Super Tuesday, after which Mitt Romney quit and McCain became the nominee-in-waiting.
He lost Kansas caucuses to Mike Huckabee, gaining less than 24 percent of the vote. Huckabee also narrowly prevailed in Louisiana.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama came to Maine for some 11th-hour campaigning Saturday in advance of the state caucuses today.
Clinton was stumping at “town hall” meetings in Orono and Lewiston. Obama planned a rally in Bangor. More than 400 towns and cities are holding Democratic caucuses on Sunday, with 24 delegates in play.
Maine’s delegate count is tiny, but the state is drawing significant attention - and TV advertising - from the Clinton and Obama campaigns.
Hillary has done better so far in the Northeast, her message resonating among women and working-class citizens. Yet the caucus format, in which grass roots organizing comes into play, has favored Obama.
This race has become impossible to call, but look for a single-digit Clinton win with the delegate count essentially split.
NATIONAL
February 10th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Barack The Vote
http://www.cafepress.com/123vote
February 10th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Sen. Clinton is not comfortable talking at large rallies. Sen.Clinton should of fired her campaign manger long time age. The shake up is because the Clintons are running a campaign from the 90″s. Obama is running on the change/future with large venues, “the more the merry”. The Clintons need to come clean were the 5 millions donation came from, this now is an cloud hanging over their heads. OBAMA 08!!!!!!
February 10th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Two significant events happened on Sunday, Feb 10th followed by Obama’s sweeping victory in Louisiana, Washington State, Nebraska, and the US Virgin Islands.
Those two events on Sunday are the landslide victory of Obama in ME causes, and the management shakeup of Clinton’s campaign. This is no coincidence. The message is clear- the voters came to realization that Clinton’s copying of the change for America is still the theme of 1990s. There is nothing new her so healthcare reform that she had tried back then. She and her husband failed to do anything and nothing happened in 15 years. It implies that her reform policy or idea is not cogent. Ideas without vision and effective model do not work.
Having said that, voters are convinced that Obama paradigm of political and economic reform is real and seems effective for the future of America, not for the past. It is a contest between old versus new, past versus future. Obama is for the later.
So he is unstoppable for coming primaries and caucuses. The so-called experience of the Clintons does not count because they are failed experiences and they are obsolete and dinosaurs of the 21st century. Go Obama 2008!
Nurul Aman
Andover, MA
February 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am
If you had one criteria to choose a president. the criteria being “Who makes the best commander in chief of our armed forces in time of war?” Who would you choose?
McCain the war hero and all his background in leadership and military
Hillary Clinton with 8 years in white house next to her husband, 7 years in arms services committee, 12 years first lady of Arkansa with bunch of full star generals backing her or
Obama, with two years in Senate and no background in military? but he has a vision and can connect across the isle?
answer:
If you are Republican, congradulations, McCain wins. If you are democrat, and for Obama, you are the reason why McCain wins, we are screwed, because Obama looses in General election against McCain for this one reason only. Specially McCain has a history of reaching across the isle himself, and democrats like him, and also they don’t have the backbone to take a big risk about national security, demonstrated in previous elections and by their votes in congress in regard to national security and war, so enough of them will go for McCain to get him elected. Mark my words. I say if dems go with heart again and not head, and they don’t go for Clinton they have no chance to take the White House again folks