Obama claims delegate lead

Obama claims delegate lead
By: Mike Allen
February 6, 2008 11:09 AM EST

In a surprise twist after a chaotic Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) passed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in network tallies of the number of delegates the candidates racked up last night.

The Obama camp now projects topping Clinton by 13 delegates, 847 to 834.

NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party's complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.

Clinton was portrayed in many news accounts as the night’s big winner, but Obama’s campaign says he wound up with a higher total where it really counts — the delegates who will choose the party’s nominee at this summer’s Democratic convention.

With the delegate count still under way, NBC News said Obama appears to have won around 840 delegates in yesterday’s contests, while Clinton earned about 830 — “give or take a few,” Tim Russert, the network’s Washington bureau chief, said on the “Today” show.

The running totals for the two, which includes previous contests and the party officials known as “superdelegates,” are only about 70 delegates apart, Russert said.

The bottom line is that the two are virtually tied.


Race, sex divide Dems; ideology splits GOP
Super Tuesday: A split decision
Media restrained in Super Tuesday coverage
Obama won 13 states, some of them smaller, and Clinton won eight.

On Wednesday morning, the battle was on to shape public perceptions about Tuesday.

The Clinton campaign said it was crunching its delegate numbers but was not sure it was correct that Obama got more.

The Obama campaign sent an e-mailed statement titled: “Obama wins Super Tuesday by winning more states and more delegates.”

Campaign Manager David Plouffe said: “By winning a majority of delegates and a majority of the states, Barack Obama won an important Super Tuesday victory over Sen. Clinton in the closest thing we have to a national primary.”

“From Colorado and Utah in the West to Georgia and Alabama in the South to Sen. Clinton’s backyard in Connecticut, Obama showed that he can win the support of Americans of every race, gender and political party in every region of the country,” Plouffe said. “That’s why he’s on track to win Democratic nomination, and that’s why he’s the best candidate to defeat John McCain in November.”

The Obama campaign attached an Excel spreadsheet containing “state-by-state estimates of the pledged delegates we won last night, which total 845 for Obama and 836 for Clinton — bringing the to-date total of delegates to 908 for Obama, 884 for Clinton.”

Super Tuesday...Cheat sheet

Here is the cheat sheet for watching Super Tuesday. MJ

Barnes: States to Watch Today
FRED BARNES
In Super Tuesday

You don't have to pay attention to every state on Super Tuesday. Some are more important than others. So concentrate on those and you'll get a pretty good understanding of what the results mean for the presidential races in both parties.

On the Democratic side, three states stand out in my mind: New Jersey, Missouri, and California. America is a nation of suburbs and New Jersey is a state of suburbs. That's reason enough to pay attention to it. Missouri is a microcosm of America, with big cities, suburbs and lots of rural areas. It's a bellwether state. And California is, well, California. It's important because it's big. If Barack Obama wins all three of these states, he becomes the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. If he wins two of three, he's still in good shape. Winning one would be painful for his campaign. Losing all three - that would be Hillary Clinton's dream come true.

On the Republican side, John McCain should win a majority of the states and the delegates. But he may do more, namely put together a delegate blowout by beating Mitt Romney in the winner-take-all states. That means New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in the East, plus Missouri and four other states. McCain could pile up such a large lead in delegates that it would sharply reduce Romney's chances of overtaking him. So on the Republican side, the delegate count is the name of the game.

Super Tuesday: Is This Hillary's Last Hurrah?

Super Tuesday: Is This Hillary's Last Hurrah?
February 3, 2008 8:04 AM
Kareem: Sky hooks for Obama

by Roger L. Simon
If either party's nominating process reaches a conclusion on Super Tuesday, conventional wisdom has it that it will be the Republicans with McCain sweeping the Northeast and California.

But a surprise may be brewing on the Democratic side. Obama fever is clearly growing.
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

The latest California Field poll shows McCain up eight, but more unexpectedly shows Obama within two points of Clinton in the nation's most populous state. Other polls are less favorable to Barack, but it's clear the younger man is surging.

Hillary is lucky the primary is this Tuesday. Another week and she could be toast. In the long run, she could be anyway.

What does this mean for the Republicans? Nothing good. Running against Hillary would not be difficult for them. The country is experiencing Clinton fatigue and what with recent revelations like Bill's nuclear finagling in Kazakhstan (probably just the tip of an endless iceberg) Hillary presents them with an easy target and likely victory.

Not so Obama. He is the "cool kid" on the block and getting cooler. Everyone wants to be part of him. "Yes, We Can" - a new video by Black-Eyed Peas featuring Scarlett Johansson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, among others – although based on the usual campaign rhetoric, radiates an optimism about a future with and through Obama, which we haven't seen since Reagan, ironically.

Furthermore, Obama's lack of record or experience, while obviously something any concerned voter should be concerned about, may be an advantage for him. There's less to shoot at.

In a head-to-head, Obama's glamour could be lethal. McCain would look like Barack's crotchety old father and Romney—even worse—a starchy, clueless businessman (in Huckabee's words, "the guy who fires you"). I don't have to tell you, the facts are not operative here. Images rule.

This was writ large by Frank Luntz's focus group after the recent California debate at the Kodak Theater. Unlike the pundits, the people in Luntz's group overwhelmingly declared Obama the winner, although he had spoken largely in generalities throughout the entire debate. Hillary, the wonk, had focused on the details of her programs. Who wants to hear about them? Again ironically, they just contribute to Clinton fatigue.

Like it or not, people are more interested in being inspired.

So, on Super Tuesday, all eyes will be on whether McCain can administer a knockout blow on the Republican side.

But the spotlight should be shared equally with the Democrats. Hillary, even more than McCain, needs to win with some deciseveness on Tuesday. Otherwise, she will be on the wrong side of a juggernaut.

http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/02/super_tuesday_is_this_hillarys.php

A Longer Race Benefits Obama

A Longer Race Benefits Obama
By David Broder

WASHINGTON -- Heading into Tuesday's unprecedented day of voting in nearly two dozen states, a degree of order is finally emerging in the dramatic races for the presidential nominations of both parties.

Public opinion and leadership support are finding their way to the same destinations, pointing to a clear favorite and a single viable alternative in each race.

John McCain has the easiest path remaining to the Republican nomination, with Mitt Romney needing some kind of dramatic breakthrough Tuesday to keep his hopes of an upset alive.

On the Democratic side, the battle is more even, but the advantage has shifted back to Barack Obama -- thanks to a growing but largely unremarked tendency among Democratic leaders to reject Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president.

The New York senator could still emerge from the "Tsunami Tuesday" voting with the overall lead in delegates, but she is unlikely to be able to come close to clinching the nomination. And the longer the race goes on, the better the chances that Obama will ultimately prevail, as more elected Democratic officials and candidates come to view him as the better bet to defeat McCain in November.

As the race has moved from contests in small states such as Iowa and New Hampshire to the national dimension of Tuesday's voting, the role of the endorsements and leadership testimonials has increased. The candidates simply lack the time and resources to make personal appeals to very many voters.

Had McCain not invested that personal time in New Hampshire, with more than 100 town meetings where he argued for the correctness of his views on the Iraq War, he could not have reversed the summertime disaster that overtook his campaign, when he ran out of money and lost most of his senior staff.

But after turning back Romney in New Hampshire, the Arizona senator picked up significant establishment backing in South Carolina and Florida -- the hard-core Republican states where he had to show his credentials. He campaigned in South Carolina flanked by Tom Coburn and Jack Kemp, icons of social and fiscal conservatism, and won Florida thanks to last-minute endorsements from Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez.

Now, with defeated Rudy Giuliani adding his voice to the chorus of endorsements, and with Mike Huckabee remaining in the race to challenge Romney from the religious right, McCain appears poised to lock up the nomination.

Unelected conservative ideologues -- Rush Limbaugh and George Will -- can mutter in frustration, but Republican politicians recognize what was written here as long ago as last Dec. 2: "If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009 ... it would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president -- and president-in-waiting."

The Democratic race remains harder to handicap, in part because Clinton already has demonstrated her resilience by fighting uphill battles to prevail in New Hampshire and Nevada and because she retains formidable alliances and organizational strengths.

But the last two weeks have seen a remarkable shift of establishment opinion against her and against the prospect of placing the party's 2008 chances in the hands of her husband, Bill Clinton.

The prominence of his role in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the mean-spiritedness of his attacks on Obama, stunned many Democrats. Clinton's behavior underlined the warning raised in this column before Iowa, by a prominent veteran of the Clinton administration, that the prospect of two presidents both named Clinton sharing a single White House would be a huge problem for the Democrats in November if she is the nominee.

The negatives on the Clintons have brought much support to Obama, most notably that of Ted Kennedy, the most prestigious figure in the Democratic establishment in Washington. But it is also Obama's own appeal that is being talked about across the country from Massachusetts to Arizona by the younger generation of governors, senators and representatives who share with him an eagerness to "turn the page" on the battles of the past.

Obama is not inevitable, but the longer the race continues, the greater that hunger. And the growing recognition of McCain's appeal to independents also works in Obama's favor.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/a_longer_race_benefits_obama.html

Iowa Caucus: The Democrats
CAPTAIN ED BLOG
By Ed Morrissey on 2008

Hillary Clinton has run into a serious buzz saw on her way to the coronation. Not only did she not win the state, but she lost to the wrong candidate. Barack Obama now threatens to steal away a nomination that the Clintons thought they had in the bank less than three months ago.

Clinton would have had a tough time winning Iowa in any case. The populist appeal of John Edwards always figured to take some significant support away from Hillary. However, a second-place finish to Edwards would not have had much impact on her campaign, because Edwards has little appeal outside of the populist Midwest. She could easily have survived that kind of loss, without even considering it a bump in the road.

Instead, Barack Obama beat both of them, and that's an ill portent for Hillary's march to the nomination. Obama beat Hillary in a state that has a very small African-American demographic; he won not by playing the race card, but by simply offering a departure from Clintonian politics. That victory will resonate in New Hampshire, where Obama already has her in a dead heat, but also in the following states.

Even worse, Hillary finished in third place, behind Edwards, after working the state hard for the past three weeks. Edwards, meanwhile, didn't improve over his performance in 2004. He wound up actually two points lower, 30% as opposed to 32%. Hillary couldn't take advantage of the decline, and trailing a stagnating Edwards won't give Democratic primary voters any confidence in her ability to beat Obama, let alone a Republican in November.

Hillary has reaped the harvest of two months of self-inflicted wounds, starting with her collapse on drivers licenses for illegal aliens, and through some bizarre attacks on Barack Obama in the aftermath. The question will be whether she can recover from the rapid decline. The answer: she's no Bill Clinton.

--------------------------------------------------------

Iowa Caucus: The Republicans

By Ed Morrissey on 2008

This started off sounding like the Super Bowl -- the big-money Immovable Object meeting the grassroots Unstoppable Force. Iowans turned it into the usual kind of Super Bowl, a laugher, as Mike Huckabee stunned Mitt Romney with a nine-point win. Huckabee beat Romney by a much wider margin than anyone predicted, even larger than the five-point gap that I posted earlier this evening.

What does this mean for Romney? It's a body blow. He spent somewhere between $8-9 million and came up far short of a victory. That directly reflects on his next race, where John McCain has taken the lead in his backyard. If he can't do any better against McCain than he did against Huckabee, Republican voters will rightly question whether Romney can win anywhere, even with the huge funding advantage he has had.

If McCain wins in New Hampshire, Romney has serious problems, but it assists the other 50-state candidate: Rudy Giuliani. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Giuliani was smart enough not to waste time in Iowa, and he won't tangle in New Hampshire, either. If Romney gets derailed, it leaves the Super Tuesday field open to Giuliani, who already has leads in the big coastal states. He's an experienced campaigner, and this Romney loss validates his strategy.

Fred Thompson and John McCain, at this moment, still struggle for third place. McCain just needed a significant showing for his upcoming battle in New Hampshire, but Thompson needed a third-place finish just to keep his credibility alive. It looks like he did that, and conservatives who had made a mad rush to help him stay afloat in the last two weeks have longer to build momentum for him. If they can make a big push in South Carolina, he could get back in the race -- but that also helps Giuliani.

Finally, Ron Paul did a respectable 10% in this race -- not bad, but no better than fifth place. The Paul supporters who kept insisting that their man had been victimized by pollsters conspiring to make him look weak in the race will have to explain away a fifth-place finish in a field of seven, only beating Giuliani because he didn't bother to campaign there. A 10% finish won't derail either John McCain or Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. In fact, both men may need to worry about Mike Huckabee, and Romney more than McCain.

Recent Obama Video of Interest

Sen. McCain Responds To Sen. Obama On The Situation Room





Obama on Being President CNN

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/politics/2007/03/28/blitzer.obama.intv.cnn&am...