Senator Barack Obama is on quite a roll. After a nice showing on Super Tuesday where he definitely held his own against Senator Hillary Clinton by winning more states than Clinton while she won the bigger states: California, New Jersey, New York. Following Super Tuesday Obama took the country by storm, 1st by defeating Clinton handily in the Washington and Nebraska Caucuses and the Louisiana Primary; he even won the Virgin Islands. Then on Tuesday Obama beat Clinton silly in the "Potomac Primaries": Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia where Obama defeated Clinton by 23%, 29%, and 51% respectively. Obama was able to do this by capitalizing in the Caucuses during the weekend where his supporters’ motivation and his great organization are keys to victories in Caucus states. On Tuesday Obama was able to win by large margins because he was finally be break Clinton's hold on certain demographics: Women, Blue-Collar Workers, and Seniors. Obama beat Clinton among seniors in Virginia and Maryland 52%-47% and 50%-46% respectively. On top of these demographics Obama also split the white vote in Virginia and Maryland basically 50-50. This is a vast improvement from earlier in this campaign where he got only 24% of the white vote in South Carolina and that was considered high!
Hillary Clinton did not spend any time in the Potomac states after the voting started, she jetted straight to Texas which is one of her "firewall" states along with Ohio and my very own Pennsylvania. Texas and Ohio vote on March 4th and Pennsylvania goes to the polls on April 22nd. Recent polls in both Ohio and Pennsylvania show Clinton with a sizeable lead on Obama; 55%-34% among Ohio Democrats and 52%-36% among Pennsylvania Democrats. In the next few weeks Clinton will be trying to draw sharp contrasts with herself and Senator Obama in order for her to get back in this race because although the delegate race is fairly even Obama has taken the lead for the very first time and according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel notable Clinton supporter and Democratic Strategist James Carville said "make no mistake... If she loses either Texas or Ohio, this thing is done." It appears by looking at these polls that Clinton still has a chance but if there is one thing we have learned in this Democratic race is that the longer Barack Obama campaigns in a state the more votes and momentum he gets, it would not surprise anyone to see these polls be within 7 or 8 points within the next 10 days or so. What is even more interesting now is that it appears that unless Clinton or Obama win the rest of the states by a ridiculous margin, lets by getting 80% of the vote neither will have enough pledged delegates to reach the 2,025 number needed in order to receive the nomination. This brings in the Superdelegates, high-ranking members of the Democratic National Committee, members or Congress, Governors and Former Presidents (at least we know 1 of them will be voting for Hillary). There are 796 Superdelegates which means that 1 of their votes is equivalent to about 10,000 popular votes. Needless to say they have ALL the power when it comes down to a close campaign like this one. Hopefully one of the candidates will be far enough ahead heading into the convention that all of these Superdelegates will be forced to vote the way the people have so there will not be any riots on the streets of Denver Colorado where the Democratic Convention will be held at the end of August.
The next big primary on the Democratic side will be the Wisconsin Primary where it is expected that Obama will win yet again giving him 9 wins in a row, in Clinton's defense she will not be spending much time there, only running ads, she will spend almost all of her time campaigning very hard down in Texas and in Ohio to try to keep this race close heading into Pennsylvania.
Mitt Romney Endorses John McCain...Don't These Guys Hate Each Other?
It is now being widely reported that Governor Mitt Romney will endorse the GOP front-runner Senator John McCain. It is also being reported that Romney will ask all 286 of his delegates to back John McCain which would make McCain a mere 81 delegates away from wrapping up the nomination. The read on this move is that if Romney does this that will help end the GOP campaign and give it time to heal and unite in order to try to defeat the Democrats this November. Due to very high Democratic turnout, 2-1 to Republican turnout, in the primaries and caucuses it is very important for the Republicans to get their act together if they want to try to defeat the Democrats who appear to be very mobilized and ready to take back the White House.
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1 comment:
hell of an analysis bro. i had no idea about the super delegate situation... very interested to see if it gets to that. your ass should get out to philly if this thing gets good
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