Obama Claims Four More States and US Virgin Islands

Illinois Senator Barrack Obama won five more contests against New York’s Hillary Clinton over the week-end. On Saturday, he won in the states of Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington as well as the territory of the US Virgin Islands. Yesterday, he added Maine to his victory list. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has replaced her campaign manager.

What must be particularly depressing for the Clintonistas is the size of Senator Obama’s victories. In Nebraska and Washington, he took over two-thirds of the vote. In the US Virgin Islands, he got 90% of the (admittedly small) vote. In Louisiana, his margin was 21%, while in Maine, it was 19%. Under the Democratic Party’s proportional representation rules for selecting delegates, this matters a great deal. Losing 51 to 49 doesn’t do much harm in the delegate count. Losing 67 to 33 is another matter entirely.

In addition, there aren’t many friendly states for her until March. That is a long time in politics to have the headlines read “Hillary Loses Again.” The good news for her, to the extent that there is any, is the states Senator Obama is winning are not the biggest prizes around. Texas and Ohio on March 4 are another matter.

The money has been coming into both campaigns. Mrs. Clinton claims to have raised $10 million since Super Tuesday. Mr. Obama claimed to have pulled in more than $3 million on Wednesday alone. However, when Mrs. Clinton was loaning her campaign $5 million to get through last week’s votes, Mr. Obama was pulling in even more.

The replacement of Patti Solis Doyle with Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton’s former White House chief of staff, at the top of the campaign structure says volumes about the mood in the campaign. They are in trouble, and they know it. The question is whether they have left things too late.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.





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