McCain, Obama Continue Winning

The presidential campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama continued their winning streaks yesterday. The GOP voters in Wisconsin and Washington State gave Mr. McCain the nod, and he’s now got 909 of the 1,191 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination. Democrats in Wisconsin and Hawaii opted for Senator Obama over Hillary Clinton, bringing his winning streak to 10 in a row and giving him 1301 delegates against her 1239. This is just about over.

For the GOP, the only question is: how much longer will it take Mr. McCain to secure another 282 delegates? With Texas and Ohio voting in just under 2 weeks, and with Mr. McCain expected to win both, he will be close but not entirely there. Indeed, it may take until Pennsylvania votes on April 22 before the Arizona senator can finally declare victory, simply because there are not enough delegates to win before then.

For the Democrats, the situation is clarifying rapidly. Senator Clinton’s base seems to be eroding. Having lost 10 straight contests in the last two weeks, she drew a line in the sand in Texas and Ohio, figuring that the demographics there would play to her strengths. A poll on Tuesday showed Texas had become a statistical dead heat, and in Ohio, her lead has dropped in some polls to single digits. And to get level in delegates, she needs to win by bigger margins than that.

Wisconsin proved that the Obama phenomenon can work in blue-collar districts, places with loads of older white folks and with all income levels. In fact, the only group Mrs. Clinton appears to have carried is women over 60. With two weeks to campaign in both states, and with money rushing into Senator Obama's coffers, one wouldn’t bet on a Clinton victory in either state. But no matter who wins the remaining races, neither will have a majority of delegates at the convention in Denver.

The role of theDemocratic super-delegates has become a matter of intense speculation. The conspiracy theorists are convinced some nefarious move will bring them all into the Clinton camp and hand her the nomination regardless of what the voters have done. This is piffle. Most of these party hacks are up for re-election, and they will back the candidate at the top of the ticket who they think will bring the most voters out on polling day. That means they’ll go with the flow; they won’t try to stem the tide.

© 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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