February
13, 2008 Obama Surges Ahead of
Clinton
in Battle of the Potomac By Arun Kumar
Washington
With a clean sweep of the 'Potomac primaries' - in Maryland,
Virginia and the national capital - Democratic presidential hopeful
Barack Obama surged ahead of party frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Obama, vying to be America's first black president, stacked his wins
on top of a string of victories over the weekend, pushing his record
to 8-0 since he and the former first lady ended last week's Super
Tuesday coast to coast battle in 22 states in a virtual dead heat.
Obama's performance adds to his gathering momentum and increases
pressure on Clinton - not too long ago considered the "inevitable"
party nominee - to reverse her fortunes in the next two weeks, when
Democratic voters in another half-dozen states go to the polls.
In the all-important battle for delegates to next summer's political
conventions, Obama has at least 1,186 after his wins Tuesday in all
three Potomac Primary states, according to media estimates.
Those include "separately chosen party and elected officials known
as super delegates". Clinton has an estimated 1,181 delegates. It
takes 2,025 delegates to be the Democratic nominee.
"Every week that goes by, people get a little more comfortable with
him and he gets a little stronger," said Paul Maslin, a Democratic
pollster unaligned in the race. But, he cautioned, "This thing is
not over."
Despite the closeness of the delegate count, the momentum has
decidedly shifted Obama's way. He drew huge crowds over the last
several days and flexed his financial muscle by handily outspending
Clinton on TV advertising in Virginia, Maryland and the District of
Columbia.
Over the weekend, he racked up five victories: in Louisiana,
Nebraska, Washington state, Maine and the Virgin Islands.
Clinton, by contrast, has weathered one of the roughest patches of
her campaign. The day after Super Tuesday, she revealed she was
forced to loan her campaign $5 million because of a cash squeeze.
Online fundraising immediately picked up.
Days later, Clinton jettisoned her friend and campaign manager Patti
Solis Doyle in a long-anticipated shake-up that came amid increased
grumbling from supporters concerned about the trajectory of the
former front-runner's campaign.
Perhaps more significant, after being shut out since last Tuesday,
the Clinton campaign is bracing for more losses next Tuesday in
Hawaii, where Obama spent part of his childhood, and Wisconsin, a
state with a history of embracing government reform candidates like
Obama.
Clinton is pinning her hopes on two big states that vote March 4 -
Ohio, with a large number of economically hard-pressed voters of the
sort that have rallied to Clinton's side elsewhere, and Texas, with
a large number of Latino voters. In one contest after another,
Clinton has beaten Obama handily among Latinos.
On the Republican side, John McCain moved closer to clinching the
nomination, winning Maryland and Virginia over former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee and Texas Representative Ron Paul.
But McCain struggled in Virginia, where a strong turnout of
evangelical Christian voters helped buoy Huckabee, a favourite of
religious conservatives.
Picking up all 60 delegates in Virginia primary, McCain increased
his tally to at least 789 delegates to Huckabee's 241 and Ron Paul's
14. His wins in Maryland and the District of Columbia were going to
add even more delegates to his total. It takes 1,191 delegates to
win the Republican nomination.
McCain was looking Tuesday to recover from a pair of embarrassing
weekend losses in Kansas and Louisiana, where Huckabee prevailed
even though McCain appears all but certain to win the Republican
nod.
McCain scratched out a narrow win in Washington state caucuses,
though Huckabee is challenging the results.
The outcome suggests continued resistance to McCain, who has
alienated many conservative Republicans by breaking from party
orthodoxy on a number of issues.
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