The political action committee arm of the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL today endorsed Barack Obama – a real blow to Hillary Clinton’s campaign who has long been supported by the organization.
A statement from NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan reads: "Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race. Today, we are proud to put our organization's grass-roots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Senator Obama."
In a conference call with reporters about the state of the contest the Clinton campaign insists will continue until the end of the process on June 3rd, spokesman Howard Wolfson said he was “surprised” by the endorsement. “Senator Clinton's leadership and advocacy on choice issues is second to none," he said.
West Virginia’s Democratic primary and the Mississippi special congressional election got all the attention yesterday – and for good reasons. Hillary Clinton, declared finished by just about everyone in the political and media world, won a primary race against presumed nominee Barack Obama by 40 – yes 40 – points. In Mississippi, Republicans got another sign of the coming electoral apocalypse when they lost a House seat in a district where President Bush won 62 percent of the vote in 2004.
But Nebraska also held a primary yesterday with Obama and Clinton on the ballot. It was just a beauty contest since all the state’s delegates were awarded in caucuses on February 9th, but the results are interesting nonetheless. Driven by a competitive U.S. Senate primary, nearly 90,000 Nebraska Democrats cast a vote for one of the two candidates and Obama edged out Clinton by just over 2,000 votes, taking 49 percent of the vote while Clinton claimed 47 percent.
Obama won a big victory in February’s caucuses, getting 68 percent of the vote and capturing 16 of the 24 delegates up for grabs. There’s no way to tell whether Clinton would have done as well as she did in the meaningless beauty contest yesterday given that neither campaign was paying any attention to it. But it is a good reminder of why the Clinton campaign has long preferred primaries over caucuses. And, it’s an indication that while everyone else may have written Clinton off, voters aren’t. "People haven't written her off," said Judy Monaghan, who ran Clinton’s efforts in the state. "This is going to energize her supporters. I think there's still an opening. It's a narrow window, but it's an opening."
Hillary Clinton, who is vowing "to carry on this campaign" despite pressure to drop out, is spending this afternoon meeting with her top donors and supporters at her home in Washington DC. This morning, she sent out a fundraising email pointing to the pressure now upon her to leave the Democratic race and asking for donations to get through the "homestretch" of the nomination battle.
"There are some people out there who want to declare this race over now, before all the ballots have been counted or even cast," Clinton writes in the email. "There are some who say they don't know why I'm in this race. So let me tell you why I'm still running."
After writing that she is remaining in the race "for everyone who needs a champion," including hardworking families and "the more than 16 million people like you who have supported me," she adds: "With your help I'm going to keep fighting until every last American has a chance to be heard, and as we learned last night in West Virginia, I know we can win."
Clinton also writes she is staying in the race "because I have the best chance of beating John McCain in November and putting America on the right track."
Last night, just after her big win in West Virginia, Clinton sent out a different fundraising appeal.
"I'm going to carry the energy of tonight's victory into the next contests in Kentucky and Oregon," Clinton wrote, adding: "We've proved conventional wisdom wrong time and again in this race. We did it again tonight in West Virginia. Let's keep going."
Barack Obama's campaign has been trying hard to limit the damage from the Democratic frontrunner's big loss in West Virginia, conceding the race in advance and suggesting it should be considered a good showing if Obama secured just 20 percent or more of the vote in the state. (He did – but still lost by 41 percentage points.)
Now comes the day after strategy: The campaign is offering up evidence that no matter what happened on Tuesday, the superdelegates and endorsements are still flowing Obama's way.
The morning the campaign announced the two most recent superdelegates to commit to Obama: Rep. Peter Visclosky of Indiana and Democrats Abroad chair Christine Schon Marques, who counts as half a superdelegate.
The Wall Street Journal also notes that Obama has secured the endorsements of three former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of whom served under President Bush. They join Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who endorsed Obama earlier this year.
It’s telling that on the night Hillary Clinton took one more bow in the spotlight of a big win in the West Virginia primary, Barack Obama was winging his way to the state of Michigan to begin smoothing over bruised feelings in preparation for the general election. Speaking even louder was the fact that he wasn’t coming off a campaign day in the primary state but from Missouri - another fall battleground state.
Such is the state of the Democratic primary contest as it approaches the final five contests on the calendar. Clinton continues an increasingly quixotic effort to somehow gain a nomination all but beyond her grasp while Obama runs a parallel campaign aimed a reinforcing the inevitability of his nomination and uniting the party while at the same time gearing up for the campaign to come.
While Clinton’s decisive West Virginia win doesn’t wipe out that dynamic or change the overall direction of a race that is lurching toward an end, it won’t help Obama with that second part of his task. And there are continuing signs which, if not a threat to his ability to win the nomination, can’t be comforting for him or his party.
The split within the Democratic Party reached new highs Tuesday. According to CBS News exit polls, 74 percent of Clinton voters said they would be dissatisfied with Obama as the nominee. While that number has grown in recent contests, it represents the highest yet. In Indiana a week ago where Clinton won a tight contest, 62 percent of her voters said they would not be satisfied with Obama.
More troubling for Democrats in the general election, 59 percent of Clinton’s voters in West Virginia said they would either vote for John McCain in November or sit out the election altogether. And 61 percent said she would have the best chance to defeat McCain. The state, and its five Electoral Votes, has gone with the winner in the last four presidential elections. More...
The polls close at 7:30pm ET in West Virginia but we have our first peek at some of the exit polling results. Most voters made up their minds at some time before last week – a period which has been dominated by talk of Hillary Clinton’s ability to continue in the race. Seventy eight percent of voters in the early CBS News exit polls said they had decided who they would be supporting before the past week.
As it has been throughout the primary season, the economy was once again the top issue on the minds of voters, with 64 percent saying so. Eighty eight percent said they had been directly affected by the economic slowdown and 63 percent said they were in favor of proposals to temporarily suspend the gas tax.
Change was the quality voters were looking for most in a candidate, with 48 percent saying so compared to 23 percent who said experience was. Just eight percent said the ability to win in November was the most important quality for them.
There are more signs of a split within the Democratic Party. Just 23 percent of Hillary Clinton voters in West Virginia said they would be satisfied if Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee while 75 percent said they would be dissatisfied – the highest number recorded in exit polls yet. In Indiana, 62 percent of Clinton voters said they would be dissatisfied with Obama as the nominee. Sixty one percent of Obama voters said they would be dissatisfied with Clinton as the nominee while 33 percent said they would be satisfied.
Looking ahead to the general election, 59 percent of Clinton voters say they would either vote for Republican John McCain or not vote at all if Obama is the Democratic nominee. Thirty six percent of Clinton voters said they would vote for Obama while 35 percent said they would vote for McCain and 24 percent said they would sit the election out. Fifty one percent of Obama’s voters said they would support Clinton in the general election while 31 percent said they would support McCain and 14 percent would not vote.
Other indicators: Over half, 51 percent, of West Virginia voters said they think Obama shares the views of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Sixty two percent said that Bill Clinton’s campaigning in the state was an important factor in their vote. And 70 percent of Clinton voters said they think the race should continue.
The conventional wisdom is that today's primary in West Virginia – which Hillary Clinton is likely to easily win – will do little to help Clinton amplify her now-slim hopes of securing the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Clinton campaign, however, is understandably displeased with that perception – and has sent a memo out making the case for "Why West Virginia Matters."
The key line: "Given the attempts by our opponent and some in the media to declare this race over, any significant increase in voter turnout, coupled with a decisive Clinton victory, would send a strong message that Democrats remain excited and energized by Hillary’s candidacy."
The memo notes that "[e]very nominee has carried the state’s primary since 1976, and no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916." It also says that a Clinton victory would come despite the fact "that Sen. Obama has outspent us on advertising, has more staff in the state, and more than double the number of offices."
Another pastor with connections to a presidential candidate is under scrutiny for controversial remarks he’s made in the past. It’s not the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the news this time but John Hagee, a televangelist who has endorsed John McCain. In a letter to the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, Hagee is apologizing for once referring to the Catholic Church as “the great whore” and calling it “the apostate church,” reports the AP.
"Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good,” Hagee wrote Catholic League president William Donohue, “I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful." Donohue appears to have accepted the apology, telling the AP, “to me, it’s basically over.”
Hagee has been under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Rev. Wright controversies. While there is no evidence McCain has a close past relationship with the pastor, he accepted his endorsement and the two appeared together at an event earlier this year. Hagee has made other controversial remarks, including apparently an assertion that Hurricane Katrina was the result of planned gay pride parade in New Orleans around that time. “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that,” Hagee told NPR.
Barack Obama may end up losing some of his delegate margin in West Virginia when the results come in tonight but his campaign continues to roll out the superdelegate endorsements today. Indiana Congressman Joe Donnelly and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin endorsed Obama this morning and the campaign held a conference call with former DNC Chair/Colorado Gov. Roy Romer to discuss his decision to back Obama.
“A lot of people in the party are ready to close down the primary and get on with the general election,” Romer told reporters. “This has been a very vigorous primary and Senator Clinton has been a very strong and formidable candidate, and she’s a strong friend … but the math is controlling. This race I believe is over, Senator Obama has accumulated a lead in delegates chosen by primaries, caucuses and superdelegates that cannot be overcome.”
Romer was quick to point out that he was not trying to add any pressure on Clinton to drop out of the race, saying that clearing up the picture of where superdelegates line up serves only to provide her with more information on which to base decisions. “The more clarity we can give, those of who are superdelegates, the sooner we can make it clear, I think it will help her in whatever decision that she will make. But that is a decision she has to make,” Romer said.
Romer’s support is important beyond the superdelegate count because Colorado is potentially a key battleground and Obama won the caucuses there with 62 percent on Super Tuesday. Campaign manager David Plouffe stressed the competitive nature of Western states and said Colorado is a state Obama can win in November.
For a candidate with a 177 delegate lead in the latest CBS News delegate estimate, Barack Obama can be forgiven for not caring so much about the mere 28 delegates up fro grabs in West Virginia today. Hillary Clinton can’t win them all, and even if she could, it wouldn’t do anything to improve her nearly nonexistent chances to win the nomination.
But for a campaign already plotting out strategy that would result in winning 270 Electoral Votes in November, ignoring the state altogether may be a small gamble. George W. Bush won West Virginia’s 5 Electoral Votes in both 2000 and 2004 but it’s a state Bill Clinton carried twice, making it something of a modern-day bellwether.
Obama finds himself in an awkward position today. Trailing big in the polls, his campaign didn’t want to engage Clinton directly and end up losing a one-on-one competition when he already has the nomination all but wrapped up. So he’ll be turning his attention to general election battleground states like Missouri and Michigan while Clinton takes her victory lap in West Virginia – and likely hangs on for at least one more week, if not through the end of the primaries in June.
Tactically, strategically and rhetorically, Obama is turning toward John McCain and the general election. But his primary realities are forcing him into doing something that runs counter to that goal in blowing off West Virginia. And, if Clinton manages to run up the vote big, it could be enough to pull him back into the primary campaign. If the Obama campaign is at all worried about that, they aren’t showing it. They can’t afford to. More...
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