Publication: Progressive Review
Obama Wins N.C. and Clinton Takes Indiana | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - May 8, 2008
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Obama Wins North Carolina Decisively;
Clinton Takes Indiana by Slim Margin
By Jeff Zeleny
The New York Times
Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory in the North
Carolina primary on Tuesday and lost narrowly to Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, an outcome that injected
a boost of momentum to Mr. Obama's candidacy as the
Democratic nominating contest entered its final month.
The results from the two primaries, the largest remaining
Democratic ones, assured that Mr. Obama would widen his
lead in pledged delegates over Mrs. Clinton, providing him
with new ammunition as he seeks to persuade Democratic
leaders to coalesce around his campaign. He also increased
his lead in the popular vote in winning North Carolina by
more than 200,000 votes.
"Don't ever forget that we have a choice in this country,"
Mr. Obama said in an address in Raleigh, N.C., that carried
the unity themes of a convention speech. "We can choose not
to be divided; that we can choose not to be afraid; that
we can still choose this moment to finally come together
and solve the problems we've talked about all those other
years in all those other elections."
In winning North Carolina by 14 percentage points, Mr.
Obama - whose campaign had been embattled by controversy
over the incendiary remarks of his former pastor - recorded
his first primary victory in nearly two months. His
campaign was preparing to open a new front in his battle
with Mrs. Clinton, intensifying the argument to uncommitted
Democratic superdelegates that he weathered a storm and
that the time was dawning for the party to concentrate on
the general election.
But as Mrs. Clinton addressed her supporters at a rally in
Indianapolis on Tuesday evening, it was clear the fight was
not over. In the first three minutes of her address, she
asked supporters to contribute money, saying, "Tonight, I
need your help to continue this journey."
Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the
primaries were far less than they had hoped, and said they
were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own
supporters for her to quit the race. They said they
expected fund-raising to become even harder; one adviser
said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others
refused to say whether Mrs. Clinton had lent the campaign
money from her personal account to keep it afloat.
The advisers said they were dispirited over the loss in
North Carolina, after her campaign - now working off a
shoestring budget as spending outpaces fund-raising -
decided to allocate millions of dollars and full days of
the candidate and her husband in the state. Even with her
investment, Mr. Obama outspent Mrs. Clinton in both states.
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For several hours, incomplete results from Lake County in
Indiana - home to the city of Gary, just across the state
line from Chicago - left the statewide tally in doubt. The
delay meant that Mrs. Clinton did not appear on television
until well after Mr. Obama, allowing him to put his stamp
of victory on the evening.
With six primaries remaining on the Democratic calendar,
the fight between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton now turns to
Washington. The Obama campaign was poised to present a new
cache of superdelegates - the party officials who may have
to settle the nominating fight - as early as Wednesday to
press its case that the results from Tuesday are reason
enough to back his candidacy and end the torturous
nominating fight.
In his speech earlier in the evening, Mr. Obama, of
Illinois, congratulated Mrs. Clinton "for what appears to
be her victory in the great state of Indiana." Then, he
used his televised forum to deliver a speech highlighting
how he was likely to come under attack. In doing so, he
made an argument for his viability in a general election,
which his rivals believe has been damaged because of his
association with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A.
Wright Jr..
"Yes, we know what's coming; I'm not naive," Mr. Obama
said, adding, "The attempts to play on our fears and
exploit our differences, to turn us against each other
for political gain, to slice and dice this country into
red states and blue states; blue-collar and white-collar;
white, black, brown; young, old; rich, poor."
"This is the race we expect" regardless of who is the
Democratic nominee, he went on. "The question, then, is
not what kind of campaign they will run; it's what kind
of campaign we will run."
Democrats said they expect to see more superdelegates flow
to Mr. Obama in the next few days, including perhaps some
now aligned with Mrs. Clinton.
Senator Claire McCaskill, an Obama supporter from Missouri,
called the results "a big, big night" for Mr. Obama given
the Wright episode. "This shows he can take major blows
and kind of rise above it," Ms. McCaskill said. "I think
there was a sense that she has some momentum, and I think
it has just ground to a screeching halt tonight."
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Despite Mrs. Clinton's performance, she pledged to take her
campaign to West Virginia, Kentucky and the other states
remaining on the primary calendar. And the campaign has
been pushing the cause of seating disputed delegates from
Florida and Michigan, states that were penalized for
holding primaries before party rules allowed.
"You know it seems, it would be a little strange to have
a nominee chosen by 48 states," she told her supporters
in Indianapolis. "We've got a long road ahead, but were
going to keep fighting on that path because America is
worth fighting for."
The Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National
Committee will convene on May 31 to settle the issue of
whether to seat the delegates from those two states.
Going forward, both candidates intend to spend time in
Washington, courting superdelegates and party officials.
Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, an Obama supporter, said
the candidate accomplished what he needed to by outperform-
ing expectations in both states and showing that Mr. Wright
was not driving off voters en masse. "The next question
will be what happens with the undecided superdelegates,"
Mr. Nelson said. "Will they begin to come his way? I don't
see anything to suggest they should start going her way."
In North Carolina, Mr. Obama's performance was bolstered by
a strong black vote. He captured more than 90 percent of
those voters in that state, where blacks accounted for one
in three voters. But over all, Mrs. Clinton continued to
draw strong support among whites, particularly older women.
The voting in Indiana and North Carolina came at the
conclusion of an acrimonious two-week campaign that found
Mr. Obama on the defensive over incendiary remarks by
Mr. Wright. Yet there was little evidence either argument
caused significant shifts in electoral patterns of previous
states, with most Clinton voters saying the Wright episode
affected their vote and Obama backers saying it had not.
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Once again, Mrs. Clinton drew most of her support from
women and older voters. Mr. Obama held onto his mainstays
of support - blacks, young voters and liberals - and made
small gains in Indiana with lower-income white voters who
have eluded him in the past.
In both states, the candidates' final arguments centered
on a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax,
which Mrs. Clinton proposed as an economic lift for voters
and Mr. Obama derided as a political gimmick.
At this stage in the nominating fight, most voters seemed
to have settled on their preferences before the battle
intensified. Only a quarter of voters in Indiana decided
whom to support in the last week, and a majority backed
Mrs. Clinton, while one in five voters in North Carolina
also decided late, and most of them backed Mr. Obama.
The country's economic condition was listed as the chief
concern of the Democratic primary voters. About 9 in 10
voters in Indiana and 8 in 10 voters in North Carolina
said the economic slowdown had affected their family at
least somewhat.
At least three in five voters in both states said the
economy was the most important problem facing the country,
according to surveys of voters leaving polling places that
were conducted in both states by Edison/Mitofsky for the
television networks and The Associated Press.
In Indiana, about 8 in 10 voters were white and about
15 percent were black. Six in 10 of the whites voted
for Mrs. Clinton; about 9 in 10 blacks favored Mr. Obama.
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Reporting was contributed by Patrick Healy, Carl Hulse,
Dalia Sussman and Megan Thee.
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