Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, North America

POLITICS-US: Obama Surpasses Clinton as Democratic Front-Runner

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 2008 (IPS) - Landslide victories in three Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday appear to have propelled Sen. Barack Obama past Sen. Hillary Clinton into front-runner status in the race for the party’s nomination.

The Illinois senator swept the so-called “Potomac Primary” in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia with 60 percent or more of the vote. He is showing unprecedented strength among demographic groups – particularly Latinos and older voters – where Clinton has been strong in previous primary races.

“With three more victories in the ‘Potomac primary,’ including a crushing rout in Virginia, the Illinois senator must now be judged the favourite for the Democratic nomination,” declared the Wall Street Journal Wednesday morning.

Tuesday’s trifecta added to Obama’s sweep of five other primary contests over the past week, giving him an unbroken string of eight convincing victories. This effectively makes him the leader in the number of delegates committed to voting for him in the Democratic Convention, to be held in Denver this summer.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose victories on “Super Tuesday” earlier this month made him the presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican Party, also swept the Potomac Primaries, which are named for the river which separates the three jurisdictions.

McCain won by large margins in both Maryland and the District. He succeeded in beating back a determined challenge by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee by a margin of 50-41 percent.

While Maryland and the District traditionally vote Democratic, Virginia – which has a relatively large white rural population – has historically been far more rightwing than its northern neighbours.

A number of influential right-wing talk radio and television hosts – who consider McCain to be too liberal on key issues such as global warming and campaign finance reform – have so far refused to line up behind him and have tried to rally like-minded voters behind Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister with strong Christian Right credentials.

With the 71-year-old McCain – a former U.S. Navy pilot who was held as a prisoner of war by North Vietnam after his plane was shot down over Hanoi – – all but clinching the Republican nomination, however, the Democratic race is currently drawing by far the most attention and, importantly, the most voters, including the all-important “independents” whose balloting decisions ordinarily determine who prevails in the November elections.

In a bad sign for Republicans, Democratic primary contests this year have drawn as many as four times the number of voters. On Tuesday, more than twice as many voters participated in the Democratic primaries in Maryland and Virginia as in the Republican contests.

The least surprising result Tuesday came in the District of Columbia, which, with its strong majority of black residents, was expected to give Obama, who is bi-racial, an easy victory. Obama won with 75 percent of the vote there.

Obama also fulfilled expectations in Maryland where the margin, however, turned out to be somewhat greater than anticipated – 60 percent for him to Clinton’s 37 percent.

But, as noted by the Journal, the big surprise came in Virginia which had been expected to be a much closer race. To the surprise of virtually all political pros, Obama actually defeated Clinton by a greater margin than in Maryland – – 64 percent to 36 percent.

Despite these margins – and convincing victories by Obama last weekend in Washington State, Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine and the U.S. Virgin Islands – Clinton, who had enjoyed clear frontrunner status for more than a year, remains a strong contender. This is particularly true among the nearly 800 so-called “Super-Delegates” – elected officials and party bosses – who are likely to hold the balance of power at the Denver Convention. Many of them feel beholden to the Clintons.

Still, Hillary Clinton has a tough road ahead if she is to regain the momentum she needs to go to the convention in a strong position.

The big primary contest next week will take place Tuesday in Wisconsin where Clinton has spent relatively little time. Polls there – as well as the results on Super Tuesday in neighbouring Minnesota – suggest that Obama could win that primary by a significant margin, giving him additional momentum.

If so, Clinton’s hopes rest on three big states – Ohio and Texas, which hold primaries Mar. 4, and Pennsylvania, which will go to the polls on Apr. 22.

Clinton is thought to enjoy a healthy lead in Texas, in part due to the large Latino vote which Obama has struggled to bring to his side. Ohio and Pennsylvania are thought to be much closer and could still go either way, according to the pollsters.

But the demographics of Tuesday’s vote are likely to be particularly heartening to the Obama campaign. While Latinos in other states had previously voted by wide margins – two to one or more – for Clinton, in Maryland, she won the Latino vote by a 55-45 percent margin. In Virginia, Obama for the first time claimed a majority of Latino voters, winning 53 percent of their votes. Latino voters make up about five percent of the total vote in both states.

Clinton and Obama split the white vote in Virginia, while Clinton held on to receive 52 percent of the white vote in Maryland, compared to 42 percent for Obama.

But, in another breakthrough for Obama, majorities of white men in both Virginia and Maryland went for Obama – 48-45 percent in Maryland and a decisive 56-42 percent in Virginia. Clinton, on the other hand, held on to the white women’s vote by similar margins.

Obama strengthened his position in his strongest demographic – young voters between the ages of 18 and 29, but he also made unexpected gains among older voters who previously favoured Clinton by large margins. Obama won majorities of 57 percent and 54 percent, respectively among voters aged 45 and up. He also received slightly more votes that Clinton among voters 65 and older.

He also fared significantly better among self-described “independents”, thus bolstering his case that he would make a significantly stronger candidate against McCain than Clinton. In Virginia, independents taking part in the primary voted two to one for Obama. In Maryland, he won independents by a whopping 62-27 percent margin.

“The sheer consistency of Mr. Obama’s victories over the last few days certainly suggests that many Democratic voters have gotten past whatever reservations they might have had about his electability or his qualifications to be president,” the New York Times concluded.