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28 March 2024

Obama beats Clinton in Wisconsin for ninth straight victory

Published
By Agencies

 

Barack Obama won the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, his ninth straight triumph over a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in their epic struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination. John McCain easily won the Republican contest.


With Obama favoured to win in Tuesday’s other contest in Hawaii, Clinton desperately needs victories in major primaries March 4 in Texas and Ohio to salvage a campaign in which she was once seen as the inevitable nominee.

With the votes counted in nearly one-quarter of Wisconsin’s precincts, Obama was winning 56 per cent of the vote, to 43 per cent for Clinton.

Obama cut deeply into Clinton’s political bedrock in Wisconsin, splitting the support of white women in Wisconsin almost evenly with the former first lady and running well among working class voters in the Midwestern state, according to polling place interviews.

The economy and trade were key issues in the race, and seven in 10 voters said international trade has resulted in lost jobs in Wisconsin. Fewer than one in five said trade has created more jobs than it has lost.

Obama has now won nine straight primaries and caucuses since he battled Clinton to a split decision in the 22 Democratic contests on February 5, Super Tuesday.

“The change we seek is still months and miles away,” Obama told a boisterous crowd in Houston.

Clinton made no mention of her defeat, and showed no sign of surrender in an appearance in Youngstown, Ohio.

“Both Senator Obama and I would make history,” said the New York senator. “But only one of us is ready on day one to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans. Only one of us has spent 35 years being a doer, a fighter and a champion for those who need a voice.”

In a clear sign of their standing in the race, most cable television networks abruptly cut away from coverage of Clinton’s rally when Obama began to speak in Texas.

McCain won the Republican primary with ease, dispatching former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and edging closer to the 1,191 delegates the Arizona senator needs to clinch the Republican nomination at the party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, next summer.

In scarcely veiled criticism of Obama, the Republican nominee-in-waiting said, “I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure that Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change.”

McCain’s nomination has been assured since Super Tuesday three weeks ago, as first one, then another of his former rivals has dropped out and the party establishment has closed ranks behind him.

Not so in the Democratic race, where Obama and Clinton campaign seven days a week, he the strongest black presidential candidate in history, she bidding to become the first woman to sit in the White House.

Ohio and Texas vote next on March 4 - 370 convention delegates in all - and even some of Clinton’s supporters concede she must win one, and possibly both, to remain competitive.

Wisconsin independents cast about one-quarter of the ballots in the race between Obama and Clinton, and roughly 15 per cent of the electorate were first-time voters, the survey at polling places said. Obama has run strongly among independents in earlier primaries, and among younger voters, and cited their support as evidence that he would make a stronger general election candidate in the fall.

Wisconsin offered 74 national convention delegates. There were 20 delegates at stake in caucuses in Hawaii, where Obama spent part of his youth.

The Illinois senator’s victory allowed him to expand his delegate edge over Clinton.

He had 1,294, and Clinton had 1,218 in The Associated Press count, with most of Wisconsin’s delegates still to be allocated. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination at the party’s national convention in Denver.

Obama began the evening with eight straight primary and caucus victories, a remarkable run that has propelled him past Clinton in the overall delegate race and enabled him to chip away at her advantage among elected officials within the party who will have convention votes as superdelegates.

The Democrats’ focus on trade was certain to intensify, with primaries in the industrial states of Ohio in two weeks and in Pennsylvania on April 22.

Obama’s campaign has already distributed mass mailings critical of Clinton on the issue in Ohio. “Bad trade deals like NAFTA hit Ohio harder than most states. Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA,” it said.

Obama was in Texas, which has primaries and caucuses on March 4, and Clinton was in Ohio as the votes were counted in Wisconsin.

Clinton’s aides initially signaled she would virtually concede Wisconsin, and the former first lady spent less time in the state than Obama.

Even so, she ran a television ad that accused her rival of ducking a debate in the state and added that she had the only health care plan that would cover all Americans and the only economic plan to stop home foreclosures. “Maybe he’d prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions” the commercial said.

Obama countered with an ad of his own, saying his health care plan would cover more people.

The campaign grew increasingly testy over the weekend, when Clinton’s aides accused Obama of plagiarism for delivering a speech that included words that had first been uttered by Deval Patrick, Massachusetts’ first elected black governor and a friend of Obama.

“I really don’t think this is too big of a deal,” Obama said, eager to lay the issue to rest quickly. He said Clinton had used his slogans, too.

Even before the votes were tallied in one state, the campaigners were looking ahead.

Unlike the Democratic race, McCain was assured of the Republican nomination and concentrated on turning his primary campaign into a general election candidacy.

McCain won 13 delegates by carrying the popular vote in Wisconsin, with 24 delegates still to be awarded. There were 19 Republican delegates at stake in Washington.

Overall, McCain had 921 delegates and Huckabee had 245.

Huckabee parried occasional suggestions - none of them by McCain - that he quit the race. In a move that was unorthodox if not unprecedented for a presidential contender, he left the country in recent days to make a paid speech in the Grand Cayman Islands.


McCain picked up endorsements in the days before the primary from former President George H.W. Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a campaign dropout who urged his delegates to swing behind the party’s nominee-to-be. (AP)