Analysis: Clinton and Obama Start Anew
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton captured needed states Tuesday night even as Barack Obama ate into her traditional base of support on a topsy-turvy night where a ballot victory was not the only measure of success.
The grand spectacle of Super Tuesday's coast-to-coast nominating contests marked a turning point in the Democratic presidential contest from euphoric election night victories to painstaking delegate counting.
In early results, Hillary Rodham Clinton won primaries in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. Barack Obama was the victor in Georgia, Delaware, Alabama and Illinois and the North Dakota caucus. Altogether, 22 states were in play but neither candidate was to emerge with enough delegates to secure the nomination.
Obama had secured 43 delegates in early voting Tuesday, while Clinton had 32, though that did not include all the states where outcomes had been declared.
Preliminary exit polls of voters in primary states showed Obama encroaching on Clinton's voting base. Clinton had only a slight edge among women and with whites, two areas where she has generally dominated Obama. Clinton was getting strong support from Hispanics, an increasingly important voting bloc. But Obama led among men _ including white men, a group with whom he has struggled for votes in most previous contests.
Those results augured well for Obama in contests in coming weeks.
The campaigns, like sports teams that have clinched a playoff spot, already have been preparing for the matches ahead. Obama has been advertising in states with primaries and caucuses over the next seven days. Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, all of which hold primaries on Feb. 12, play to Obama's strengths with black voters and upscale, educated voters.
Clinton strategists are looking over the horizon into March and April when Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania hold primaries.
Time could work against Clinton, however. Obama raised $32 million to her $13.5 million in January _ a financial edge that will help him organize and advertise in the upcoming battlegrounds. On Tuesday, her campaign called for four debates between now and March 4, a sign that she wants to supplement her financial disadvantage with free media.
After a month of early contests _ from Iowa to New Hampshire to Nevada to South Carolina _ the two candidates have essentially divided the electorate into two component parts. He gets young voters, educated voters, black voters. She gets women, working-class voters and Hispanics.
Both candidates have worked hard to win over supporters of John Edwards, who dropped out of the presidential race last Wednesday after a third-place finish in South Carolina. They've spent a combined $20 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states. And whoever cuts into the other's base will gain an advantage.
Obama seemed to benefit from Edwards' departure, expanding his support among white voters from one in four in the South Carolina primary to better than two out of five in Georgia. "She has ceiling issues, and the people who aren't for her we think are very available to us," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters Tuesday.
But Clinton had reason to cheer as well. She beat Obama in Massachusetts despite Obama's strength among highly educated voters and opponents of the war and high-profile endorsements from the state's political power troika _ U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick.
A new direction for the country seemed to be on the minds of Democratic voters. Half of them said they favored a candidate who could cause needed change and seven out of 10 of them voted for Obama. About one-fifth of voters preferred a candidate with experience and Clinton won nearly all of them.
As usual, Obama had a decisive lead with blacks, with about eight in 10 favoring him, the early national figures showed. But Clinton was getting support from nearly six in 10 Hispanics, a group that could be pivotal in states such as California.
The two candidates, each a U.S. senator, won their home states on Tuesday _ Obama in Illinois, Clinton in New York. The 22 states holding contests, as well as American Samoa, offer 1,681 Democratic delegates. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination. California is the day's biggest prize, with 370 delegates at stake.
With voting under way, Clinton led Obama in the hunt for delegates, 261 to 202, on the strength of so-called superdelegates. Those are members of Congress and other party leaders not chosen in state presidential contests.
Clinton aides said Tuesday that Obama might win more delegates on Tuesday than Clinton, but that she would emerge from the voting with more delegates overall.
Democrats award delegates proportionally in every state. That means the second-place finisher who gets at least 15 percent of the vote also will win delegates. Indeed, even if a candidate wins the popular vote in a state by a wide margin, the edge on delegates could be significantly smaller.
Obama entered Super Tuesday propelled by a solid victory in South Carolina on Jan. 26, Kennedy's endorsement, and a banner fundraising month in January. Both sides have downplayed Super Tuesday expectations. The Clinton camp has pointed to his rise in the polls; Obama's campaign has cited her longtime strength and name recognition in several of the contested states.
But it's the long term that matters.
"They're both going to get a chance to recover if they lose something and get a chance to consolidate if they keep winning," California-based Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said. "The delegate count is going to be so close that this is going to go on for a while."
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Kuhnhenn has been covering politics in Washington for more than 14 years.
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JIM KUHNHENN | February 5, 2008 10:27 PM EST |
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