“Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere” – C.S. Lewis, British scholar and novelist 1898-1963
It has been referred to as America’s original sin, slavery. Almost one hundred and fifty years after the great legislative leader of black emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, enacted the first laws of Reconstruction, and forty years after the assassination of Dr. King, America once again finds itself embroiled in a ferocious debate about race. The brutal legacy of slavery and segregation is embedded in the psyche of most Americans. While white Americans don’t believe that they should be punished for the sins of their forefathers, many feel stained with the sins of their remote ancestors. In this election cycle, the issue of race in American society is front and center in a way never before seen in American politics.
The candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, (who as I write, has an 85% statistical chance, according to all of the leading commentators, think tanks and political cognoscenti, of becoming the first African American to be his party’s nominee for President), has forced Americans to confront in a very real way their deepest feelings about race and racial inequality. The good news is that in a recent study, 76% of Americans say the country is ready for a black President. However, as I travel across the United States, it is clear to me that the impact of two hundred years of injustice is still being felt in African American communities everywhere, resulting in illiteracy, poverty, crime and drug addiction.
The candidacy of Barack Obama has presented Americans of all colors and creeds an opportunity to confront head on their own feelings and beliefs in relation to racial inequality and injustice. Recent events have underlined the sensitivity of the race issue on the campaign trail. Back in February, after Obama had beaten Hillary Clinton by 25 points in the South Carolina primary, former President Bill Clinton dismissed the defeat by saying that Rev Jesse Jackson had also won South Carolina during his runs for the nomination in 1984 and 1988. The characterization by Bill Clinton was that Obama’s huge win was only made possible by the large African American population in South Carolina and that Obama wouldn’t be able to capture other states where there was an overwhelmingly large white population. Clinton’s comments angered many in the black community, not least because Obama then went on to sweep primary after primary where the white vote far exceeded the black vote. Racial stereotyping has become a hallmark of the Clinton campaign since.
The inflammatory comments made by Obama’s former pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright, have also been the center of much debate and controversy. Wright, a pastor, theological scholar and champion of the poor and underprivileged in Chicago for a generation, was castigated for a few comments he made over the course of the last 30 years, where from the pulpit he condemned many within the white community for their racial bigotry and criticized successive American governments by saying that events like 9/11 were a direct result of 50 years of American imperialism and hegemony. The CIA by the way has an official term for it, “blowback”.
While Obama has repeatedly condemned the comments the issue continues to be part of the ongoing Clinton “kitchen sink strategy” of doing and saying anything to try and somehow wrestle the nomination from Obama. Likewise, recent comments by Clinton surrogate (and former Vice Presidential nominee) Geraldine Ferraro and an ongoing campaign by Rupert Murdoch owned Fox News (in my opinion more accurately referred to by one American journalist as “Fox Noise” or “Fixed News”) to continually play the race card in its supposedly (and self titled) “fair and balanced” coverage of the Obama campaign.
Obama has tapped into a movement for change, a movement that is leaving aside the slash and burn politics of the past and in the process he is bringing voters of every race, color, age and religion along with him. I recently had dinner with some business colleagues. One of our group was a 55 year African American man. Our conversation came around to politics. Like many African Americans, he told us of his admiration for Bill Clinton and the personal warmth that black people across the country have for the former president. In any other election year, Hillary Clinton would have gotten his vote, however he is going to cast his vote for Obama because he believes that Obama understands the journey that black Americans have had to travel to get where they are today. White people never will understand that journey.
As I write, the Pennsylvania primary is 5 days away. The consensus is that Hillary Clinton will win the state, but anything less than a blowout of 15-20 points won’t enable her to make any serious inroads into Obama’s delegate lead. Primaries follow in Indiana and North Carolina in early May, where Obama is leading in the polls. The fear that many Democrats have is that the long, drawn out nomination fight between Clinton and Obama will give John McCain lots of free time to gain momentum in advance of the November election. Hopefully, the Democratic nomination process can be concluded sooner rather than later.
As of April 17th, the latest delegate numbers are as follows:
Obama/Clinton:
Pledged delegates: 1416/1252
Super-delegates: 235/257
Total delegates: 1651/1509
States Won: 30/14
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Politics of Slash and Burn
“Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature” – Orson Welles, actor, director, producer and writer 1915-1985
In a year when Democrats stand their best chance to win back the White House since those heady days of post-Watergate public disillusionment of Washington politics, one would have thought that the leading Democratic candidates for President would; while engaging in a competitive race to become their party’s nominee, have generally taken the high road in conducting their campaigns and kept the rough stuff in response to the inevitable barrage of dirty tricks that will be thrown by John McCain in the general election campaign. Think again.
Coming out of the final two primaries of Wyoming and Mississippi and six weeks before the next big statewide election in Pennsylvania on April 22nd, the war of words between the Clinton and Obama camps has escalated to a new low in terms of rhetoric, racially charged comments and downright lies. And to be honest, the vast majority of the dirty tricks are coming from the Clinton campaign. Many commentators and seasoned political veterans see the Clinton camp’s self-styled “kitchen-sink strategy” of misinformation and race baiting as a last ditch effort to wrestle the initiative from Obama.
Two days before the do or die primaries on March 4th in Texas and Ohio Clinton was asked on national TV about the scurrilous (and false) rumor that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim. Knowing full well that the rumor was categorically false, Clinton obfuscated, saying that as “far as I know” Senator Obama was not Muslim. Many in the main stream media rightly took Clinton to task for deliberately raising a doubt in the mind of some voters, especially in Ohio, and especially at a time when she desperately needed to win a state, any state, to revive her chances of winning the nomination.
Clinton herself followed up in the days after the critical March 4th primaries by raising the question about Obama’s ability to be an effective leader on day one in the White House. This has been a constant theme for the Clinton campaign since the primaries began on January 3rd; however it has been raised to a new level in recent weeks. Citing her own so-called wealth of experience to be Commander-in-Chief (CIC), Clinton made a fatal error in publicly stating that John McCain was more qualified to be president than Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, Democrats are up in arms over the comment, which essentially undermines Obama’s credentials against McCain in the general election in the event that Obama does in fact beat Clinton and wins the Democratic nomination.
To further exasperate (and confuse) matters, Clinton then proposed that while Obama is not ready to be CIC, he would make a great Vice President and that she would be delighted to have him as her VP running mate. Obama responded forcefully, asking publicly the question that many were asking privately, which is why would Clinton offer Obama the VP slot on one hand if on the other hand she didn’t think he was ready to be CIC and able to immediately assume the Presidency should anything happen to a President Clinton. In addition, Obama pointed out the obvious problem with Clinton’s proposal – why should he, the candidate that is in first place and leading in terms of the number of states won, popular vote and number of committed delegates, take second place on a national ticket. The arrogance and attitude of self-entitlement of the Clinton’s is breathtaking.
Fast forward to this week and a member of the Clinton finance committee, Geraldine Ferraro, gives an interview to a local California newspaper where she boldly states that Barack Obama is where he is today BECAUSE he is black and that if he was a regular white politician he would be a nobody. If Geraldine Ferraro was a low level campaign operative you might be forgiven for dismissing this blatant racism as a comment from someone who is not in touch with reality, however Ferraro is a career politician, a respected trailblazer for women’s issues over the course of 30 years and a former vice presidential candidate herself, being part of the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale that was annihilated by Ronald Reagan in 1984.
The outcry to her comments was immediate and while Hillary Clinton announced that she disagreed with them she didn’t reject them or ask Ferraro to leave her campaign. Never one to go quietly, Ferraro proceeded to do a round of television interviews where, unbelievably, she claimed that the Obama campaign was using the race card against her because she was a white woman and that Obama should apologize to her! As you might expect, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and within hours Ferraro was gone from the Clinton campaign, not fired but having resigned on her own account so that she “could continue to speak the truth”. Asked about Ferraro’s comments, Barack Obama called them “ridiculous” and “wrong-headed”, pointing out in a statement that is deep in irony and sarcasm that because of the fact that he WAS a black man with a name like Barack Obama hardly gave him an advantage in a political race against the most well known woman in America (Clinton) and whose husband was a former president.
The Clinton strategy has so angered many of the Democratic leaders that Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, weighted in this week when asked by reporters about a so-called “Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton” dream ticket. Pelosi ruled it out as now “impossible”, citing Clinton’s irresponsible comments about Obama’s inability to be commander in chief. Pressed further on the matter, Pelosi said “…take it from me, there will be no dream ticket”. Many see this as a veiled endorsement of Obama’s candidacy and because it is coming from the House Speaker it is not unreasonable to assume that Pelosi is speaking for a large number of the Democratic leadership.
Many commentators see this sequence of events as a deliberate strategy by the Clinton campaign to undermine the Obama candidacy and a last ditch attempt to win back the momentum in the race for the nomination. The facts, however, show that the odds are increasingly becoming stacked against Clinton as each new state contest is completed. As of March 14th, here is the current state of play:
Obama/Clinton
Pledged Delegates 1411/1250
Super delegates* 207/237
Total Delegates 1617/1487
States Won 30/14
Popular Vote Won 13,281,132/12,577,409
The first to reach 2025 will win the nomination. What is probable is that with 10 primaries to go, neither candidate will be able to reach the magic number of 2025 without the help of the so-called “super-delegates”. Super-delegates are a group of elected and party officials that comprise senators, congressmen and women, governors and others who have a vote at the nominating convention when the Democrats will choose their candidate. Clinton has held a lead with super delegates for over a year, largely because many of them pledged their vote to her when she seemed unbeatable in the polls before the actual primaries began in early January. Her lead over Obama in terms of super-delegates is decreasing on a weekly basis. The Clinton strategy is partially built around hoping to be able to persuade many of the undecided super-delegates to vote for her at the convention.
The reality however is that if Obama comes to the convention with more pledged delegates, most states won and a lead in the popular vote it is inconceivable that the super delegates with ignore the will of the people and give the nomination to Clinton. To do so would literally rip the Democratic Party in two in much the same way it was divided in 1968, allowing Richard Nixon to narrowly win the general election. After 7 years of W, the Democratic leadership is not about to let 1968 happen all over again.
In a year when Democrats stand their best chance to win back the White House since those heady days of post-Watergate public disillusionment of Washington politics, one would have thought that the leading Democratic candidates for President would; while engaging in a competitive race to become their party’s nominee, have generally taken the high road in conducting their campaigns and kept the rough stuff in response to the inevitable barrage of dirty tricks that will be thrown by John McCain in the general election campaign. Think again.
Coming out of the final two primaries of Wyoming and Mississippi and six weeks before the next big statewide election in Pennsylvania on April 22nd, the war of words between the Clinton and Obama camps has escalated to a new low in terms of rhetoric, racially charged comments and downright lies. And to be honest, the vast majority of the dirty tricks are coming from the Clinton campaign. Many commentators and seasoned political veterans see the Clinton camp’s self-styled “kitchen-sink strategy” of misinformation and race baiting as a last ditch effort to wrestle the initiative from Obama.
Two days before the do or die primaries on March 4th in Texas and Ohio Clinton was asked on national TV about the scurrilous (and false) rumor that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim. Knowing full well that the rumor was categorically false, Clinton obfuscated, saying that as “far as I know” Senator Obama was not Muslim. Many in the main stream media rightly took Clinton to task for deliberately raising a doubt in the mind of some voters, especially in Ohio, and especially at a time when she desperately needed to win a state, any state, to revive her chances of winning the nomination.
Clinton herself followed up in the days after the critical March 4th primaries by raising the question about Obama’s ability to be an effective leader on day one in the White House. This has been a constant theme for the Clinton campaign since the primaries began on January 3rd; however it has been raised to a new level in recent weeks. Citing her own so-called wealth of experience to be Commander-in-Chief (CIC), Clinton made a fatal error in publicly stating that John McCain was more qualified to be president than Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, Democrats are up in arms over the comment, which essentially undermines Obama’s credentials against McCain in the general election in the event that Obama does in fact beat Clinton and wins the Democratic nomination.
To further exasperate (and confuse) matters, Clinton then proposed that while Obama is not ready to be CIC, he would make a great Vice President and that she would be delighted to have him as her VP running mate. Obama responded forcefully, asking publicly the question that many were asking privately, which is why would Clinton offer Obama the VP slot on one hand if on the other hand she didn’t think he was ready to be CIC and able to immediately assume the Presidency should anything happen to a President Clinton. In addition, Obama pointed out the obvious problem with Clinton’s proposal – why should he, the candidate that is in first place and leading in terms of the number of states won, popular vote and number of committed delegates, take second place on a national ticket. The arrogance and attitude of self-entitlement of the Clinton’s is breathtaking.
Fast forward to this week and a member of the Clinton finance committee, Geraldine Ferraro, gives an interview to a local California newspaper where she boldly states that Barack Obama is where he is today BECAUSE he is black and that if he was a regular white politician he would be a nobody. If Geraldine Ferraro was a low level campaign operative you might be forgiven for dismissing this blatant racism as a comment from someone who is not in touch with reality, however Ferraro is a career politician, a respected trailblazer for women’s issues over the course of 30 years and a former vice presidential candidate herself, being part of the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale that was annihilated by Ronald Reagan in 1984.
The outcry to her comments was immediate and while Hillary Clinton announced that she disagreed with them she didn’t reject them or ask Ferraro to leave her campaign. Never one to go quietly, Ferraro proceeded to do a round of television interviews where, unbelievably, she claimed that the Obama campaign was using the race card against her because she was a white woman and that Obama should apologize to her! As you might expect, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and within hours Ferraro was gone from the Clinton campaign, not fired but having resigned on her own account so that she “could continue to speak the truth”. Asked about Ferraro’s comments, Barack Obama called them “ridiculous” and “wrong-headed”, pointing out in a statement that is deep in irony and sarcasm that because of the fact that he WAS a black man with a name like Barack Obama hardly gave him an advantage in a political race against the most well known woman in America (Clinton) and whose husband was a former president.
The Clinton strategy has so angered many of the Democratic leaders that Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, weighted in this week when asked by reporters about a so-called “Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton” dream ticket. Pelosi ruled it out as now “impossible”, citing Clinton’s irresponsible comments about Obama’s inability to be commander in chief. Pressed further on the matter, Pelosi said “…take it from me, there will be no dream ticket”. Many see this as a veiled endorsement of Obama’s candidacy and because it is coming from the House Speaker it is not unreasonable to assume that Pelosi is speaking for a large number of the Democratic leadership.
Many commentators see this sequence of events as a deliberate strategy by the Clinton campaign to undermine the Obama candidacy and a last ditch attempt to win back the momentum in the race for the nomination. The facts, however, show that the odds are increasingly becoming stacked against Clinton as each new state contest is completed. As of March 14th, here is the current state of play:
Obama/Clinton
Pledged Delegates 1411/1250
Super delegates* 207/237
Total Delegates 1617/1487
States Won 30/14
Popular Vote Won 13,281,132/12,577,409
The first to reach 2025 will win the nomination. What is probable is that with 10 primaries to go, neither candidate will be able to reach the magic number of 2025 without the help of the so-called “super-delegates”. Super-delegates are a group of elected and party officials that comprise senators, congressmen and women, governors and others who have a vote at the nominating convention when the Democrats will choose their candidate. Clinton has held a lead with super delegates for over a year, largely because many of them pledged their vote to her when she seemed unbeatable in the polls before the actual primaries began in early January. Her lead over Obama in terms of super-delegates is decreasing on a weekly basis. The Clinton strategy is partially built around hoping to be able to persuade many of the undecided super-delegates to vote for her at the convention.
The reality however is that if Obama comes to the convention with more pledged delegates, most states won and a lead in the popular vote it is inconceivable that the super delegates with ignore the will of the people and give the nomination to Clinton. To do so would literally rip the Democratic Party in two in much the same way it was divided in 1968, allowing Richard Nixon to narrowly win the general election. After 7 years of W, the Democratic leadership is not about to let 1968 happen all over again.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Hypocrisy: How John McCain sold his soul to become the Republican party nominee
“The challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones that we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be. Yes we can.” – Senator Barack Obama, Super Tuesday Night February 5th 2008, Chicago, Illinois
Last month I ruminated over why I thought it possible that within 30 days it would become clear who the Democratic and Republican nominees for President would be. I was partly correct. After a month of primaries and caucuses in 30 odd states John McCain has clearly emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee. At the time of writing he has amassed the support of 830 pledged delegates in his fight to become the GOP presidential candidate. He needs 1191 delegates to secure a majority and tie up the race. Almost all of the GOP primaries are winner take all states, which means that even though McCain won many of the states by relatively small margins, the Republican rules dictate that he receive all of that state’s delegates.
For example, even though Mitt Romney won 34% of the vote in California (to McCain’s 42%) and Mike Huckabee won 41% of the vote in Virginia (to McCain’s 50%), neither Romney or Huckabee was awarded any delegates. This winner take all mentality offers a very lob-sided analysis of how people voted in the Republican primaries and of course gives a disproportionate lead in the delegate count to whatever candidate can string together a series of close wins. While McCain has received some high profile endorsements since Super Tuesday, including that of his former nemesis George W Bush, there is a large minority of the Republican base that has yet to embrace McCain as their nominee.
Step forward the self proclaimed evangelical Christian conservative wing of the party. So called true blue conservatives are loath to back McCain because they believe that he isn’t really a true conservative. They point to his senatorial record, where over the course of the past 25 years he has continually bucked the party position on issue after issue, confirming in their mind his maverick status as a legislator and politician.
To conservative Republicans, McCain is a mass of contradictions. While they like his positions on the war and defense, they despise him for what they deem to be his abandonment of conservative principles on issues like the right to life, campaign finance reform (a bill he co-sponsored and which Republicans detest) and not least his position on illegal immigration. McCain, who is a Senator from the southern border state of Arizona, believes in a moderate, all inclusive policy of tackling the illegal immigration situation; a position which is in stark contrast to the majority of Republicans. While many Independent voters have been traditionally drawn to McCain, there is no doubt that his he lost the majority of them this month after he cast a diabolical vote in the U.S. Senate.
McCain is a genuine American hero, having spent 5 ½ years as a prisoner of war in the so called “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam in the 1960’s, where he was regularly tortured by his captors. All his life McCain has publicly stated that torture is illegal, is in contempt of the Geneva Convention, and in recent years has taken his own government to task over its use of the technique of water-boarding in attempting to elicit intelligence from detainees. My respect for McCain disappeared this month when he went on the floor of the U.S. Senate and voted against a bill that would outlaw torture. In doing so, John McCain sold his soul to the conservatives on the Republican right in a blatant, desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe of his own party. The man is a hypocrite, pure and simple.
When I predicted a month ago that the Democratic nominee would become clear after the February 5th primaries, I was wrong. As I write, Barack Obama has won 23 of the 34 primaries and caucuses held to date. In terms of pledged delegates Obama leads Senator Clinton 1139 to 1003. The first to reach 2025 will become the Democratic nominee. In what seems like a far more equitable system to me, Democrats award delegates in each state on a proportional basis, with each candidate being awarded a specific number of delegates based proportionally on the percentage of the vote received by that candidate. As a result, even though Obama has easily won more states than Clinton, and Clinton has won more of the bigger states than Obama, the two are practically tied in the delegate count.
After Super Tuesday, which in essence was a split decision, all the trends favor Obama moving forward. In the first 8 primaries and caucuses since Super Tuesday, Obama has won them all. By the time you read this the results will be in from two more primaries, Wisconsin and Hawaii, who go to the polls on February 19th. The results from those states will be important in gauging the momentum that is building for an Obama nomination and he may well become unstoppable. Obama as a candidate has demonstrated that he has broad appeal across all of the key demographic voting groups in America, including white men, African Americans, men and women under 30, minorities and better educated, more affluent voters. He is winning every demographic group under 50. Clinton has strong appeal to older, more traditional voters and has a bigger following within the Latino community.
The Clinton machine badly underestimated the Obama candidacy. Campaign officials expected to have the nomination locked up by February 5th (Super Tuesday) and it is clear that very little planning was done for the eventuality of a long delegate battle that may well go on until June. Hillary Clinton admitted this month that she has lent $5 million of her own money to her campaign, a staggering admission of financial mismanagement within her own organization when you consider that she raised in excess of $100 million in contributions in 2007.
The next big battle takes place on March 4th when the voters of delegate rich states like Texas and Ohio go to the polls. Should Hillary Clinton win there, the nomination is wide open again and may well go to the floor of the convention in the summer, where the party super-delegates may be called on to decide who the nominee is going to be.
Last month I ruminated over why I thought it possible that within 30 days it would become clear who the Democratic and Republican nominees for President would be. I was partly correct. After a month of primaries and caucuses in 30 odd states John McCain has clearly emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee. At the time of writing he has amassed the support of 830 pledged delegates in his fight to become the GOP presidential candidate. He needs 1191 delegates to secure a majority and tie up the race. Almost all of the GOP primaries are winner take all states, which means that even though McCain won many of the states by relatively small margins, the Republican rules dictate that he receive all of that state’s delegates.
For example, even though Mitt Romney won 34% of the vote in California (to McCain’s 42%) and Mike Huckabee won 41% of the vote in Virginia (to McCain’s 50%), neither Romney or Huckabee was awarded any delegates. This winner take all mentality offers a very lob-sided analysis of how people voted in the Republican primaries and of course gives a disproportionate lead in the delegate count to whatever candidate can string together a series of close wins. While McCain has received some high profile endorsements since Super Tuesday, including that of his former nemesis George W Bush, there is a large minority of the Republican base that has yet to embrace McCain as their nominee.
Step forward the self proclaimed evangelical Christian conservative wing of the party. So called true blue conservatives are loath to back McCain because they believe that he isn’t really a true conservative. They point to his senatorial record, where over the course of the past 25 years he has continually bucked the party position on issue after issue, confirming in their mind his maverick status as a legislator and politician.
To conservative Republicans, McCain is a mass of contradictions. While they like his positions on the war and defense, they despise him for what they deem to be his abandonment of conservative principles on issues like the right to life, campaign finance reform (a bill he co-sponsored and which Republicans detest) and not least his position on illegal immigration. McCain, who is a Senator from the southern border state of Arizona, believes in a moderate, all inclusive policy of tackling the illegal immigration situation; a position which is in stark contrast to the majority of Republicans. While many Independent voters have been traditionally drawn to McCain, there is no doubt that his he lost the majority of them this month after he cast a diabolical vote in the U.S. Senate.
McCain is a genuine American hero, having spent 5 ½ years as a prisoner of war in the so called “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam in the 1960’s, where he was regularly tortured by his captors. All his life McCain has publicly stated that torture is illegal, is in contempt of the Geneva Convention, and in recent years has taken his own government to task over its use of the technique of water-boarding in attempting to elicit intelligence from detainees. My respect for McCain disappeared this month when he went on the floor of the U.S. Senate and voted against a bill that would outlaw torture. In doing so, John McCain sold his soul to the conservatives on the Republican right in a blatant, desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe of his own party. The man is a hypocrite, pure and simple.
When I predicted a month ago that the Democratic nominee would become clear after the February 5th primaries, I was wrong. As I write, Barack Obama has won 23 of the 34 primaries and caucuses held to date. In terms of pledged delegates Obama leads Senator Clinton 1139 to 1003. The first to reach 2025 will become the Democratic nominee. In what seems like a far more equitable system to me, Democrats award delegates in each state on a proportional basis, with each candidate being awarded a specific number of delegates based proportionally on the percentage of the vote received by that candidate. As a result, even though Obama has easily won more states than Clinton, and Clinton has won more of the bigger states than Obama, the two are practically tied in the delegate count.
After Super Tuesday, which in essence was a split decision, all the trends favor Obama moving forward. In the first 8 primaries and caucuses since Super Tuesday, Obama has won them all. By the time you read this the results will be in from two more primaries, Wisconsin and Hawaii, who go to the polls on February 19th. The results from those states will be important in gauging the momentum that is building for an Obama nomination and he may well become unstoppable. Obama as a candidate has demonstrated that he has broad appeal across all of the key demographic voting groups in America, including white men, African Americans, men and women under 30, minorities and better educated, more affluent voters. He is winning every demographic group under 50. Clinton has strong appeal to older, more traditional voters and has a bigger following within the Latino community.
The Clinton machine badly underestimated the Obama candidacy. Campaign officials expected to have the nomination locked up by February 5th (Super Tuesday) and it is clear that very little planning was done for the eventuality of a long delegate battle that may well go on until June. Hillary Clinton admitted this month that she has lent $5 million of her own money to her campaign, a staggering admission of financial mismanagement within her own organization when you consider that she raised in excess of $100 million in contributions in 2007.
The next big battle takes place on March 4th when the voters of delegate rich states like Texas and Ohio go to the polls. Should Hillary Clinton win there, the nomination is wide open again and may well go to the floor of the convention in the summer, where the party super-delegates may be called on to decide who the nominee is going to be.
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