Posts Tagged ‘ Back ’

Barack Obama got his campaign back to winning ways on Saturday by notching up a triumph in the Wyoming caucuses and ending a run of dramatic victories by rival Hillary Clinton.

With almost all the votes counted Obama easily beat Clinton by 58% to 41%. His win appeared to be propelled by the heavy turnout of voters, especially among college students in the state’s universities.

The caucuses, like previous contests in this compelling Democratic race, saw huge crowds of people packed into venues across the state. Some places had to conduct the caucuses in staggered stages to cope with the crowds. In 2004 only 675 people attended the Democrat caucuses, but on Saturday that total was easily smashed as more than 7,000 voters turned out.

Though Wyoming’s caucuses are worth just 12 of the vital convention delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, the win is a much needed boost to the Obama campaign. Clinton’s victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island last week have revitalized her bid to be America’s first woman commander-in-chief.

They allowed her to paint herself as a comeback candidate who was able to win key big states, like Ohio, which are likely to be the vital battleground with Republican nominee John McCain in the November presidential election. They have also given her once almost dead campaign a vital surge in support. A new poll in Newsweek magazine now shows Clinton virtually tied with Obama in national polls with 44% to his 45%.

Obama’s victory in Wyoming is likely to help settle nerves in his campaign. The huge rural Western state might seem an unlikely place for Obama – who is seeking to become America’s first black president – to perform strongly. But Obama was actually widely expected to win in a state that is more famous for its cowboys and rodeos than its role in national politics.

Obama has consistently performed well in the smaller states which hold caucuses, rather than primaries, and which reward voter enthusiasm and good organization. He has also generally beat Clinton in contests in ‘red states’ like Wyoming rather than states which usually vote Democratic in presidential elections.

The win also comes after a series of bad news events hit the Obama campaign that has rocked its recent image of inevitability and cool professionalism. First, details leaked of a discussion between an Obama aide and Canadian officials over free trade. The talks appeared to contradict Obama’s public comments over the NAFTA trade agreement which is unpopular in Ohio.

Then another senior Obama advisor, Samantha Power, left the campaign after she told a Scottish newspaper that Clinton was a ‘monster’. That remark sparked a firestorm of protest and Obama condemned the comment. Power later apologised to Clinton.

At the same time Obama’s campaign has had to deal with a stridently more negative strategy from the Clinton camp as both campaigns realize that the race is likely to continue to the end of the process in June with neither side conceding. Due to the closeness of the race and because the Democrats assign delegates in a proportional fashion neither side can win the key number of 2,025 ‘pledged delegates’ need to win in the electoral contest.

Instead now both candidates need so-called ‘super delegates’ to get over the finishing lines. Super delegates are a mix of party officials and elected politicians and each campaign is making intense bids for their support.Before Clinton’s recent wins, many super delegates appeared set to get behind Obama’s campaign, but her comeback put those efforts on hold. Now that Obama has won in Wyoming, and is favorite to win in Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, that pressure is likely to be applied again. At the moment Obama holds a delegate lead of about 100 over Clinton.

However, neither Wyoming nor Mississippi are seen as anywhere nearly as important as Pennsylvania, which goes to the polls in April. That race, which could favor Clinton, is seen as the most important battleground left in the contest. Pennsylvania has 158 delegates and is predicted to be Clinton’s best chance to narrow the delegate gap sufficiently so that her campaign can claim that Obama’s lead is narrow enough to be discounted as any form of decisive victory.