|
Obama moves ‘Wright’ along |
|
|
|
|
Written by Dr. Garth Rose
|
|
Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
Democratic presidential Candidate Barack Obama took another step closer to become that party’s nominee for November’s presidential election. Despite the negatives arising from the incendiary remarks made by his former Pastor Jeremiah Wright, which was speculated to have a negative effect on his campaign, Obama scored big Tuesday’s primaries. He not only scored a convincing 14 point victory over Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, but narrowly lost to her by two points in Indiana, making her nomination now extremely difficult, if not impossible.
According to the latest estimates, Obama has secured 1842 delegates of the 2025 required to win the nomination, 183 short of the goal. He now leads Clinton who has 1686 delegates by 166. In the race for superdelegates, Clinton has a 13 point lead with 267 to 254. With the huge win in North Carolina, and the close finish in Indiana, Obama erased the popular votes lost to Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary, and now leads by almost 700,000 popular votes.
Tuesday’s primaries that were supposed to be “game changers” for the Hillary camp, failed miserably despite President Bill Clinton’s aggressive campaign for his wife, the explosion of the Jeremiah Wright issue, and an aggressive push to win blue collar votes with the argument for rolling back gasoline taxes this summer.
Yet, Obama prevailed against the usual politics of “distraction,” and almost realized the clean sweep his opponent was aiming for. Exit polls in both Indiana and North Carolina showed that the Rev. Wright issue was a problem with about 50 percent of the voters in both states, not the climactic rebellion that the media was suggesting.
Now, Hillary Clinton is coming under pressure from some Party executives and superdelegates, like Senator George McGovern, Democratic presidential candidate in 1972, to drop out of the race. McGovern has switched his support from Clinton to Obama, and is urging her to drop out of the race, saying it is virtually impossible for her to win the nomination.
They are now concerned about unifying the Democratic Party and concentrating on McCain for the November election. But Clinton seems intent on remaining in the race declaring as she addressed supporters in Indiana, "It's full speed on to the White House."
Clinton’s determination in the face of rising odds prompted Courtney Tate, a passionate Obama supporter from Miami Lakes to say, “Hillary must be a great fan of Bob Marley, especially his song ‘Rat Race.’ Like Bob she is saying, “Them a go tired to see mi face, but them can’t get me out of the race.”
The candidates now target the dwindling pool of voters in the remaining six primaries (West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota) left in this nomination battle between May 13 and June 3
However, with neither candidate expecting to reach the 2025 delegate target by June 3, both must seriously target the remaining 280 uncommitted superdelegates - party insiders and elected officials - who are granted special voting privileges at Democratic national conventions and who will, unless there is a compromise between the candidates, eventually determine the next Democratic nominee at the convention in Denver, Colorado in August.
|
News 
