Obama’s Winning Ways
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By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Producer
CHICAGO (Posted Jan. 6, 2008) – Super Tuesday may be over but the race for the White House is on. It’s clear from Tuesday night’s vote tallies that the Democratic contenders are competing in a marathon that ends at Pennsylvania Avenue.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) handily won his home state as well as “red states” often off limits to Democrats, such as Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah.
Obama won 13 states, Clinton nine.
Obama was able to win with big margins in Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Connecticut, Illinois and Idaho. But Clinton nailed the juiciest states, capturing biggies like Massachusetts (despite the endorsement blitz by the powerful Kennedy family, John Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick), California (despite the Kennedys, many of the Hollywood elite and the Queen of all TV, Oprah Winfrey) and some key red states, Arizona and Tennessee.
Pundits tried to tie Obama’s victories to the Black vote, but that notion faded as the night dissolved into early morning. By then, Obama had racked up wins in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah.
Obama told the cheering crowd, “This fall we owe the American people real choice. We have to choose between change and more of the same. We have to choose between looking backward and looking forward. We have to choose between our future and our past.
“All parties from all backgrounds, from all races, from all religions around a common purpose,” is the way to win,” he said.
According to exit polling conducted by The Associated Press, Obama’s inclusive formula is working. He was able to get more White men, more Blacks and more Independents in those states in which he defeated Clinton.
Clinton also won her home states Arkansas and New York as well as New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
The crowd in the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel cheered and chanted, “Yes we can,” each time a state delivered a victory for Obama.
“This is great, I’m just so excited, he’s just got us all so excited and I love it,” Mack Hollowell, from the south side of Chicago, told me.
Clinton, who won 584 delegates to Obama’s 563, told supporters in her New York headquarters, “It’s not over yet. Tonight, in record numbers, you voted not just to make history, but to remake America.”
Last night, 1,681 delegates that were up for grabs in 22 states and American Samoa. By the night’s end, counting super delegates pledged to the candidates before Super Tuesday, Clinton had 845 delegates, to 765 for Obama.
Some 2,025 delegates are required for the grand prize: the Democratic nomination, which will be announced in Denver this summer at the convention.
