Homyrrh
05-21-2008, 09:30 AM
(from The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/us/politics/21elect.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin))
May 21, 2008
Obama Declares Bid Is ‘Within Reach’
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
Senator Barack Obama took a big step toward becoming the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, amassing enough additional delegates to claim an all but insurmountable advantage in his race against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
While Mrs. Clinton’s campaign continued to make a case that she could prevail, Mr. Obama seized on the results from Democratic contests in Kentucky and Oregon to move into a new phase of the campaign in which he will face different challenges. Those include bringing disaffected Clinton supporters into his camp; winning over elements of the Democratic coalition like working-class whites, Hispanics and Jews; and fending off attacks from Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, especially on national security.
Mr. Obama won easily in Oregon. But his obstacles were underlined by a lopsided defeat in Kentucky, where just half of the Democratic voters said in exit polls that they would back him in the general election this fall.
Under the rules used by Democrats, the split decision was enough for Mr. Obama to secure a majority of the delegates up for grabs in primaries and caucuses. His campaign has portrayed success in winning those pledged delegates as the most important yardstick for judging the will of Democratic voters, and has encouraged superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders who have an automatic vote at the convention — to fall in line accordingly.
“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said in an address on Tuesday night, standing in front of a moonlit Capitol in Des Moines.
Even as Mr. Obama moved closer to making history as the first black presidential nominee, he stopped short of declaring victory in the Democratic race, part of a carefully calibrated effort in the remaining weeks of the contest to avoid appearing disrespectful to Mrs. Clinton and alienating her supporters. Instead, he offered lavish praise for his rival over 16 months.
“Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her,” Mr. Obama said.
Mrs. Clinton, declaring victory in Kentucky, made clear that she had no intention of stepping aside before the Democratic voting ends on June 3. “This is one of the closest races for a party’s nomination in modern history,” she said. “We are winning the popular vote, and I am more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted.”
Going into Tuesday, Mr. Obama had 1,915 of the 2,026 pledged delegates and superdelegates needed to claim the nomination, according to a count and projection by The New York Times. His campaign estimated that if he simply held his own in the remaining contests, he would need only 25 more votes from superdelegates. There are 221 undeclared superdelegates left; Mr. Obama has been rolling out endorsements on a daily basis.
But even as he moved closer to winning the intensely fought nominating contest with Mrs. Clinton — a battle suffused with history and the tension inherent in a campaign defined in part by race and gender — Mr. Obama was preparing to deal with a series of challenges in the weeks ahead.
He was planning a vigorous schedule of travel to general election states and a voter registration drive focusing on black voters to offset any losses among whites. Aides said he was considering delivering another speech to deal with damage in the primary because of attacks on his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as well as on his patriotism.
“We know we have our work cut out for us,” said Steve Hildebrand, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama. “But we are up to the task.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were not concerned with exit polls showing that he had hemorrhaged white working-class voters to Mrs. Clinton in Kentucky, mirroring similar findings in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Many Clinton voters in Kentucky said they would stay home or vote for Mr. McCain in the fall. Two in 10 Democratic voters in Kentucky said race was a factor in their choice, and they overwhelmingly voted for Mrs. Clinton.
“You can’t look at it that way,” said David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager. “There’s enough evidence now in public polls that in a general election against McCain, in the states that will determine the presidency, her supporters are coming our way. I think this is an issue that in 30 or 60 days we will not be talking about.”
Mr. Obama marked this moment with a return to Iowa, the state that kicked off his campaign with a big win on Jan. 3, He used his stage to portray Mr. McCain as running for a third term for President Bush, an argument that Mr. Obama’s aides said would be a central point of attack as he sought to move from the primary into the general election.
The Republican primary campaign, Mr. Obama said, “was a contest to see which candidate could out-Bush the other, and that is the contest John McCain won.”
Mr. Obama’s aides said they were increasingly concerned that the long fight with Mrs. Clinton had given Mr. McCain a free ride in critical general election states like Iowa.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to spend Wednesday through Friday in Florida, focusing on the corridor between Tampa and Orlando, a region bustling with swing voters. The trip starts an effort to repair wounds caused by the deadlock over recognizing the Florida primary and seating the state’s delegates.
Next week, Mr. Obama heads to Colorado, a state he believes Democrats can win, and other Western states.
Over the next month, he plans trips to the traditional general election battlegrounds of Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Ohio, even as he continues to compete in the three remaining Democratic contests in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
The rally in downtown Des Moines offered evidence of steps Mr. Obama was taking to try to unite the party. Thousands of telephone and e-mail invitations went out across Iowa — where Mr. McCain is already running television commercials — to party activists and independent voters, including many who backed other candidates this year.
David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Mr. Obama, said he was not worried about the significant share of Clinton supporters who said they would be disappointed if Mr. Obama became the nominee. He predicted a “natural coalescence” among Democrats after the nominating battle concluded because of a concern over the war, the economy and the direction of the country.
“We’re going to reach out and try to unify this party,” Mr. Axelrod said in an interview on Tuesday. “It will happen naturally based on a commonality of interests.”
Since 1972, when modern exit polls first began, no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of white voters. The closest division was in 1992, a three-way contest when 39 percent of whites voted for Bill Clinton and 40 percent voted for the first President Bush. In 2004, President Bush defeated John Kerry among whites by 58 percent to 41 percent.
While Mr. Obama has struggled with Mrs. Clinton to win the support of Hispanic voters — something Mr. McCain’s campaign has taken note of in focusing on states like Colorado and New Mexico — a Gallup tracking poll released on Tuesday, taken Friday to Sunday, showed Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton 55 percent to 39 percent among all Democratic voters. Among Hispanic voters, the race is tighter, with Mr. Obama receiving 51 percent to Mrs. Clinton’s 44 percent.
Even as Mr. Obama’s aides disputed the notion that the exit polls raised red flags about his merits as a general election candidate, they acknowledged they would have to deal with that perception among critical party leaders who might be worried about the fall — in particular, contributors and supporters of Mrs. Clinton. To offset the voters who may rule out supporting Mr. Obama, because of his race or other reasons, the campaign is working to register new voters. In Georgia, for example, 600,000 black residents are eligible to vote but are not registered. In Virginia, there are 200,000 black residents not registered to vote.
But most immediately, Mr. Obama faces the task of bringing the party back together, and finding the right tone to strike in being deferential to Mrs. Clinton — making concessions that might make his opponent and her supporters happy in the end — without appearing to be ceding authority to his rival.
Several Democrats said the model he needed to avoid was the 1980 primary fight between President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, with its awkward spectacle at the nominating convention that made the party look divided and Mr. Carter seem suppliant.
May 21, 2008
Obama Declares Bid Is ‘Within Reach’
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
Senator Barack Obama took a big step toward becoming the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, amassing enough additional delegates to claim an all but insurmountable advantage in his race against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
While Mrs. Clinton’s campaign continued to make a case that she could prevail, Mr. Obama seized on the results from Democratic contests in Kentucky and Oregon to move into a new phase of the campaign in which he will face different challenges. Those include bringing disaffected Clinton supporters into his camp; winning over elements of the Democratic coalition like working-class whites, Hispanics and Jews; and fending off attacks from Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, especially on national security.
Mr. Obama won easily in Oregon. But his obstacles were underlined by a lopsided defeat in Kentucky, where just half of the Democratic voters said in exit polls that they would back him in the general election this fall.
Under the rules used by Democrats, the split decision was enough for Mr. Obama to secure a majority of the delegates up for grabs in primaries and caucuses. His campaign has portrayed success in winning those pledged delegates as the most important yardstick for judging the will of Democratic voters, and has encouraged superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders who have an automatic vote at the convention — to fall in line accordingly.
“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said in an address on Tuesday night, standing in front of a moonlit Capitol in Des Moines.
Even as Mr. Obama moved closer to making history as the first black presidential nominee, he stopped short of declaring victory in the Democratic race, part of a carefully calibrated effort in the remaining weeks of the contest to avoid appearing disrespectful to Mrs. Clinton and alienating her supporters. Instead, he offered lavish praise for his rival over 16 months.
“Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her,” Mr. Obama said.
Mrs. Clinton, declaring victory in Kentucky, made clear that she had no intention of stepping aside before the Democratic voting ends on June 3. “This is one of the closest races for a party’s nomination in modern history,” she said. “We are winning the popular vote, and I am more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted.”
Going into Tuesday, Mr. Obama had 1,915 of the 2,026 pledged delegates and superdelegates needed to claim the nomination, according to a count and projection by The New York Times. His campaign estimated that if he simply held his own in the remaining contests, he would need only 25 more votes from superdelegates. There are 221 undeclared superdelegates left; Mr. Obama has been rolling out endorsements on a daily basis.
But even as he moved closer to winning the intensely fought nominating contest with Mrs. Clinton — a battle suffused with history and the tension inherent in a campaign defined in part by race and gender — Mr. Obama was preparing to deal with a series of challenges in the weeks ahead.
He was planning a vigorous schedule of travel to general election states and a voter registration drive focusing on black voters to offset any losses among whites. Aides said he was considering delivering another speech to deal with damage in the primary because of attacks on his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as well as on his patriotism.
“We know we have our work cut out for us,” said Steve Hildebrand, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama. “But we are up to the task.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were not concerned with exit polls showing that he had hemorrhaged white working-class voters to Mrs. Clinton in Kentucky, mirroring similar findings in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Many Clinton voters in Kentucky said they would stay home or vote for Mr. McCain in the fall. Two in 10 Democratic voters in Kentucky said race was a factor in their choice, and they overwhelmingly voted for Mrs. Clinton.
“You can’t look at it that way,” said David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager. “There’s enough evidence now in public polls that in a general election against McCain, in the states that will determine the presidency, her supporters are coming our way. I think this is an issue that in 30 or 60 days we will not be talking about.”
Mr. Obama marked this moment with a return to Iowa, the state that kicked off his campaign with a big win on Jan. 3, He used his stage to portray Mr. McCain as running for a third term for President Bush, an argument that Mr. Obama’s aides said would be a central point of attack as he sought to move from the primary into the general election.
The Republican primary campaign, Mr. Obama said, “was a contest to see which candidate could out-Bush the other, and that is the contest John McCain won.”
Mr. Obama’s aides said they were increasingly concerned that the long fight with Mrs. Clinton had given Mr. McCain a free ride in critical general election states like Iowa.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to spend Wednesday through Friday in Florida, focusing on the corridor between Tampa and Orlando, a region bustling with swing voters. The trip starts an effort to repair wounds caused by the deadlock over recognizing the Florida primary and seating the state’s delegates.
Next week, Mr. Obama heads to Colorado, a state he believes Democrats can win, and other Western states.
Over the next month, he plans trips to the traditional general election battlegrounds of Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Ohio, even as he continues to compete in the three remaining Democratic contests in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
The rally in downtown Des Moines offered evidence of steps Mr. Obama was taking to try to unite the party. Thousands of telephone and e-mail invitations went out across Iowa — where Mr. McCain is already running television commercials — to party activists and independent voters, including many who backed other candidates this year.
David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Mr. Obama, said he was not worried about the significant share of Clinton supporters who said they would be disappointed if Mr. Obama became the nominee. He predicted a “natural coalescence” among Democrats after the nominating battle concluded because of a concern over the war, the economy and the direction of the country.
“We’re going to reach out and try to unify this party,” Mr. Axelrod said in an interview on Tuesday. “It will happen naturally based on a commonality of interests.”
Since 1972, when modern exit polls first began, no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of white voters. The closest division was in 1992, a three-way contest when 39 percent of whites voted for Bill Clinton and 40 percent voted for the first President Bush. In 2004, President Bush defeated John Kerry among whites by 58 percent to 41 percent.
While Mr. Obama has struggled with Mrs. Clinton to win the support of Hispanic voters — something Mr. McCain’s campaign has taken note of in focusing on states like Colorado and New Mexico — a Gallup tracking poll released on Tuesday, taken Friday to Sunday, showed Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton 55 percent to 39 percent among all Democratic voters. Among Hispanic voters, the race is tighter, with Mr. Obama receiving 51 percent to Mrs. Clinton’s 44 percent.
Even as Mr. Obama’s aides disputed the notion that the exit polls raised red flags about his merits as a general election candidate, they acknowledged they would have to deal with that perception among critical party leaders who might be worried about the fall — in particular, contributors and supporters of Mrs. Clinton. To offset the voters who may rule out supporting Mr. Obama, because of his race or other reasons, the campaign is working to register new voters. In Georgia, for example, 600,000 black residents are eligible to vote but are not registered. In Virginia, there are 200,000 black residents not registered to vote.
But most immediately, Mr. Obama faces the task of bringing the party back together, and finding the right tone to strike in being deferential to Mrs. Clinton — making concessions that might make his opponent and her supporters happy in the end — without appearing to be ceding authority to his rival.
Several Democrats said the model he needed to avoid was the 1980 primary fight between President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, with its awkward spectacle at the nominating convention that made the party look divided and Mr. Carter seem suppliant.