Analysis: Obama gets back to basic strengths
By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff
News Analysis
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama received a fresh jolt of energy for his beleaguered presidential campaign from the same part of the country that established him as the Democratic frontrunner.
His solid victory in the North Carolina primary - combined with a close finish against Hillary Clinton in Indiana - helped him blunt the impact of Clinton's recent wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania and overcome the first serious misstep of his campaign.
''The size of Obama's margin in North Carolina speaks to his ability to put behind him the controversy over [his former pastor] Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at least for the primaries,'' said Wayne Lesperance, a political scientist at New England College in Henniker, N.H., as the results came in. ''Right now, it looks like they split the states, but the overall margin goes to Obama.''
For Obama, North Carolina gave him a chance to re-create the electoral coalition that made him a political force in the first place.
The states of the Eastern Seaboard lack the easy regional identity of the liberal Northeast or the Deep South or the independent West, but they combine all those elements in a way that fits Obama's political demographics to perfection: a broad coalition combining large black populations, upscale white high-tech workers, religious rural voters, and idealistic college students.
It was in South Carolina that Obama won his first landslide, delivering a blow from which Hillary - and Bill - Clinton have yet to recover.
It was in the ''Potomac primary'' on Feb. 12 that Obama opened his first clear lead in delegates, with big wins in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
And North Carolina delivered one of his most-needed triumphs, one that could put new pressure on Clinton to drop out of the race.
Lesperance, for one, believes that a narrow Clinton win in Indiana - where she was leading for most of the night - may be enough to keep her campaign running down the stretch. But her hope to build momentum with either a surprisingly large triumph in the Hoosier state or significant inroads into Obama country in North Carolina did not come to pass.
''I suspect over the next few days there will be a strong push by the Obama campaign to get 20 or more superdelegates'' - the party leaders who will provide the decisive margin for either candidate - ''and really try to wrap things up,'' Lesperance said.
Obama's victory in North Carolina was narrower than his wins in the other Eastern Seaboard states, reflecting some of the erosion of white support that he experienced in Ohio and Pennsylvania; but it was a big enough margin - about 180,000 votes by mid-evening - to dash Clinton's chances of winning the national popular vote without including Michigan, where Obama was not on the ballot.
Even some of Clinton's diehard supporters have said she would be unable to win over enough of the roughly 280 remaining undeclared superdelegates unless she was able to claim a popular mandate.
In recent weeks, Clinton has banked on the idea that a strong finish would persuade the party that she was better-prepared to take on Republican John McCain; her victory in Pennsylvania two weeks ago gave her a boost, followed immediately by a renewed controversy surrounding Wright, whose sermons blaming the United States government for the AIDS epidemic and the 9/11 attacks had caused a furor back in March.
At the time, Obama rejected the statements but refused to distance himself from Wright, calling him a good man and a patriot. Last week, Obama's judgment came under question when Wright took to the airwaves to issue a staunch defense of his sermons and to portray Obama as an opportunistic politician.
A clearly angry Obama repudiated Wright, but Obama's poll numbers plunged. In North Carolina, a double-digit lead for Obama shrunk to single digits overnight.
But with solid and enthusiastic support from black voters, who constituted a third of the total electorate in North Carolina, and big victories in the upscale ''research triangle'' near Raleigh and Durham, Obama prevailed easily.
It may be enough to help him secure his party's nomination and perhaps the presidency - if only the rest of the country would come together for him as cooperatively as the states of the Eastern Seaboard.
More evidence that this thing is over. Please please please please please, God, make it be over...
It is over. The lady just hasn't realized it's her turn to sing.
Obama's victory in North Carolina appears to be by about 220,000 votes, while Clinton's victory in Indiana is by 40,000 votes. This destroys Clinton's claim that she won the most votes. Even if we include Michigan and Florida, where none of the candidates campaigned, Obama leads the popular vote by about 175,000. If we exclude these two states, Obama received over 900,000 more votes. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html)
If Clinton continues, Obama will come to the primary about 70 delegates short with about 250 uncommitted at that point. It is hard to see how Clinton will win over 180 out of those 250. All of them will be reluctant to overturn Clinton's primary victory.
Tell the Democrats it's not over. Sing all you want. If Obama wins, we're in for another 4 years under Republican rule. You read it here - McCain's record is going to belittle Obama (and his lack of doing anything for these United States) and the conservatives of this country, even the feaful liberal Democrats who are struggling to survive, will vote with someone who has a proven record, John McCain.
I am an Obama supporter was not initially but researched his record in Congress and in IL, read everything I could, read this books, listened to what he said and I never thought I would say this but I really think he is what we need in the US. I want all the states to have their say so it should not end until all states have voted . I have been waiting for this for many many years. If he is ahead in delegates and popular vote I feel he should get the nomination. I don't understand why Blue Collar voters are not supporting him-they are who he helped in IL.
"But with solid and enthusiastic support from black voters, who constituted a third of the total electorate in North Carolina, and big victories in the upscale ''research triangle'' near Raleigh and Durham, Obama prevailed easily.
It may be enough to help him secure his party's nomination and perhaps the presidency - if only the rest of the country would come together for him as cooperatively as the states of the Eastern Seaboard."
Very well analyzed and articulated. The truth for Obama win is still blacks support. What would be the result if black votes are more even handed and balanced in their votes instead of >90% towards Obama? The blacks must know the blacks alone will not win November election. Obama needs all the whites dem to overcoem McCain.
Clinton, we expect your exit speech(the last chance left to save you some grace as a politician) by 9 on Wednesday morning. Sharp.
"while Clinton's victory in Indiana is by 40,000 votes."
it's actually 22,412 votes, with 99% reporting. just so you know.
Mrs Clinton manipulates melodrama to lie to us. She uses Hollywood images and now presents the nation a fantasy of herself as a boxer beating her opponent senseless, while we know that she would not last in a ring with somone like, say, Senator Obama, should they really duke it out and IF he would deck an older white woman like his mother. She is counting on the American people to buy her fantasy like her fantasy of sniper fire in Bosnia AND on Obama to stay the gentleman while she parades in fake male genitalia. Obama, in contrast, actually plays basketball and plays it well. Compare the two sports and ask which is a better predictor for a successful president--a boxer whose sole aim is to beat an opponent sensesless before she is beaten senseless? Or a basketball player whose leadership is made up of nimbleness, teamwork, and skills and who must go the length of the game? Hillary is playing the spoiler here and may yet go down in history as the (white female) politician who deliberately destroyed the presidency opportunty for the first African American to reach that high--an opportunity that may not come again for anumber of decades.
I surely hope the media will now let go of the Rev Wright thing.
It has been handled in such an imbalanced way.
No one is asking Hillary to explain the summer she spent as a lookout at the Black Panthers Headquarters are they?
We really need a canidate that will win in November. Once Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the Republicans are going vigorously attack Obama. Clinton would be better to fend off the attacks than Obama. I strongly believe that Clinton has a better chance than Obama. It really scares me that we could end up with a Republican in the White House again, which I don't beleive my family & friends can endure.
I really didn't think the country had fallen this far into depravity...I was wrong.
The Clinton Legacy
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Barack Hussein Obama
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