Hillary clung to narrow lead in
the Hoosier State; Obama won in North Carolina.
See exact results below.
Razor-Thin Victory For Sen. Hillary Clinton in
Hoosier State
By JENNIFER PARKER
May 7, 2008
In what may be a
turning point for the presidential aspirations of
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY., the former first lady
vying to be the nation's first woman president lost
the North Carolina primary as expected to Sen.
Barack Obama, D-Ill., and squeaked out a razor-thin
victory in Indiana, failing to decisively capture
the Hoosier State.
Clinton's primary
performance Tuesday night moves Obama closer to
becoming the presumptive nominee. Clinton, who had
hoped for double victories Tuesday, trails Obama in
the
delegate count, the
popular vote, and in the number of states won.
Clinton is scheduled
to meet with superdelegates Wednesday where she may
face increased calls from within the party to step
out of the race.
Obama Trounces Clinton in
N.C.
Obama overwhelmingly
won the North Carolina primary 56 percent to
Clinton's 42 percent, thanks in part to his support
among new voters and African Americans. In his
victory speech he suggested the Democratic battle
was nearing an end.
"This has been one of
the longest, most closely fought contests in
history," Obama said at a victory rally in Raleigh,
N.C. Tuesday night. "And that's partly because we
have such a formidable opponent in Senator Hillary
Clinton."
In an apparent answer
to Clinton's criticism that he is ill-prepared to
withstand Republican attacks, Obama said: "The
question, then, is not what kind of campaign they'll
run, it's what kind of campaign we will run... I
didn't get into race thinking that I could avoid
this kind of politics, but I am running for
President because this is the time to end it."
In recent weeks
Clinton has argued Obama's failure to reach white,
blue-collar workers could be a detriment in the
general election fight against presumptive
Republican nominee John McCain. However Clinton
failed Tuesday to decisively win the Hoosier State
-- despite it's wealth of the rural, blue-collar,
low education voters that have typically supported
her.
With former President
Bill Clinton standing behind her unsmiling, Clinton
offerd a more subdued tone than in past victory
speeches.
I will never give up
on you, and your families, and your dreams, and your
future," she said, pledging to work hard to win
upcoming primaries in Kentucky, Oregon, and West
Virginia, after urging supporters to go to her
website and donate much-needed money to her
campaign.
However Clinton then
suggested that even if she were not the nominee, the
Democrat on the ticket would be best for the White
House.
"I want the people in
these upcoming states to know we're going to work
hard to reach out to all of you. Because we want you
to know the Democratic party is your party and a
Democratic president would be best for you," Clinton
said.
Black Voters Surge For Obama
in N.C.
Support from 91
percent of African-Americans voters in N.C. -- who
accounted for a third of voters in the state --
lifted Obama to easy victory, according to
preliminary exit poll results.
The Illinois senator
also benefited from a surge of new voters who
favored Obama by a heavy margin.
Battling to the end,
the exhausted rivals urged North Carolina and
Indiana voters to the polls Tuesday, each hoping to
shake up a Democratic race that has gone on longer
than anyone expected.
Highlighting her
working-class message,
Clinton visited the Indy 500 racetrack in
Indianapolis with Sarah Fisher, a female race car
driver who has endorsed her.
Asked earlier Tuesday
if she would drop out of the race if she lost
tonight, Clinton refused to say.
"Politics is
unpredictable. So I'm just going to wait and see
what the voters have to say," she said.
Clinton Had Counted on
Blue-Collar Voters in Ind.
After five months of
bruising primary battles, Clinton had appeared to
find a groove in recent weeks, adopting a populist
message, defiantly refusing to withdraw from the
race, and pushing the party to seat delegates from
Florida and Michigan.
She aggressively
targeted blue collar and low-income voters,
hammering her message that she will fight for them.
"You notice as she
campaigns that she drops the ending of words, and
becomes 'we're working people,'" said Peri Arnold, a
professor of political science at the University of
Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "She becomes sort of
Rosie-on-the-night-shift and stylistically she
becomes very attractive to these voters."
Obama has typically
fared better among younger voters, people with
higher-education, self-described liberals, and
African Americans.
Obama, who went from
living on food stamps as a child to becoming the
first black president of the Harvard Law Review, has
at times appeared uncomfortable in recent weeks
trying to appeal to white, rural, working class
voters by drinking beer and campaigning at
construction sites and on factory floors.
"I think a lot of
voters don't know what box to put this guy in," said
Arnold, who focuses on presidential politics,
arguing Obama's "cosmopolitanism" has confused
voters.
"There are questions
about Obama in many voters' minds about who he
really is in terms of his style and his values and
that's problematic because, after all, presidential
politics is about connecting with the voters and
giving voters a sense that they're like them in some
way," he said.
Clinton, herself an
Ivy League-educated millionaire and longtime
Washington insider, has continued to paint Obama as
an out-of-touch elitist and a flawed general
election candidate. She has repeatedly argued that
only she can withstand Republican attacks in the
fall and right the wrongs of seven years of the Bush
administration.
Despite her
criticisms, a New York Times/CBS poll released
Monday found Obama leads Clinton in support
nationally, with 50 percent support for Obama to her
38 percent.
Bill Clinton Barnstorms
Backwater Counties
Despite the negative
tone of the campaign, the ongoing Democratic battle
continues to energize voters and bring substantial
turnout at the polls.
Obama's win in North
Carolina comes despite the efforts of former
President Bill Clinton, who campaigned persistently
in the state over the last three weeks.
"
Bill Clinton has been campaigning here pretty
persistently for the last three weeks,"
said Steve Ford, editorial page editor of the
Raleigh News & Observer.
Candidates Sparred Over Gas
Tax
Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Ill, solidly won the North Carolina
primary and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY,
emerged victorious in the Indiana primary
Tuesday night.
|
In the two weeks
since the Pennsylvania primary, Obama and Clinton
have sparred over her proposed suspension of the
18-cents-a-gallon federal tax on gasoline for the
summer travel season, with the estimated $8 million
in lost revenue to be made up through a new tax on
oil companies.
Several economists
have derided her plan, and Obama called the proposal
a gimmick designed to pander to low-income voters.
Meanwhile, last week
Obama disavowed his pastor of 20 years, Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, who in a series of public
appearances reiterated some of his most
controversial statements, including that the United
States had created the virus that caused AIDS, that
American foreign policies invited the 9/11 attacks,
and other incendiary comments.
Preliminary exit poll results
indicate that just under half of Democratic primary
voters in Indiana and North Carolina alike call the
controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright an
important factor in their vote.
In both states around
three-quarters of voters or more say they made up
their minds before last week, according to
preliminary exit polls, when the controversy over
Wright's comments reignited.
In recent days
Clinton has tried to re-set the bar for winning the
Democratic nomination. Asked what she sees the
finish line of the race as, she said for the first
time: "I think it's 2209."
That figure — 2209
delegates — assumes that Florida and Michigan's
delegates are included in the overall count.
However, Democratic Party officials have long said
the magic number for winning the nomination was
2025, a number that does not include Florida and
Michigan, states that did not hold
candidate-supported primaries after a bitter dispute
with the national party over the primary calendar.
By re-setting the finish line, the
Clinton campaign may be able to argue that Obama has
not sufficiently won the race if he reaches or gets
close to 2025.
"There are going to
be the rest of these contests which are very
significant and then in June if we haven't done it
already were going to have to resolve Florida and
Michigan. And they were legitimate elections,"
Clinton said Tuesday.
'Go to the Bitter End'
Clinton
Communications Director Howard Wolfson confirmed
Clinton will meet with undecided superdelegates
Wednesday to "ask for their support."
While voters continue
to appear energized, many in the Democratic party
worry the ongoing nomination battle will hurt the
party going into the general election.
"We're beyond the
point of this being good for the party," Carrick
said. "We're getting to the point where it's just
snarky, back-and-forth, gotcha stuff that's doing
damage to the party.
Preliminary exit poll
results indicate a continued criticism of Clinton
for the tone of the campaign. In North Carolina
two-thirds of voters said she attacked her opponent
unfairly, as did about six in 10 in Indiana,
reports ABC News' Gary Langer.
Fewer in both states -- closer to four in 10 -- said
Obama attacked unfairly.
Before the primaries
in North Carolina and Indiana, both candidates
suggested the Democratic battle could go until the
last primaries in Montana and South Dakota on June
3, and even until the party convention in Denver
this August, where superdelegates could ultimately
decide the Democratic nominee.
"These two candidates
are prepared to go to the bitter end," predicted
Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential
campaign and is an ABC News contributor.
"They're committed.
They have staff, they have offices, they have
telephones, they have volunteers signed up," she
said. "Some of them have already visited Oregon and
Montana, so let's assume it's going until the bitter
end."
However after her
disappointing finishes Tuesday night, and with
Clinton almost out of political manouvres, her quest
to become the nation's first woman president appears
increasingly unlikely.
ABC News' Gary
Langer, Kate Snow, Eloise Harper, and Sunlen Miller
contributed to this report.
Source: ABC News, May
07, 2008
