Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Obama Pulls A Miracle on Super Tuesday


I'm watching CNN and I'm literally getting sick to my stomach.

The media is already spinning this as a big night for Hillary Clinton, the big name Senator and former first lady who was supposed to be coronated tonight.

In fact, the Associated Press went so far as calling Missouri for Clinton with 88% of precints reporting. But the reporters clearly don't understand the State like I do. I knew that the counting wasn't finished and that the urban areas (Obama's strong points) had not been counted yet.


Here is the report from the AP (from Yahoo News):

Clinton wins in Missouri; GOP race close

By DAVID A. LIEB,
Associated Press Writer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Propelled largely by rural voters, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the important presidential testing ground of Missouri on Tuesday. Republicans Mike Huckabee and John McCain were in a tight battle for a rich delegate reward.

Clinton had about 50 percent of the vote compared with about 47 percent for rival Barack Obama, with 88 percent of Missouri's precincts reporting. The Associated Press declared the New York senator the winner based on a review of actual vote results, exit polling and an analysis of outstanding precincts.

Clinton carried most of the state, doubling and even tripling the Illinois senator's vote totals in some rural, predominantly white counties. Obama kept the race close by racking up leads in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, home to many of Missouri's black voters and among the last areas to report results.

Mechanic Byron Fulkerson, 56, of Columbia, voted for Clinton. He was among those declaring the economy the big issue.

"They all have a bunch of blah blah blah talk, but she has the most experience and knows how to get around Washington," Fulkerson said.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, and McCain, an Arizona senator, were essentially even. Each had about 32.5 percent of the vote with 88 percent of precincts reporting results. But most of the outstanding votes were in the St. Louis area, were McCain was faring better than Huckabee.

The Republican statewide winner receives all 58 Missouri delegates to the national convention.

Although Clinton had more statewide votes, she was likely to split Missouri's 72 delegates with Obama. Delegates are awarded proportionally, based partly on the statewide results and partly on congressional district results.

All five leading Democratic and Republican candidates made weekend campaign stops in Missouri leading up to the primary. Prospective voters were targeted repeatedly with telephone calls and TV ads.

Missouri is considered a bellwether state because its voters have come down on the side of the winner in every presidential election except one in the past 100 years. In 1956, Missourians narrowly chose Democrat Adlai Stevenson of neighboring Illinois instead of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower.

But Obama pulled out a victory in Missouri within the last 7% of precincts. The St. Louis & Kansas City Metro's had not yet had a chance to speak at the time of the above article. Votes from these areas always come in late. That's how Claire McCaskill won her Senate race in 06.

Part of the reason why Clinton is getting this "spin" from the media is because of her win in California. They are even praising Clinton for winning New York? NO S--T CNN.... It's her home State!!!

But this was a woman who led in almost all of the Super Tuesday States as recently as a month ago. She was leading in some States by 20% points or more...and she was leading nationally by similar margins. This was supposed to be her crowning moment.

The national story should be all about Obama. It should be about how this man came from behind to make a competitive race, when he was supposed to only win Illinois.

But this man won 13 States....more States than Hillary Clinton. The fact that he was able to compete nationally is a victory in itself. Plus, it looks as if he may come out with more delegates. This is a huge night for Obama. He was not supposed to win States in the Northeast...in Clinton territory.... States like Delaware, & Connecticut. He was not supposed to win Minnesota, Utah, & Kansas. I followed the polls in these States and Obama was not supposed to be in the picture. The results were nothing short of a Miracle for Obama.

He certainly made a believer out of me tonight. This was his first big test... and he passed with flying colors.

The media is desperate to have their candidate win so they will spin tonights results as everything but a victory for Obama.

It will be up to the bloggers to give Obama the credit that he deserves.

I suspect that the Democratic establishment will steal the election from Obama by shifting Super Delegates to Clinton, no matter what happens in the Primaries.

_________________________

I hope to post an update with the State by State breakdowns...

5 comments:

rikyrah said...

AI,

Thanks so much for this post. I cross-posted it at Jack and Jill. I know that you have been very skeptical about Obama's appeal, and I'm glad that you saw that he has serious potential. He won places like Idaho and North Dakota. He won in the Midwest and Deep South. He was competitive elsewhere. He got 43% of the White vote in GEORGIA. He got HALF the WHITE MALE vote there too. I think he did a fabulous job tonight.

TheWickedWoman said...

You are correct. It is up to us, the blogging community, to speak the truth about Obama's accomplishments tonight. Our infamous ex-prez can no longer quip that the Obama candidacy is like that of Jesse Jackson in 1984. The world is a different place. Obama is a far different candidate.

On another, though related, note--MSNBC first called Utah for Clinton only to have to backtrack--without even acknowledging their error--less than 30 minutes later.

Anonymous said...

Al,

Well said. This was a huge victory for Obama, taking Missouri, overcoming double-digit leads in Delaware and Connecticut, consistently outperforming polls in the South, romping in Alabama, Colorado, and Minnesota -- and almost certainly winning the delegate count. Okay, California was a disappointment (especially since one outlier poll had Obama way head), but still.

And yeah, it is up to us. I think it's possible to intervene here to change the narrative. Late last night I found a post on a well-respected political blog that said "Clinton won all the battleground states". I replied saying "I don't understand how you can say this," and rattled off some of the above facts. Not sure whether it was my post or not, but when I went back to check the page, the author had changed things significantly to “Obama did not win so many of the batteground states. But his was still a remarkable list of victories.”

One thing I would add is that as well as the blogging community we should involve the people on Facebook. There are a couple of huge groups there -- 380,000 on the Barack Obama page, 450,000 in the One Million Strong for Barack group -- and there are some really committed people.

It's not easy doing activism on Facebook: I kept getting shut down as a spammer, and heard from several others who the same thing was happening to. Still we're working out the techniques and communication channels. Unusually, the discussion board is visible even outside the walled garden of Facebook -- it's worth checking out threads like Obama really won tonight.

> I suspect that the Democratic establishment will steal the election from Obama by shifting Super Delegates to Clinton, no matter what happens in the Primaries.

It will be up to us to keep this from happening. I think we have a chance.

jon

Anonymous said...

Thanks AI for this post. Well said...

Angie
Nuvision

Anonymous said...

Even for a political novice given all the spin, it is obvious... the day after belongs to Obama. He is clearly the winner, but no one would believe that if he/she was following the analysis from mainstream media.

For any 'horse' it is always better, to come from behind and win. Obama has proved his case and you have helped tremendously to boost his arguments that he has a wide appeal. Kudos are certainly appropriate for the Obama team.
www.vernasmith.blogspot.com