Senator Obama, who had hoped to knock Senator Clinton out of the race on Tuesday, said he would prevail despite facing a tenacious candidate who "just keeps on ticking." Clinton won Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island and Obama won in Vermont. The two presidential contenders made the rounds of the morning network television news shows Wednesday, declaring only one thing certain — that the campaign would go on and that the next big showdown would occur April 22 in Pennsylvania. Senator Obama is expected to win the Wyoming caucus on Saturday and the Mississippi primary next Tuesday. Despite Senator Clinton's victories Tuesday night, Obama came away with a large share of delegates, too, in counting that continues Wednesday.
In Tuesday's four-state competition for delegates, Senator Clinton picked up at least 115, to at least 88 for Senator Obama. Nearly 170 more remained to be allocated for the night, 154 of them in the Texas primary and the caucuses that immediately followed. Senator Obama had a total of 1,477 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates, according to the Associated Press count. He picked up three more superdelegate endorsements Tuesday. Senator Clinton had 1,391 delegates. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination. Based on their current delegate counts, neither candidate can win enough delegates in the remaining primaries and caucuses to secure the nomination without the help of nearly 800 party officials and top elected officials who also have a voice in the selection. This could take the nomination fight all the way to the party's August national convention in Denver.
Obama had a huge lead in Texas caucuses before counting closed for the night Tuesday, to be resumed Wednesday. I participated in the Texas caucus. Basically, if you voted in the Texas primary you can participate in the caucus. You write your name and some other information on a sign in sheet and pick the candidate you want. Observing and listening to the crowd at my precinct Obama was represented at least ten to one. The Texas polls closed at 7 and the caucus was to start at the poll locations at 7:15 for Democrats and 7:30 for Republicans (they said that four years ago there was about 20 people that attended caucuses at every location). As long as you are in line to vote by 7 you still get to vote. Our location was at an elementary school and my wife and I arrived at 7. There were still people in line to vote so the caucus did not start until about 7:45. There were about 100 people in front of us to the door so we figured not bad. Wrong!!! We got to the door at 8 and the line snaked through all the hallways inside the school. We finally got signed in at about 9:15. The only Clinton supporters close around us was a couple of dunt da dunt White women right behind us. I call them that not because they were for Hillary, but, first it was cold (it snowed today) and one had on short sleeves and the other slippers and they were both complaining about it being cold and second, one said this was the first time she had voted since she voted for Jimmy Carter (1976!!!). It was all I could do to keep from saying how ignorant she was for saying it like it was a good thing.
Strictly speaking from a Democratic standpoint voters should be drawn first as to who can better confront Senator McCain and the Republicans in the national election in November, then who is the best steward of the economy, and then who would be the better commander in chief in this order and not in the reverse order as Senator Clinton would have us believe. So much concentration on the commander in chief will be a continuation of our present situation with a president that sends in the military first with worrying about what happens tomorrow. Senator McCain has already hinted that it will be much easier for him to beat Senator Clinton than it would be to defeat Senator Obama. She brings a lot of baggage with her that Senator as of yet refuses to drag out keeping with his plan of running a smear campaign. The economy will not get better until the Republicans are out of the White House. Both Democratic candidates are basically saying the same thing on the economy, health care and education and Senator McCain has already said he is not really up to speed on the economy (does that sound like somebody that we need running the country?). Commander in chief is probably the least of our worries unless we get one who wants to continue the direction that we are going (Senator McCain says it could take 100 years to get out of Iraq. He would have us permanently in Iraq, he says like we have thousands in Germany and South Korea. Hillary Clinton and John McCain both say that Barack Obama does not have the experience to be commander in chief. And I say the man who was commander in chief during the Civil War, the worst time in the history of the United States, was also a senator from Illinois, a man who was arguably our greatest president, a man also will little experience, Abraham Lincoln. Great leadership is about judgment and a will to do what is right for the country. I believe that man is Senator Barack Obama.
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