Wednesday, Mar. 05, 2008

Choosing a President | McCain clinches; Dems stay close

Clinton, Obama battling in Ohio and Texas; 370 delegates in play for Democrats

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton split a pair of New England primaries Tuesday night and sought bigger prizes in Ohio and Texas in a riveting Democratic presidential race.

Obama won the Vermont primary, gaining nearly 60 percent of the vote for a 12th straight victory over the former first lady.

She countered quickly, winning in Rhode Island, where she was collecting about 53 percent of the vote.

Ohio and Texas were the big trophies of the night, rich in delegates with the potential to prove decisive in the Democratic race.

The onus was on Clinton to break through after a string of setbacks, but her challenge was compounded by Obama’s growing lead in the delegate chase.

Obama took an early lead in Texas based almost entirely on a record outpouring of votes cast before primary day.

The Ohio count was delayed by heavy voting that kept some polls in Sandusky and Cleveland open for 90 minutes past the scheduled 7:30 p.m. close. Clinton led in Ohio with 59 percent of the early vote to 40 percent for Obama.

In all, there were 370 Democratic delegates at stake. Texas used an unusual combination primary-caucus system.

Hispanics, a group that has favored Clinton in earlier primaries, cast nearly one-third of the votes in Texas, up from about one- quarter of the ballots four years ago, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places. African-Americans, who have voted heavily for Obama this year, accounted for roughly 20 percent of the votes cast, roughly the same as four years ago.

The economy was the No. 1 concern on the minds of Democratic voters in Texas, Rhode Island and especially in Ohio. But in Vermont, almost as many voters said the war in Iraq was their top concern.

More than three-quarters of Ohio Democrats said international trade had cost their state more jobs than it had created.

Roughly six in 10 Democrats questioned outside the polls Tuesday said that so-called superdelegates, who are party officials, should vote at the national convention based on the results of primaries and caucuses. That was unwelcome news for Clinton, who trails Obama among delegates picked in the states but holds a lead among superdelegates.

There was better news for Clinton elsewhere in the polls.

She won the votes of the late deciders in Ohio, Vermont and Texas.

Obama had the lead in the delegate chase in The Associated Press count, 1,389-1,276.

His margin was larger — 1,187-1,035 — among pledged delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses. The former first lady had an advantage among superdelegates, but Obama picked up three during the day, narrowing her advantage to 241-202.

Time was running out for Clinton — if it hadn’t already.

Some of her supporters, her husband the former president among them, said she needed to outpoll Obama in both Texas and Ohio to sustain her candidacy.

Without conceding anything, Obama’s allies said even that wouldn’t be enough, given his lead in the delegate count and party rules that virtually assure primary losers a significant share of the spoils.

Nevertheless, in appearances Tuesday, Clinton sounded like she might continue her campaign if she won only Ohio, and Obama sounded almost resigned to an extension of the nomination battle.

“You don’t get to the White House as a Democrat without winning Ohio,” Clinton said in Houston.

“My husband didn’t get the nomination wrapped up until June (in 1992). That has been the tradition,” she added, without mentioning that this year most primaries were held much earlier than in 1992. “This is a very close race.”

In San Antonio, Obama called Clinton “a tenacious and determined candidate” and predicted little shift in his delegate lead no matter who won Texas and Ohio, “which means that either way, we’ll go on through Mississippi and Wyoming next week.” Pennsylvania, the biggest single prize left, follows on April 22.

“All those states coming up are going to make a difference,” he said. “What we want to do is make sure we’re competing in every single state.”

It takes 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination, and slightly more than 600 remained to be picked in the 10 states that vote after Tuesday.

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