| |
| |
![]() |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| Related News |
 |
|
|
|
|
| Special Report |
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHARLESTON, West Virginia: Hillary Clinton is no "quitter," her defiant campaign said on Tuesday, eyeing a crushing win in West Virginia even as her White House rival Barack Obama homed in on the Democratic nomination.
Obama has already conceded the West Virginia primary to the former first lady, and moved on to the general-election battleground of Missouri as he geared up for a likely November face-off against Republican John McCain.
Early exit polls cited by CNN said that 64 percent of voters in West Virginia said the economy was the number one issue, with Iraq second on 19 percent.
Fox News exit data said that 51 percent of voters believed that Obama shared the views of his controversial pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who sparked a crisis for his campaign with racially tinged sermons.
The odds against Clinton beating Obama to the Democrats' presidential nomination grew longer still as the Illinois senator racked up four more "superdelegates" including Roy Romer, a former governor of Colorado.
Romer, an ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee who was a national co-chairman of president Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996, said "Senator Clinton has been a very strong and formidable candidate."
"But there is a time that we need to end it and direct ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now," he said on a media conference call.
Clinton's communications chief Howard Wolfson expressed her respect for Romer, "but tell it to the people of West Virginia ... who, hopefully, will be coming out in droves to vote and exercise their right to participate in our Democratic process."
Clinton will "work hard" for Obama if the African-American senator wins the Democratic nod, Wolfson told MSNBC television.
"But we're going to see this through. Senator Clinton is not a quitter. Until we have a nominee, we don't have a nominee," he said.
The two senators had a close encounter as they made a rare appearance in Congress for a series of votes.
As she walked into the Capitol building, Clinton was asked how she felt about West Virginia and replied "excellent."
At one point, Obama approached Clinton and patted her on the shoulder and the arm, and she smiled broadly, as they exchanged a few words before he left the Senate chamber.
As he awaited his expected defeat, Obama made the point that he is the all-but inevitable Democratic nominee, looking ahead to a match-up with McCain, heading to midwestern Missouri.
"While the Bush-Cheney ticket won't be up for re-election, the Bush-Cheney policies will, because John McCain is running for four more years of the same approach that has failed the American people," Obama said in Cape Girardeau.
"His only answer to the problems created by George Bush's policies is to give them another four years to fail. Just look at where he stands and you'll see that a vote for John McCain is a vote for George Bush's third term."
The most significant Democratic electorate now is the nearly 800 superdelegates, party luminaries who are free to vote as they choose at the party's August convention.
Tuesday's haul took Obama's tally of superdelegates on the RealClearPolitics website to 283, against 272 for Clinton. In total, including delegates elected in state contests, he has 1,874 to her 1,698, nearer the winning line of 2,025.
Polling stations were closing at 7:30 pm (2330 GMT) in West Virginia, which carries 28 delegates distributed proportionally based on the share of the vote.
Clinton was sitting on a 36 point lead in one primary-eve poll released by Suffolk University - 60 percent to 24 for Obama. She campaigned hard in the state, arguing: "West Virginia has a record of picking presidents."
An ABC News-Washington Post poll published Tuesday suggested that nearly two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want Clinton to stay in the contest. - AFP/de
|
