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 Pressure Mounts On Clinton To Quit
by The Associated Press
Posted: May 7, 2008 - 8:00 am ET
(Washington) Hillary Rodham Clinton needed a game
changer. Instead, it's almost game over.
Barack Obama won a resounding victory in North
Carolina after the worst two-week stretch in his campaign. And Clinton, fueled
by a burst of energy from her convincing win in Pennsylvania last month, barely
eked out a win in Indiana despite her full-throated populist appeal in that
largely blue-collar state.
There are six primaries left in the Democrats'
epic battle for the nomination, but Tuesday's results were decisive on their
own: They offered Clinton her last, best chance to turn the tables on her rival,
and she didn't even come close.
"It's bad news for Hillary Clinton, but
frankly I think the game changed a long time ago," said unaligned
Democratic strategist Garry South. "Barack Obama has outraised her
substantially, he's won more states, more pledged delegates, and is ahead in the
popular vote. It's obvious he's outperformed her."
Indeed, Obama managed to outpace Clinton through
a period that tested his mettle and political skills more than any other in the
15-month campaign. In a stretch that pitted Clinton's gritty determination
against Obama's calm fortitude, the Illinois senator prevailed.
To be sure, Obama is still struggling to win some
demographic groups, notably blue-collar white voters, who are a key component of
the Democratic base.
Among whites without college degrees, Clinton
outdid Obama by 64 percent to 35 percent in Indiana, and 71 percent to 26
percent in North Carolina. The New York senator and her surrogates have
trumpeted that advantage, hoping to persuade the so-called superdelegates likely
to decide the race will that she would be the stronger Democratic candidate in
the general election.
Seeking to broaden her advantage with that group,
Clinton fashioned herself as the champion of the working class, railing against
Wall Street "money grubbers" and promoting a summer federal gas tax
holiday widely panned by economists and many Democrats.
Obama denounced Clinton's gas tax proposal as an
unabashed pander. Clinton aides were giddy, feeling that they had drawn Obama
into an argument over the economy, which has long been viewed as her strong
suit.
Obama was also forced to contend with the
re-emergence of his controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who made
incendiary statements at a Washington press conference last week. Among other
things, he suggested the U.S. government may have developed the AIDS virus to
infect the black community and had invited the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Exit polls showed the Wright imbroglio did
influence about half the voters in both states as they weighed which candidate
to choose.
Yet none of that shook the fundamentals of the
race, as the results Tuesday demonstrated. Obama remains ahead of Clinton in
every measure, and the final jury - superdelegates - have been trending his way,
even as he charted rough seas. His strong showing in North Carolina and Indiana
will undoubtedly speed up that pace.
Clinton, meanwhile, is low on cash and her anemic
performance Tuesday means she may not be able to rely on a surge in Internet
fundraising that she saw after winning primaries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Texas. She will meet with superdelegates Wednesday and attend an evening
fundraiser in Washington - both key tests of her chances going forward.
She also continues to be dogged by an
"honest gap" - hardly a strong suit in making the case to
superdelegates that she is the more electable candidate. Exit polls in North
Carolina found just 49 percent of voters believe Clinton is honest and
trustworthy, compared to 71 percent for Obama. In Indiana, 54 percent said
Clinton is honest, while 66 percent said Obama is.
Her aides insist she will press anew for a
resolution to the disputed contests in Michigan and Florida, both of which she
won, but whose results were voided because the primaries were moved in violation
of Democratic Party rules.
Anticipating those efforts, Obama campaign
manager David Plouffe sent a memo to superdelegates reminding them of the math.
He said Clinton would need to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates to win
the nomination - an extremely unlikely scenario, made harder by her poor
performance Tuesday.
"With the Clinton path to the nomination
getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in
the coming days. While those scenarios may be entertaining, the are not
legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or millions of
supporters, volunteers and donors."
At least one undecided superdelegate saw Clinton
nearing the end of her game as well.
"Senator Clinton did not get out of the
night what she needed," said North Carolina Rep. Brad Miller. "To use
a basketball analogy, she traded baskets. And she needed to do much better than
that this late in the contest with her down 150 or 160 pledged delegates."
©365Gay.com 2008
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