North Carolina called for Barack Obama
That sigh of relief many in the political world just heard came from the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
The moment the polls closed in North Carolina, Obama instantly was declared the winner by all the television networks and the Associated Press. So he not only dodged his worst-case scenario -- losing both of the day's primaries -- but he may be headed to an impressive victory in North Carolina.
Hillary Clinton has maintained a lead in Indiana since all polls closed there at 7 p.m. (EDT), but the state has yet to called, in part because Obama strongholds have yet to report.
Assuming the final polls from Indiana proved correct and she wins the state, the night becomes a matter of watching the margins -- and preparing for the campaign to continue.
West Virginia -- very favorable turf for Clinton -- is up next, with a primary next Tuesday.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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OOOPS! Hillary got spanked!
Posted by: N.E. BodybutHillary | May 06, 2008 at 05:02 PM
I was a cheerleader in high-school and this is what we would be cheering...
Go...Obama!
Fight...uh huh!
Go Obama, Fight Obama...
Do it, do it all OBAMA! GO!
Posted by: lean on me! | May 06, 2008 at 05:17 PM
The ONLY thing HIllary can do now is lobby for those delegates from Florida and Michigan.
Change the rules, -under the guise of 'they have the right'-voters stay home or vote Republican in the fall. Rules are rules, they moved their primaries up, they get penalized. Misery Clinton should have contested her plight BEFORE the first of the state primaries and caucuses.
Monica, help your rival please. Show HER how to smoke a cigar properly so she could just "CHILL-OUT!" She and her campaign gurus have already divided the house towards no repair!
Posted by: jc | May 06, 2008 at 05:23 PM
North Carolina - I love you all !!! (ok, well, most of you!)
Thank you for helping the USA!
Posted by: Franky | May 06, 2008 at 06:54 PM
what the usa needs is someone like hillary who's willing to fight .. and show girls that there are options other than cheerleader .. we definitely do not need someone to get in the oval office and chill out .. wake up and check out the real world kiddies
Posted by: michrobe | May 06, 2008 at 08:35 PM
with his expected n.c. primary win announced, obama--& his hordes of fanatics—are gleefully gloating over their own interpreted “game changer” victory.
but is it? did the materialization of such foregone conclusion in any way change the nature & course of the democratic race for prexy?
i have my most serious doubts, on several counts.
obama was really expected to nail down n.c. anyway, with his favorite demographics clearly in place. pollsters a week before said obama enjoyed 25 percent margin over hillary at n.c., but he posted only a 14 percentage points margin. & so he got 90 percent of the black votes, though hillary got 61 percent of the white votes—which are obama’s achilles’ heels (including the blue-collar workers & the catholics).
so NOTHING HAS CHANGED AT ALL in this epic battle for the democratic contest.
obama is still 200 votes short of the magic number for the required delegates, & even if he were to get all the remaining delegate votes in the primaries left to be played out, obama is, ergo, technically & substantially NOT THE DEMOCRAT’S NOMINEE, as what the democratic party rules say.
alright, obama then will beseech, beg (even down on his knees) from, the superdelegates to hand him over the remaining votes he needs to wrap up the nomination.
but what will that make of him—this self-declared “unifier” (read: effectively, a “divider”); “hope” bringer (read: “down-&-out-pessimism precipitant”), and “change agent” (read: old- timeworn-policy rehasher shortchanging the american people, a shameless-copycat-appropriator)—if not a mere trying hard old (in values—such as cheating, lying, idea-pilfering habits--character & programs of govt.) politician, steeped in the same, corrupt ways of old & traditional politics & tiresome policy programs. see how james pethokoukis just this tuesday, may 6, echoes the hoover institution fellow, the scholar thomas sowell, on obama: “despite obama's impressive oratorical skills and tremendous likability, his actual policy proposals are pretty much what democrats have been running on for a generation: higher taxes on labor, capital, & corporations,” etc., etc.
& in sowell’s (april 20, 2008) national online review article, which he aptly titled “an old newness,” sowell says that “with domestic policies from the 1960s, and foreign policies from the 1930s, barack obama is political poison.” “although senator obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things — using the mantra of ‘change’ endlessly — the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.
“protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive, and subsidizing those who are not — all this is a re-run of the 1960s.
“we paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation, and double-digit unemployment. during the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.”
besides, why is obama, till now, w/o depending on the superdelegates for deliverance, unable to ‘close the deal’ despite his US$300 MILLION PLUS POLITICAL WARCHEST ADVANTAGE, outspending hillary by a mind-boggling ratio of 3 to 1? (that it is roughly 12 billion philipine pesos, enough to feed our 75 million plus million poor filipino brethren for a few months.) what kind of money politics is this, in a presidential election that is supposed to bring to the white house the most qualified, most competent, most visionary & most clean president? so how does this money politics make this obama any different from the rest of the money-propelled political candidates vying for public office? nothing, no difference at all.
finally, with his damage political persona, brought about by his questionable character, impaired judgment (re jeremiah wright, rezko, farrhakan, blagojavich, et.al.) values (w/ his “BITTER” insult of small-town american folks, etc., etc.) & tired, if crackpot policies, how can obama argue that he’s a more “electable” nominee than hillary vs mccain?
it’s time obama saw the real score on the ground--& this is it: in a toe-to-toe brawl w/ mccain, obama would be brutally mauled, he’d be another kerry, another gore, w/ the ruthless republican attack machine goring him, w/ not an ounce of a scruple, uncaring whether he (obama) has got any energy left to get back to the barracks.
hence, obama has got to realize that only HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON is the (wo)man to beat for the republicans, the most electable democrat’s nominee, the only candidate that mccain fears, & fears the most. admit it or not, obama must drill it into his tough skull that mccain regards him, by now, as a mere patsy, a pushover, easily “beatable.”
thus, obama must give way to hillary, quit the race PRONTO, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, reconcile with hillary, heal the wounds of the party--& work with hillary to campaign against the republicans, & to present to the great american people the democratic party’s agenda for national salvation & renewal (caveat, be wary of obama’s gang of plagiarists & preempters & shameless appropriators, there you again, with your penchant for idea stealing!)
this is the only way for obama to save the democratic party from totally disintegrating & self-destructing. ****
Posted by: jennifer potenciano | May 07, 2008 at 12:49 AM