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Opinion: Barack Obama lags in South Dakota -- and clinches his party’s nomination

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How odd.

The moment the final polls closed in South Dakota -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton took a solid lead in the state’s Democratic presidential primary -- Barack Obama was widely acclaimed the party’s presumptive nominee.

Perhaps it was a fitting finish to a race that both made history and defied initial expectations.

Throughout the day, enough Democratic superdelegates announced their backing for Obama that, under the party’s proportional allocation of delegates picked through primaries, all he had to do was show a pulse of support in South Dakota.

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That he did, overriding any focus on Clinton’s lead. (Within a few minutes, though, the cable news networks declared her the winner in South Dakota, a result that should cause a bit of chagrin within the Obama camp.)

Also overridden -- at least on CNN and MSNBC -- was presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Both cut away from McCain’s speech in New Orleans, where, with the general-election lineup now clear, he took Obama to task on virtually every issue imaginable.

Fox News stuck with McCain through the end of his speech.

-- Don Frederick

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