[GOTFIVEONIT]

**** DELEGATE COUNT UPDATE ******

Delegates Needed to Win 2,025

Democrats

Delegets Picked up on Feb 12

Obama - 93

Hillary - 50

Delegates Total

Obama - 1,253

Clinton - 1,211

* Total delegates to date. Includes pledged delegates and superdelegates.

[m_ali_qazi]

http://ronpaulmarch.com/

this is hella cool, i love me some good ol' pump up rallies.

i think everyone should attend this just for the spectacle of it.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Clinton leading Obama in Ohio, Pennsylvania: poll

Thu Feb 14, 9:44 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has double-digit leads over Barack Obama in Ohio and Pennsylvania, both crucial states in upcoming primaries, according to Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday.

Clinton, a New York senator, has lost eight straight nominating contests to Illinois Sen. Obama, but leads him 55 percent to 34 percent among likely Democratic primary voters in Ohio, the poll found.

Among Ohio Democrats, women back Clinton, 56 percent to 30 percent for Obama, while men back Clinton 52 percent to 42 percent, the poll found.

White Democrats favor Clinton 64 percent to 28 percent, while Obama leads 64 to 17 percent among black voters, according to the survey.

"Ohio is as good a demographic fit for Sen. Clinton as she will find," Peter Brown, an Quinnipiac University Polling Institute official, said in a statement.

"It has blue-collar America with a smaller percentage of both Democrats with college educations and African-American than in many other states where Sen. Obama has carried the day."

Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont hold nominating contests on March 4. Pennsylvania voters will select presidential nominees in a primary election on April 22.

The survey found that among likely Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania, Clinton leads Obama 52 percent to 36 percent.

In a general election matchup with Republican front-runner John McCain, Ohio voters give the Arizona senator 44 percent support to 43 percent for Clinton and 40 percent for Obama.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton leads McCain 46 percent to 40 percent in the general election, Obama has 42 percent to McCain's 41 percent, the poll said.

The Quinnipiac University poll was taken February 6 through 12, after the "Super Tuesday" contests in which McCain all but wrapped up the Republican nomination with coast-to-coast primary victories.

The Ohio poll of 1,748 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percent, including 564 Democratic likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

The Pennsylvania poll of 1,419 voters has a margin of error plus or minus 2.6 percent, including 577 Democratic likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

(Writing by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Bill Trott)

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Clinton wins N.M. caucus vote

By HEATHER CLARK, Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 14, 6:09 PM ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally won the popular vote in New Mexico's Democratic caucus and picked up one extra delegate Thursday, nine days after Super Tuesday voting ended.

State Democratic Chairman Brian Colon made the announcement after a marathon hand count of 17,000 provisional ballots that had to be given to voters on Feb. 5 because of long lines and a shortage of ballots. The final statewide count gave her a 1,709-vote edge over rival Sen. Barack Obama, 73,105 or 48.8 percent of the total vote to 71,396 or 47.6 percent.

The former first lady's victory in the popular vote swung the final unallocated New Mexico delegate into her column, which gave Clinton 14 delegates in the state to 12 for Obama.

With the addition of New Mexico's delegate, the national delegate count stood at 1,276 for Obama and 1,220 for Clinton on Thursday.

"I am so proud to have earned the support of New Mexicans from across the state," Clinton said in a written statement. "New Mexicans want real solutions to our nation's challenges. As president, I will continue to stand up for New Mexico and will hit the ground running on day one to bring about real change."

The Obama campaign appeared to accept the outcome.

Obama's state director, Carlos Monje Jr., was asked Thursday if he was confident the results were 100 percent accurate and replied, "We have confidence in the process." Asked if Obama might seek a recount, he said Obama has momentum from eight wins since Super Tuesday and "we are going to look forward at the contests we have remaining."

Monje said there were some "troubling aspects" in the conduct of the caucus, including "incredibly long lines that kept people from voting," but he saw their solution in the future. "We're going to continue to work with the New Mexico Democratic state party to make sure the next election goes more smoothly."

Of the 22 states that held Democratic primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday, New Mexico was the last to report a winner. The caucus here was run by the state Democratic party rather than by state government.

Colon, who came under fire for his handling of the troubled election, thanked the hundreds of volunteers who counted the ballots. The final figures "have been double and triple checked," he said in a televised announcement.

New Mexico Democrats call their contest a caucus, but it's not like Iowa's caucuses where voters gather in gyms, churches or meeting rooms, divide into groups for each candidate, try to attract more support from other groups, and then count each group. Rather it more closely resembles a "firehall primary" — a primary with shorter voting hours and fewer voting sites than would be found in traditional state primaries.

It was a mess: Overwhelmed polling places with long lines, some up to three hours. Too few ballots. Confusion over where to vote. Bad weather in the north. In Rio Rancho, one of the state's largest cities, a single polling location where 1,900 people remain lined up at 7 p.m on election night.

Colon has apologized repeatedly: "We absolutely miscalculated and I apologize. It's a tragedy when folks are not afforded the opportunity to vote."

The firestorm of criticism included some from Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a former presidential hopeful who said he was "deeply disturbed" by the problems. Partly because he was a candidate himself until mid-January, Richardson himself never got involved in helping plan or promote the caucus, as he did in 2004, the first year New Mexico tried it.

On Super Tuesday, Clinton and Obama vied for 26 of New Mexico's 38 delegates to this summer's Democratic National Convention. Twelve so-called superdelegates are not bound by caucus results.

New Mexico awards Democratic delegates proportionally, based on statewide vote totals and on the results in individual congressional districts.

In two of the state's three congressional districts, Clinton and Obama equally split an even number of delegates at stake. In District 2, which had an uneven number of delegates, Clinton won the additional one by outpolling Obama by 55 percent to 41 percent, according to unofficial results.

Nine statewide delegates were at stake. Obama and Clinton evenly split the eight delegates already awarded. The final one was assigned to the statewide popular vote winner.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

**** DELEGATE COUNT UPDATE *****

With the addition of New Mexico's delegates.......................

OBAMA - 1,276

HILLARY - 1,220

2,025 Delegates needed to win party nomination

Obama leads by 56 delegates

[Liam_Saiful_Din]

Originally Posted by GOTFIVEONIT

Clinton wins N.M. caucus vote

By HEATHER CLARK, Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 14, 6:09 PM ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally won the popular vote in New Mexico's Democratic caucus and picked up one extra delegate Thursday, nine days after Super Tuesday voting ended.

State Democratic Chairman Brian Colon made the announcement after a marathon hand count of 17,000 provisional ballots that had to be given to voters on Feb. 5 because of long lines and a shortage of ballots. The final statewide count gave her a 1,709-vote edge over rival Sen. Barack Obama, 73,105 or 48.8 percent of the total vote to 71,396 or 47.6 percent.

The former first lady's victory in the popular vote swung the final unallocated New Mexico delegate into her column, which gave Clinton 14 delegates in the state to 12 for Obama.

With the addition of New Mexico's delegate, the national delegate count stood at 1,276 for Obama and 1,220 for Clinton on Thursday.

"I am so proud to have earned the support of New Mexicans from across the state," Clinton said in a written statement. "New Mexicans want real solutions to our nation's challenges. As president, I will continue to stand up for New Mexico and will hit the ground running on day one to bring about real change."

The Obama campaign appeared to accept the outcome.

Obama's state director, Carlos Monje Jr., was asked Thursday if he was confident the results were 100 percent accurate and replied, "We have confidence in the process." Asked if Obama might seek a recount, he said Obama has momentum from eight wins since Super Tuesday and "we are going to look forward at the contests we have remaining."

Monje said there were some "troubling aspects" in the conduct of the caucus, including "incredibly long lines that kept people from voting," but he saw their solution in the future. "We're going to continue to work with the New Mexico Democratic state party to make sure the next election goes more smoothly."

Of the 22 states that held Democratic primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday, New Mexico was the last to report a winner. The caucus here was run by the state Democratic party rather than by state government.

Colon, who came under fire for his handling of the troubled election, thanked the hundreds of volunteers who counted the ballots. The final figures "have been double and triple checked," he said in a televised announcement.

New Mexico Democrats call their contest a caucus, but it's not like Iowa's caucuses where voters gather in gyms, churches or meeting rooms, divide into groups for each candidate, try to attract more support from other groups, and then count each group. Rather it more closely resembles a "firehall primary" — a primary with shorter voting hours and fewer voting sites than would be found in traditional state primaries.

It was a mess: Overwhelmed polling places with long lines, some up to three hours. Too few ballots. Confusion over where to vote. Bad weather in the north. In Rio Rancho, one of the state's largest cities, a single polling location where 1,900 people remain lined up at 7 p.m on election night.

Colon has apologized repeatedly: "We absolutely miscalculated and I apologize. It's a tragedy when folks are not afforded the opportunity to vote."

The firestorm of criticism included some from Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a former presidential hopeful who said he was "deeply disturbed" by the problems. Partly because he was a candidate himself until mid-January, Richardson himself never got involved in helping plan or promote the caucus, as he did in 2004, the first year New Mexico tried it.

On Super Tuesday, Clinton and Obama vied for 26 of New Mexico's 38 delegates to this summer's Democratic National Convention. Twelve so-called superdelegates are not bound by caucus results.

New Mexico awards Democratic delegates proportionally, based on statewide vote totals and on the results in individual congressional districts.

In two of the state's three congressional districts, Clinton and Obama equally split an even number of delegates at stake. In District 2, which had an uneven number of delegates, Clinton won the additional one by outpolling Obama by 55 percent to 41 percent, according to unofficial results.

Nine statewide delegates were at stake. Obama and Clinton evenly split the eight delegates already awarded. The final one was assigned to the statewide popular vote winner.

I couldn't get past the first two words CLINTON WINS. It made my skin crawl.

[Bruinrab]

Just watched Obama on CNN. I know he's usually a great speaker, but I have to say, in this off the cuff situation...his speaking sucked. He was stumbling, rambling, and generally looked terribly uncomfortable. What happened?

[Variable]

Originally Posted by Bruinrab

Just watched Obama on CNN. I know he's usually a great speaker, but I have to say, in this off the cuff situation...his speaking sucked. He was stumbling, rambling, and generally looked terribly uncomfortable. What happened?

Was he responding to the criticisms made by Clinton?

[Bruinrab]

Originally Posted by Variable

Was he responding to the criticisms made by Clinton?

Yup. And he made a big point of being the underdog, but he called himself an insurgent.

[Variable]

Originally Posted by Bruinrab

Yup. And he made a big point of being the underdog, but he called himself an insurgent.

WTH??? c'mon Obama, you're a Mac and Clinton's a PC!!

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Obama and Clinton neck and neck in Ohio, Texas

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

Mon Mar 3, 1:08 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton and rival Barack Obama are running neck-and-neck in Ohio and Texas one day before their crucial Democratic presidential showdowns, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll released on Monday.

Clinton, fighting to save her presidential bid after 11 straight wins by Obama, desperately needs victories in the big-state battles to keep her candidacy alive and face the Republican candidate in the November election.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has a slim advantage on Clinton in both states, although the leads are within the poll's margin of error of just under 4 percentage points.

Obama leads 47 percent to 44 percent in Texas, as Clinton gained 1 point overnight in the polling conducted by Zogby International. He leads 47 percent to 45 percent in Ohio, a turnaround from Clinton's 1-point advantage on Sunday.

Obama has wiped out big leads in the last two weeks in both states for Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, but in the final days of the race neither candidate has managed dramatic shifts.

"There are no big movements, no great swings, these are just very tight races," pollster John Zogby said. "At least for now it doesn't look like either one of them is going to be winning in a blow-out."

Republican front-runner McCain, however, appears headed to easy victories in both states. He has big double-digit leads over his last major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

McCain, an Arizona senator, is moving closer to clinching the Republican presidential nomination and has built an insurmountable lead in delegates, who will choose the nominee at the party's September convention.

COALITIONS STABLE

Both Democratic candidates have maintained the voter coalitions in Ohio and Texas that fueled them in earlier contests, with Clinton winning women, older voters, traditional Democrats and Hispanics while Obama attracts men, young voters, blacks and independents.

In Texas, Clinton continues to hold a big lead among the state's sizable bloc of Hispanics and has an edge in the state's heavily Hispanic south and conservative west. Obama is strong in the cities, but the two have battled back-and-forth in east Texas and now run even there.

"It really is looking like east Texas is the place to watch in the popular vote, whoever wins there could have the edge in the state," Zogby said.

Clinton moved ahead slightly in Ohio among voters who made their decision in the last few days -- a possible sign Obama's momentum could be slowing after days of Clinton attacks on his readiness to become U.S. commander-in-chief.

In Ohio and Texas, 6 percent of Democrats are still undecided on the day before the primary.

In the Republican race, McCain leads Huckabee 61 percent to 28 percent in Ohio and 53 percent to 33 percent in Texas. The other remaining Republican candidate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, had 6 percent in Texas and 5 percent in Ohio.

McCain leads handily in nearly every voter category and in all regions of both states. He even leads in Ohio among those who call themselves very conservative, although Huckabee leads in that category in Texas.

McCain has faced a revolt among some conservatives unhappy with his past stances on immigration, tax cuts and campaign finance reform, although it has done little to slow his march to the nomination.

The rolling poll was conducted Friday through Sunday. It surveyed 761 likely Democratic voters in Ohio with a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, and 748 in Texas with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

The poll of 675 likely Republican voters in Ohio had a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points. The survey of 628 voters in Texas had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

In a rolling poll, the most recent day's results are added and the oldest day's results are dropped to track changing momentum. The poll will continue one more day.

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at Tales from the Trail: 2008)

[GOTFIVEONIT]

In Ohio, it's really about the economy


Voters reeling from job losses, housing woes seen playing a key role

By Ben Levisohn

updated 4:49 p.m. CT, Mon., March. 3, 2008

For most of her adult life, Kirsten Heft has voted Republican. A stay-at-home mother of two who lives on the outskirts of Columbus, Heft was raised in a GOP family, and her husband, Brian, a project manager at Motorola and a member of the Air Force Reserves, is even more staunchly Republican. She voted twice for George W. Bush, and the GOP always seemed the way to go.

But as Ohio heads into the critical Mar. 4 vote, Heft has decided she'll register to vote in the Democratic primary. Fed up with the struggle to make ends meet on a budget without wiggle room, worried about how they'll manage to save for college for 9-year-old Travis and 7-year-old Robin, and outraged that her sister-in-law, recently diagnosed with cancer, has to worry as much about the cost of treatment as she does about getting better, Heft is going with Illinois Senator Barack Obama. "Thinking about how you're going to pay for your care shouldn't be the first thing on your mind when your doctor shows you your scans," says Heft. "Economic issues are key for me, and I think the Democrats are more interested in doing things that will help get the middle class back on track."

With a large swath of voters who can't be counted on to vote reliably Democratic or Republican, this quintessential swing state is once again set to play a critical role in the Presidential election, both in the Mar. 4 tally and the general contest in November. And the current mood is decidedly more sour than in 2004, when President Bush eked out a narrow win in the hard-fought Ohio race to clinch his reelection. That year, Democratic candidate John Kerry stressed the economy in his bid for Ohio votes, but the GOP's appeal to conservative social values carried the day.

This time around, though, an intense focus on helping Ohio's battered blue-collar and middle-class voters could favor the Democrats, especially if they continue to attract moderate Republicans and the 10% of the electorate that is made up of independents. New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Obama are now borrowing a page from the playbook used in 2006 by Sherrod Brown to defeat Mike DeWine, Ohio's Republican incumbent, for the U.S. Senate. Unlike John Kerry, Brown succeeded in turning the state's troubles into an electoral advantage. As a majority of independents and many Republicans abandoned the GOP, Brown grabbed 56% of the vote. Democratic candidates for a host of other offices from the governor on down also swept out their Republican rivals. "By focusing his populist streak on middle-class anxiety, [Brown] did a much better job tapping into concerns about the economy," says Herb Asher, a political science professor at Ohio State University.

The heated rhetoric used in Ohio by Obama and Clinton gives some hint of how the Democrats' eventual nominee may play the general election. With much of its manufacturing base devastated by global competition and the highest rate of home foreclosures in the nation, Ohio is at the epicenter of two of the economy's biggest challenges. Those issues, along with the high cost of and limited access to health care, increasingly have become the focus of the campaign.

Both Clinton and Obama have criticized trade deals such as NAFTA that many voters here blame for the loss of jobs. Obama has urged companies to be "patriot employers" by creating good-paying jobs in the U.S. with benefits, while Clinton has pledged to appoint a "trade prosecutor" to enforce agreements and crack down on unfair Chinese practices. Each has amped up the attacks on oil companies, drugmakers, insurers, high-paid CEOs, and other corporate interests they say have benefited in recent years at the expense of ordinary Americans. "Both are taking an increasingly populist tone, molded for what they think Ohio wants," says Zach Schiller, the research director of Policy Matters Ohio, a public policy research organization.

Beyond anxiety

Ohio's plight is a vivid reminder that manufacturing still provides a livelihood to millions of Americans — and that the agony of U.S. manufacturing's decline is far from over. Since 2000 the state has lost 236,000 manufacturing jobs, a 23.3% drop. One sign of the times: In 1995, General Motors was Ohio's largest private employer, with some 63,200 employees, while Wal-Mart Stores was ranked No.6, with 15,100. Today the discount retailer is the state's top source of jobs with 52,000 workers. GM employs just 12,300.

Many Ohioans fear things could get worse. Steven Cochrane, senior managing director for Moody's Economy.com, says Ohio is already probably in recession, and new signs of trouble are popping up. Standing in a showroom loaded with brightly painted new Fusions and Escapes, R. Douglas Seibert, the executive vice-president and general manager of Columbus car dealer Graham Ford, doesn't need to consult a forecast to know a slowdown is hitting home. He's seen it in the thinning traffic to the dealership. A year or so ago he might have sold 200 cars a month. Now he's closer to 100. And most buyers these days are looking for used vehicles or fuel-efficient cars, which bring lower prices and far smaller margins than the big SUVs that used to be his bread and butter.

The growing woes have made many receptive to the anti-trade talk they're hearing from the Democratic contenders. Mansfield, an hour north of Columbus, used to be known as a place to go for a job; Whirlpool, Tappan, and a host of other manufacturers all had plants there. Now the hulking GM plant on the outskirts of town is the last of the big factories left. As snow piled up in the half-empty GM parking lot early one recent evening, Joe Toth, a production worker with 22 years on the job, fretted about the future. From a high of over 4,000, the plant has shrunk to around 1,700 workers, and a new round of buyouts is in the works. Toth, 45, is gripped by the stories he hears around town. The local rubber products company, Swan Hose, that offered employees just $100 severance for each year worked when it laid them off and transferred production to China. The GM worker who took a buyout in 2006—and is now about to lose his home to foreclosure. "Is this an anxious time? That's putting it politely," says Toth. "Stark fear is more like it."

Toth, a dyed-in-the wool Democrat who wants to see NAFTA canceled, worries about how he would pay his bills, pare down his debt, and continue to care for his 84-year-old mother if he were to lose his job. He likes the candidates' focus on the economy: Issues like Iraq and terrorism are much further down his list of priorities. "You can have all the national defense you want, but what good is it if your middle class is crumbling around you?" he asks. While many of his fellow workers supported John Edwards and still don't know who to back, he's leaning toward Obama.

The housing crisis is also much on the minds of many Ohio voters: 3.72% of all the state's mortgages are in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Assn. The overly aggressive lending practices seen elsewhere bear much of the blame, but the consequences have been compounded as many homeowners have lost their jobs or ended up in new ones at lower pay. Once-thriving working-class neighborhoods in Cleveland and other struggling industrial cities in the state's northeast have been particularly hard hit as house after house sits empty. Many sport "For Sale" signs — but a combination of vandalism, the surplus of properties on the market, and the lack of buyers has left them virtually unsalable.

If the problems started in the industrial cities, they've now spread to the middle-class exurban communities — sprawling expanses of newly built subdivisions that have sprouted around the state's major cities in the past decade or so. Just north of Columbus, Delaware County long boasted of being the state's fastest-growing region, as miles of cornfields were transformed into neighborhoods for an expanding cadre of white-collar workers in health care, government, and other service sectors. Over the past two years, Delaware County has earned a new distinction: Among Ohio's 20 largest counties, it's now suffering the fastest growth in foreclosures.

The mortgage troubles have sent prices tumbling and stalled sales throughout much of the state. Just a few minutes outside the Delaware County border, 41-year-old Sueann Nuss lives in a small home with her husband, Tim, and two children, 3-year-old Francesca and 19-month-old Elijah. The Nusses are part of a modest neighborhood of starter homes that in better times were quickly snapped up for around $150,000 to $200,000 as soon as they came on the market. But recently, Nuss has watched as several houses that sat unsold for nearly two years have gone for rent instead.

For Nuss, a Democrat who voted for Kerry and who now backs Clinton, it's one more sign of an economy that simply isn't working. "It's just getting harder and harder for people. It shouldn't be this tough," she says. Between ever-rising prices and health insurance that covers less and less, she wonders: "How did things get this bad?" While Nuss doesn't worry that Tim, a nurse-practitioner, will ever lack for a job, she thinks the government should create more incentives to keep companies from moving jobs overseas and encourage people to buy American-produced goods.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

***** Msnbc Projects Obama Wins Vermont Democratic Primary *****


Obama - 55%


Hillary - 43%