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Election 2008 Obama Inches Closer to Nomination, Wins Mississippi By Aaron Isaac Feldstein Editor-In-Chief Chalk up another state for Senator Barack Obama. On Tuesday night, the presidential hopeful saw another state lean towards his candidacy as the people of Mississippi voted for Obama 61-37. The victory is Obama’s second straight in as many primary’s. Just last Friday, the Illinois senator claimed Wyoming’s 18 delegates. Include those 18 with the 33 potential delegates Obama can pull in from Mississippi, the Columbia and Harvard Law grad inches closer and closer to getting the 2,025 delegates needed to win the democratic nomination. As of 1:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Obama was projected to earn 20 delegates from Mississippi. Unfortunately it seems that race was a factor in the vote in Mississippi. CNN reports that 36 percent of Alabama is African-American, as reported in a 2000 census report. The black voters make up around 70 percent of the registered Democrats. The percentage of votes towards Obama from the African-American community was astounding, as 91 percent of the black vote went towards the senator. Just as astonishing was the response from the white voters. Hillary Clinton, who recently won the Ohio and Texas primaries to get back into the race, took 72 percent of the white vote in Mississippi. According to the Associated Press, the only other two states where race had such a difference was in Alabama and Clinton’s home state of Arkansas. Although most of the countries focus has been on what the presidential candidates will do about the econo- Obama Wins Caucus in Nation’s Least Populous State By Dan Pasternack Tufts Daily (Tufts U.) Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) took the first contest after Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) major victories last week. He won the Wyoming caucus, the least delegateheavy election in the Democratic primaries. Obama received 61 percent of the vote on Saturday, compared to the 38 percent that went to Hillary Clinton. The difference only translated into a three-delegate difference. In fact, neither candidate gained more than ten delegates from the contest. While the victory is small, Obama's camp hopes the outcome will do something to counter the momentum that Clinton amassed in her victories on Tuesday. She won about 150 delegates overall in primaries in the populous states of Ohio and Texas and the smaller Rhode Island. Obama took the Vermont primary that day and won about 140 delegates overall. my and the Iraq war, Mississippi voters were primarily concerned about what the democratic hopefuls are going to do about helping the state recover from Hurricane Katrina. “Everything the candidates are talking about is important to the candidates,” Mark Jones, president of Urban Life Missions told CNN. “But I don’t believe it’s hitting the pulse of what’s happening to the Gulf and the In the map above, the grey states indicate victory for Senator Barack Obama. The stripped states signify a victory for Hillary Clinton. The white states have either not had it’s primary yet, or may possibly revote. Texas is black because although Clinton won the primary, Obama won the caucus. people here.” Both candidates had something to say about the situation. “When Katrina and Rita struck the Golf Coast, the president did not respond,” said Clinton. “I have said that I will do whatever I can to make up for lost time as your Obama's win in Wyoming reflects some trends. He has won 12 of the 13 caucuses that have been decided thus far and has taken the majority of western states, including Idaho, Utah and Colorado. Obama currently leads Clinton by over 100 delegates, with 1,578 to Clinton's 1,468, according to the latest Associated Press estimate. 2,024 delegates are needed to win the race. Both candidates spent a relatively large amount of time in the lightly populated Freedom State. The entire Clinton family made an appearance in the state this week, with former President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea showing their support. Obama, however, started his campaign effort in the state two weeks earlier than Clinton. David Plouffe, manager of the Obama campaign, said that the Wyoming victory showed Obama's strength in Western states. He accredited that strength to the support of independent voters. "This is a big win for us," he said, Seawanhaka Seawanhaka Seawanhaka president.” On Monday, Obama said “the failed policies of the last 7 years” - including Katrina will be over in a year. Prior to Tuesday’s Mississippi primary, Clinton found herself only behind by 130 delegates. However, due to Spitzer’s situation, Clinton may have lost a huge superdelegate. In the recent Texas primary, although Clinton won, the state’s caucus was still undecided. On Tuesday night, it was released that Obama won the Texas State caucus, and earned 38 delegates. Since the primary race was so close, Obama ended up coming out of Texas with 109 delegates while Clinton was only able to get 106, giving the Illinois senator the final victory in Texas. The next stop for the democratic candidates is Pennsylvania, a state that has 158 delegates up for grabs. All this comes off the heels of Clinton suggesting that if she were to become president, Obama could be her running mate. “With all due respect. I won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton,” said Obama. “I’ve won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So, I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place is offering vice presi- dency to the person who’s in first place.” Obama also added that if Clinton doesn’t think he is ready to be president, then why is it he is ready to be vice-president. With Florida and Michigan considering doing a revote, and numerous states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina yet to vote, the Democratic race is still up for grabs. according to Politico.com. The Clinton campaign was proud of its efforts to fight an "uphill" battle in the state. Maggie Williams, Clinton's campaign manager, said her side had worked hard and was satisfied. "We are thrilled with this near-split in delegates," Williams said, according to the Associated Press. Voter turnout was noteworthy in Wyoming's Democratic caucus. While only 675 voters attended the 2004 caucuses, over 1,000 voters showed up in one county alone for this year's contest. In Cheyenne, the state's capital, campaign workers actually had to turn some of the 1,500 voters away due to the unexpected numbers. In recent years, the nomination has been decided before Wyoming's caucus, but the contest is more significant this year. The next contest will be tomorrow's Mississippi primary. The next major primary will come on April 22, when Pennsylvania's 187 delegates are up for grabs. March 12, 2008 Page 6
Election 2008 Race Clouds Democrats Voting Habits By Steven Martinez Daily Titan (CS-Fullerton) The race for the Democratic Party nomination is coming down to the wire and racial voting habits could be the topic that puts either candidate in the top spot for good. Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by a significant margin in the Latino community, according to a poll cited in "The Emerging Minority" in the New York Times Magazine Web site. These polls are designed to indicate how specific groups tend to vote, but the numbers do not always tell the whole story. Recently, a boiling pot of controversy was stirred when a senior member of Senator Clinton's staff made a general statement about the voting habits of Latino Americans based on their polling numbers. “The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," Sergio Bendixen, a pollster for the Clinton campaign said in an interview for the "Minority Reports" in The New Yorker magazine's Web site. While it may be an innocent statement on the surface, Bendixen is actually suggesting Latinos usually tend not to vote for black candidates or in the current election with Barack Obama. "The evidence does not really support it, it doesn't mean there isn't conflict between blacks and Latinos, but there is no real evidence that it has been guiding voting behavior over the years," said Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at Cal State Fullerton. However, the media spun Bendixen's statement, and in the weeks after the New Yorker article came out, political analysts began to focus their sights on the large problem Obama and many black candidates seemed to have with the Latino vote, Sonenshein said. There is some evidence to suggest long-standing racial tension between the two communities, Castro said. "These populations kind of embrace, internalize and popularize racial animosities even though those racial animosities might be the by-product of social fictions," said Robert Castro, a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Instead of racism, their conflict could also be explained by economics. "Hispanics and blacks are competing for the same jobs," said Jesse Smith, an emeritus professor of the Department of Afro-Ethnic Studies. Latin Americans make up the largest minority group in the United States at around 44 million people, which constitutes about 15 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They are a significant demographic in the Democratic Party and like many minority groups, they tend to vote in a block, Smith said. In recent contests, Hillary Clinton showed the ability to garner a majority of the Latino vote, which helped her win in California and New York, according to a recent National Public Radio article by Nancy Cook. It is not that Latino voters do not want to vote for a black candidate, however. They want to vote for a name that they trust, Sonenshein said. “The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this carefully -has not show a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” - Sergio Bendixen Pollster for the Clinton Campaign "There is not a lot of evidence that suggests either group [Latinos or blacks] would pick out the other to vote against," he said. "Hillary is very close to the Latino community [and] very well regarded in the Latino community." The Clinton name resonates with Latinos because of her support of Latino issues. "The Clintons have the reputation of pushing forward sympathetic policies and laws for Latino voters," Castro According to a poll done by the Hispanic PR Wire, presidential hopefully Hillary Clinton was receiving 70 percent of the hispanic votes. This poll was taken on Nov. 5 of last year. (Photo Credit: http://www.hispanicabilene.com) Seawanhaka Seawanhaka said. Most of the animosities that do exist between the communities would tend to be in the older generations and Obama actually has a decent following with young Latino voters, Castro said. Still, the Clinton campaign is resolute in its findings, saying that Bendixen was making "a historical statement." Regardless of the reason for Bendixen's statement, the idea that Latinos do not vote for black candidates has already made its way into the national consciousness. In an article by Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez wrote that Bendixen's statement already changed the way the Nevada Caucus was analyzed when Hillary won the Latino vote by more than 2-1. As proof of this, Rodriguez pointed to political news pundit Tucker Carlson and articles from as far away as the Agence France-Presse and the London Daily Telegraph which referred to Latinos as a "voting bloc traditionally reluctant to support black candidates." Some see this as a political spin designed to weaken Obama's electability on the national level. "It starts spreading the thought that Latinos just don't vote for black candidates and that [makes Latinos think] 'Well, maybe that's right, maybe we don't vote for black candidates," Sonenshein said. "It could make black voters more hostile to Latinos. And Latinos who hear it might think that they somehow ought to be at odds with blacks. These kinds of statements generate interracial tensions," author Richard Thompson Ford wrote in his published work "The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse." This new way of thinking is boosting the Clinton campaign by suggesting Hillary is the more electable candidate because the Hispanic vote will defect to McCain or Nader should a black candidate like Obama win the nomination, Sonenshein said. "They [the Clinton campaign] want to be able to skew them [voters] to say 'Obama will never win Latino votes, therefore I better vote for Clinton in the primary because she is the only one who can beat McCain,'" Sonenshein said. Sonenshein said the converse is also not true. Latinos will not vote for a black candidate just because they can relate to them on a level as minorities. Latinos, like all Americans, vote in a way that best benefits themselves. Right now, Latinos are merely unfamiliar with Obama and comfortable with Clinton, Castro said. "I think the mistake people make is they generalize from people being annoyed with each other to thinking that's how people vote. It really doesn't always go that way," Sonenshein said. March 12, 2008 Page 7 March 12, 2008 Vol. LXXXI, Issue 7
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