The New York Times – by Patrick Nealy – March 5, 2008
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday night not only shook off the vapors of impending defeat, but also showed that — in spite of his delegate lead — Senator Barack Obama was still losing to her in the big states.
Those two states were the battlegrounds where Mr. Obama was going to bury the last opponent to his history-making nomination, finally delivering on his message of hope while dashing the hopes of a Clinton presidential dynasty.
Yet then the excited, divided American electorate weighed in once more, throwing Mrs. Clinton the sort of political lifeline that New Hampshire did in early January after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
For Mrs. Clinton, the battle ahead is not so much against Mr. Obama as it is against a Democratic Party establishment that had once been ready to coalesce behind her but has been drifting toward Mr. Obama. The party wants a standard-bearer now to wage the war against the newly minted leader of the Republicans, Senator John McCain, who enjoys a head start with every day that the Democrats lack a nominee of their own.
Clinton advisers said her decisive victory in Ohio and her narrow one in Texas — where exit polls showed her winning the votes of women, whites and Hispanics in an extremely close race — were more than enough to argue that she should go forward to the April 22 primary in the Ohio-esque Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, even if Mr. Obama has more delegates after Tuesday night.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, appeared likely to accumulate enough delegates from Texas and Ohio (as well as from his victory in Vermont) to strengthen his mathematical edge for the nomination and portray Mrs. Clinton as a spoiler to a unified party. Yet the results on Tuesday also bring fresh questions about his electability in crucial swing states like Ohio that Democrats are eager to carry in the November election.
“Hillary is very much in the game,” Patti Solis Doyle, Mrs. Clinton’s former campaign manager, said on Tuesday night.
Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, brimmed with equal brio. “This was her last, best chance to significantly close the gap in pledged delegates,” Mr. Burton said of Mrs. Clinton, who began the night with about 50 fewer pledged delegates and 100 fewer over all. “They have failed.”
Mrs. Clinton spent much of 2007 running as the candidate of the Democratic establishment — racking up endorsements from party leaders, enlisting major party donors from past presidential campaigns and setting up bases of operations in populous states like California and Florida.
But after losing momentum to Mr. Obama in February, she is now viewed by many party leaders as an obstacle to the fight ahead — even as she continues to argue that she is the best candidate, by dint of her experience, to carry the party’s flag into the “wartime election” fight against a Vietnam hero and national security pro like Mr. McCain.
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers say there is no party elder who has the stature or power to pressure her to bow out, aside from her husband, former President Bill Clinton. And he more than anyone wants her to keep running.
The nomination is not determined by the number of states won, but Mr. Obama’s inability to win major battleground states beyond Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and his home state, Illinois, is a concern of some Democrats — especially since Ohio and Florida have become must-wins in presidential elections.
Mrs. Clinton has been enjoying her first real burst of momentum lately, thanks to her new advertisements and speeches questioning Mr. Obama’s abilities in a crisis, raising the fact that he has not convened his Senate subcommittee to hold hearings on the Afghanistan war. A potentially embarrassing trial of a former Obama friend and contributor has begun. And major Clinton fund-raisers said that one big victory on Tuesday night would be enough to energize donors and keep $1 million or more flowing in daily.
“Each time people think we’re down, like after Iowa, or South Carolina, or the February primaries, Hillary has found ways to come back up,” said Jonathan Mantz, the national finance director of the Clinton campaign.
The results will also embolden her campaign’s efforts to persuade the Democratic Party to factor in the delegates from Florida and Michigan, her advisers say. The party counted out those states after they moved up their primaries; Mrs. Clinton stayed on the ballot in both and “won” them in January — despite having no real competition in Michigan and no real campaign in Florida. In a sign of her thinking, She shouted out to them in her Ohio victory speech Tuesday night.
“If we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win the battleground states, just like Ohio,” she said. “We’ve won Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arkansas, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Tennessee!”
But for all the millions of votes Mrs. Clinton has now won, simple math is still her enemy. She needs to use Tuesday night to persuade superdelegates — the hundreds of party leaders who have a vote on the nomination — to stop abandoning her. Or, at least, stop long enough for Mrs. Clinton to damage him with a line of attack, goad him into a colossal gaffe (or watch him make one on his own) or rely on the media to unearth a campaign-altering scandal about him.
But it is not clear if Ohio and Texas were enough to give Mrs. Clinton — a politician who has been a known quantity for 16 years— a real chance for a fresh assessment by the many superdelegates who know her well.
“The great irony is, she is now the ‘hope’ candidate,” said Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who backs Mr. Obama. “She can only hope to catch some breaks and catch Obama stumbling.”
Latinos, working-class voters, women and late deciders helped Hillary Clinton push back against Barack Obama’s recent winning streak, while some Texas and Ohio Republicans fired a warning shot at John McCain even as he clinched his party’s presidential nomination.
Latinos, Lunch Bucket Voters Put Clinton on Top
The Democratic races in these states were more closely fought, with demographics — more Latinos in Texas, more lunch bucket voters in Ohio — assisting Clinton after her string of losses since Feb. 9.
She also did well with late deciders, winning those who made up their minds in the final few days by 20 points in Ohio and 23 in Texas.
Latinos in Texas accounted for a record 30 percent of voters, up from 24 percent in 2004 — second only this cycle to New Mexico, and matching California — and they backed Clinton by 63-35 percent, crucial to her fortunes.
Obama hit back with 85 percent support from African-Americans, two in 10 Texas voters. And while Clinton won white women in Texas by 19 points, the two candidates split white men evenly.
Ohio was different; there Clinton won white men, a swing group in many Democratic primaries this year, by 59-38 percent.
That partly reflected the working-class nature of the state: Obama won white men who’ve been graduated from college, albeit by narrower-than-usual 51-47 percent; as elsewhere, Clinton won white men who don’t have a college degree, here by a wide 66-31 percent.
And those lacking a college education made up a greater share of white men in Ohio, 61 percent, than in Texas, 49 percent, or all primaries to date, 48 percent.
Familiar Change vs. Experience Theme
While the theme of change continued to resonate in Ohio and Texas, it wasn’t by as wide a margin as in most previous primaries.
The ability to “bring needed change” beat “experience” as the most important quality in a candidate by a 16-point margin in Ohio and by 17 points in Texas, 44-27 percent. Both had among the fewest to pick change as the top attribute in any primary this year.
It mattered, given the correlation of these views and vote preferences.
Obama won “change” voters by more than 2-1 margins in Texas and Ohio alike, while those more concerned with experience went for Clinton almost unanimously in both states.
If a contrast were needed, the two smaller states voting Tuesday, Vermont and Rhode Island, provided it.
Obama won across demographic groups in Vermont, beating Clinton among senior citizens as well as among white women, two of her mainstays.
There his change theme prevailed over experience by more than a 30-point margin, at the high end in primaries to date. In Rhode Island, though, Clinton won easily; there change beat experience by just 10 points, less than anywhere but Arkansas, and late deciders again went heavily to Clinton, by 62-37 percent.
Warning Signs for McCain
McCain lost few groups in Texas, but they were telling ones in terms of his challenges in the Republican base: the most religious and most conservative voters, and those looking mainly for a candidate who shares their values, all backed Mike Huckabee, and the two roughly split evangelicals.
McCain was comparatively weak among those same groups in Ohio. But Texas was tougher to him. There he lost values voters — the top candidate attribute in both states — by a wide 57-32 percent. And in Texas a substantial 45 percent in preliminary exit poll results classified him as “not conservative enough.”
As noted, there were challenges within McCain’s broader victory.
In Texas, Huckabee won those who attend church more than once a week, 29 percent of GOP voters, by 20 points, 56-36 percent. Evangelicals, a hefty 62 percent of Texas Republican voters, split 47-43 percent between Huckabee and McCain. And Huckabee won “very” conservative voters, a third of the electorate, by 8 points.
But McCain came back with broad leads among “somewhat” conservative and moderate Republicans. He won non-evangelicals by a huge margin, 63-21 percent.
He prevailed among less-frequent churchgoers, and won 81 percent of voters focused on the No. 2 attribute, experience. He also beat Huckabee by more than 2-1, 64-27 percent, among senior citizens, compared to an 11-point win among GOP voters younger than 65.
In Ohio McCain did better; he won “very” conservative voters, 51-41 percent.
And McCain came closer to Huckabee than usual among Ohio evangelicals, Huckabee’s mainstay, while winning non-evangelicals by nearly 50 points. But as in Texas, a candidate who “shares my values” was the most important attribute in Ohio, and Huckabee won them there, too, albeit by a closer 48-40 percent.
Democratic Turnout
At 19 percent, African-Americans didn’t increase their turnout in Texas, and it was well down from their 34 percent share in 1984, when Jesse Jackson ran. In Ohio, though, blacks’ 18 percent share was up from 14 percent in 2004; that aided Obama, albeit not enough.
Women increased their turnout in both states — to 59 percent in Ohio and 57 percent in Texas, up from 52 and 53 percent, respectively, in 2004. And Clinton won white women by more than 2-1 in Ohio, as well as by 59-40 percent in Texas.
The upscale/downscale division among white voters was striking. In both states Obama won college-educated white men, while Clinton won those who don’t have degrees. In both states Clinton won college-educated and non-college-educated white women alike, but won less-educated women by broader margins.
As previously there were huge generation gaps.
Clinton again easily won seniors, by 73-24 percent in Ohio and 64-34 percent in Texas, while voters under 30 went for Obama by 20 points in Texas and 26 points in Ohio.
In both states turnout among young voters was up from 2004, by seniors, down.
Seniors accounted for 13 percent of voters in Texas and 14 percent in Ohio, fewer than in most states this year. Interestingly, in Texas Obama came close to Clinton among Latinos under 30, losing them by 5 points in preliminary data, while she swamped him among older Latinos.
Also in both states, Clinton prevailed among mainline Democrats. Obama tied her among independents and Republicans voting in the open Democratic primary in Ohio, and won those groups in preliminary results in Texas.
It’s the Economy…Again
The economy was the top issue in Texas and Ohio alike, and most strikingly so in Ohio, where 59 percent of Democrats ranked it as the single most important issue, second only to Michigan in the importance of the economy to Democratic voters this year.
Almost eight in 10 in Ohio were worried about their family’s finances, 38 percent were “very” worried about it and voters there almost unanimously said the national economy is in bad shape. Slightly fewer in Texas were “very” worried about their own finances, 33 percent.
The exit poll indicated a smaller-than-previous turnout by union voters in Ohio — 35 percent were from union households, down from 44 percent in 2004.
At the same time it also found broad anti-trade sentiment: About eight in 10 said that trade with other countries takes more jobs from Ohio than it creates. Anti-trade sentiment was lower in Texas, with about six in 10 there saying trade takes jobs.
Whatever their candidate preference, Democratic voters had some greater criticism for Clinton than for Obama on negative campaigning — 54 percent in Ohio and 52 percent in Texas said Clinton attacked unfairly, while fewer than four in 10 both states said Obama did.
By about similar margins, however, more said Clinton, rather than Obama, offered “clear and detailed plans” to address the country’s problems.
I’m receiving reports that contrary to Texas Democratic party caucus rules that preclude registration forms from being submitted before either 7:15 pm or the last vote at a precinct has been cast, Obama volunteers are handing out the forms at precincts today and asking people to fill them in and then collecting them. For Obama to submit the forms on the voters’ behalf without the voter physically being present at the caucus would violate the rules.The rules state:
Participants may NOT begin signing in until the precinct convention has been called to order. The call to order may not occur until 7:15 p.m. OR whenever the last voter finishes voting at that polling location whichever is later. If, after the convention has been called to order and participants have signed in, any participant who wishes to leave may do so, and their sign in WILL count toward the delegate allocation for each candidate. Sign-In ends when the last person present waiting to sign in has done so.
If any Texas voter has witnessed this, feel free to let me know. More on the rules and some disturbing reports from Ohio below:
Ohio’s Secretary of State, an office held by a Democrat, has rebuked Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign for trying to staff precincts with poll workers who presented insufficient credentials. Obama’s campaign calls this charge “wrong.”
In a memo sent late this morning to county election directors by David M. Farrell, Ohio’s
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a letter carried by Obama supporters — signed by Obama state director Paul Tewes — is deemed “not legally sufficient on its own to allow someone to gain access to polling places.” Farrell notes that state law requires that polling observers must be “duly appointed” and have been previously issued a certificate.
Ambinder has posted the letter saying the authorization is insufficient and the authorization. The problem this can cause:
The alleged infraction seems minor, but the Clinton campaign has seized on the e-mail from the Secretary of State’s office as evidence that the Obama campaign is trying to game the system in Ohio.
Lynn Utrecht, chief campaign counsel for Sen. Hillary Clinton, said that she’d recieved reports from the field of Obama poll workers being kicked out of precincts for aggressively challenging voters. Adding it up, she said, “and it’s a pattern.”
Back to the Texas caucus rules, here’s more:
2) Attendees sign in on the roll sheets (“Exhibit A”) that are in the packet. ATTENDEES MAY ONLY SIGN IN FOR THEMSELVES. (see TCDP GUIDELINES p. 4 *) Only those persons who voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary may participate in the caucus. A person is verified in one of three ways: 1. The attendee’s voter registration card was stamped as having voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary, or 2. The attendee was given a stamped Party Affiliation Card when they voted, or 3. The attendee is listed in the precinct voter roster as having voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary. This is the roster of registered voters provided by the Democratic presiding judge. The roster will indicate those who voted Democratic in your precinct on March 4th and also includes those who Voted Early, or Voted by Mail.
5) The Chair, Secretary and caucus representatives determine the following and then announce:
a. the threshold for a caucus to be able to elect delegates
b. percent of people attending the precinct convention who support each candidate
c. number of delegates the supporters of each candidate are entitled to elect
There is an “E-Z Math Precinct Delegate Formula” sheet in the packet to help you. Please see mathematical examples at the end of these TCDP GUIDELINES.
Once the threshold and proportional allocation of delegates has been announced by the Chair of the precinct convention, it cannot be changed by any late arrivals to the convention. Late attendees can still sign in with their presidential preference and participate, but their arrival cannot change the threshold or the allocation of delegates.
The Atlantic.com – by Mark Ambinder - March 04, 2008 01:24PM
Ohio’s Secretary of State, an office held by a Democrat, has rebuked Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign for trying to staff precincts with poll workers who presented insufficient credentials.
Obama’s campaign calls this charge “wrong.”
In a memo sent late this morning to county election directors by David M. Farrell, Ohio’s
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, a letter carried by Obama supporters — signed by Obama state director Paul Tewes — is deemed “not legally sufficient on its own to allow someone to gain access to polling places.”
Farrell notes that state law requires that polling observers must be “duly appointed” and have been previously issued a certificate.
The letter from Tewes states the bearer ‘is hereby authorized to serve as a legal poll monitor on behalf of the Obama campaign.”
The alleged infraction seems minor, but the Clinton campaign has seized on the e-mail from the Secretary of State’s office as evidence that the Obama campaign is trying to game the system in Ohio.
Lynn Utrecht, chief campaign counsel for Sen. Hillary Clinton, said that she’d recieved reports from the field of Obama poll workers being kicked out of precincts for aggressively challenging voters. Adding it up, she said, “and it’s a pattern.”
And Tina Flournoy, a Clinton campaign adviser, compared the conduct to that of Republicans in the 2004 election.
“It’s a pretty sad thing that people we now have to worry about are fellow Democrats,” she said.
“The Secretary of state is wrong on the facts,” said Obama spokesperson Dan Pfeiffer. “We are correctly credentialed and are calling now to correct any misunderstanding tot he contrary.”
Here’s the Tewes letter.
Farrell’s letter is after the jump.
From: Farrell, David
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 10:01:04 AM
To: BOE Contacts; All Counties
Cc: Field Staff; Elections Attorneys; Elections
Subject: Sen. Obama “Poll Monitor” Letter Info
Auto forwarded by a Rule
Dear Boards of Elections Directors, Deputy Directors, and Members:
Attached is a copy of a letter being presented by Sen. Obama supporters to election officials at polling locations. Our office’s legal interpretation is that this letter is not legally sufficient on its own to allow someone to gain access to polling places.
To be allowed access to a polling location an observer must be duly appointed as an official observer and have an official observer certificate issued pursuant to R.C. 3505.21, which in part states: “Observers appointed to a precinct may file their certificates of appointment with the presiding judge of the precinct at the meeting on the evening prior to the election, or with the presiding judge of the precinct on the day of the election.” Someone who wants to observe may present the attached letter in addition to the official observer certificate, but they must have the official observer certificate to legally gain entry.
Please refer to SOS Directive #2008-29 (Rights And Limitations on Election Observers) for more detailed information.
If you have additional questions, please contact a member of the SOS Election Legal Counsel staff at (614) 466-2585.
Sincerely,
David M. Farrell
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
and Director of Elections
Office of the Ohio Secretary of State
180 E. Broad Street – 15th Floor
This is a segment from “Hardball” with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. He brings on two African American politicians, one a supporter of Barack Obama and the other for Hillary Clinton. City Councilman Kevin Conwell struggles to fully verbalize his support for Barack Obama. On the other hand, Representative Eugene Miller substantively, eloquently and passionately states his strong support for Hillary Clinton.
