Currents in the Democratic Race

The final tallies are in from voting on Tuesday, Feb. 19:

In the Democratic Party primary in the state of Wisconsin, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois defeated Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, 58 percent to 41 percent. The seventeen-point edge stands in contrast to pre-election polling which saw him with a miniscule four-point lead. In Hawaii, where Sen. Obama was born, he won even bigger, by 76 to 24 percent.

Sen. Obama won across almost all demographic groups, including ones that previously had been voting for Sen. Clinton--women, voters making less than $50,000 per year, and those without college degrees. The only group still loyally supporting the New York senator are women 65 and older.

The results led to a series of articles and reports asking, "Is Clinton Finished?" and indeed they make a strong case that Sen. Obama has gained political momentum as a result of his victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, and last week's routs in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. He currently leads in total delegates (1356 to 1267, says RealClearPolitics.com) and his campaign points out that due to the Democratic Party's awarding of delegates according to the proportion of votes a candidate receives, Sen. Clinton would need to win primaries in Texas and Ohio on March 4 by more than 20 points to make up the difference.

The most recent poll in Texas, taken by Survey USA, shows Sen. Clinton with a 9 point lead (52-43) but the lead was in double digits not that long ago. In Ohio, a poll taken before the voting in Wisconsin had Sen. Clinton up by five points, 50-45. I'll be watching the polls taken after the voting on Tuesday to see if the momentum effect will eradicate those leads. Many analysts believe it will.

Sen. Clinton's campaign will be going on the offensive and raising the issue of which candidate would make a better commander of U.S. military forces, hinting that Sen. Obama has little or no national security experience.

But another line of attack could have opened quite accidentally for Sen. Clinton. On Tuesday night, MSNBC TV host Chris Matthews asked Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Obama supporter, over and over again on live television to name some legislative accomplishments of Sen. Obama in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Watson could not, and he tried to change the subject but Mr. Matthews would not budge. Don't be surprised if you see this challenge raised again in the campaigns in Ohio and Texas.

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton is trying to raise more money for the upcoming campaigns and may be trying to woo former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards' support. So is Sen. Obama who met with him earlier this week.

But leave all these aside; the main task that Sen. Clinton has to accomplish is win in Texas and Ohio, and follow that up with a victory in Pennsylvania in April. She has not won in ten straight contests so that is a tall order, but everything else may be meaningless in the Democratic race unless she wins in these states and wins convincingly.