Posted on 03/04/2008 7:56:00 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
CBS News projects Republican Sen. John McCain has clinched the Republican nomination for president. Click here for the state-by-state tally.
McCain will win Republican primaries Tuesday in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island, CBS News projects. McCain's last Republican rival, Mike Huckabee, dropped out of the race after the results came in.
"The most important race begins," McCain said. "It's a very humbling thing, and I say that with all sincerity."
McCain will travel to the White House tomorrow where he will receive the endorsement of President Bush. The president and McCain will have lunch and then appear together in the Rose Garden.
CBS News reports that Barack Obama called McCain from his San Antonio hotel room. The chat was cordial and brief.
"This clears the path for McCain to begin his general election process in earnest," said CBSNews.com Senior Political Editor Vaughn Ververs. "With a possible protracted battle on the Democratic side that could continue for weeks, it's a luxury Republicans need as they enter into a difficult road towards November."
In the Democratic contest, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are battling it out in the crucial states of Ohio and Texas.
CBS News projects that the two Democratic contenders will split the New England states voting today -- Obama will win in Vermont and Clinton will win in Rhode Island.
In all there were 370 Democratic delegates at stake in Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio and Texas, which uses an unusual primary-caucus system.
According to CBS News early exit polls, the economy was the top issue for Democratic voters in all four states voting today. Large majorities of Democrats in all four states think the economy is in bad shape.
The economy was of most concern to Ohio Democratic voters. In Vermont, however, the economy nearly tied with Iraq as the most important issue.
Ohio Democratic voters hold mostly negative views on U.S. trade with other countries, according to the early exit polls. Eight in ten say trade takes jobs away from their state. In Texas, however, a lower number -- 58 percent -- say trade takes jobs away. In fact, in Texas, a quarter say U.S. trade with other countries creates jobs.
According to the exit polls, 32 percent of Texas Democratic primary voters are Hispanic -- up from the 24 percent in 2004. In Ohio, 20 percent are African American, compared to 14 percent in 2004. Eighteen percent of Texas primary voters today are black, compared to 21 percent in 2004.
After 11 straight victories, Obama had the momentum and the lead in the delegate chase. Going into tonight, Obama had a 1,390-1,276 lead in the CBS News count. See the latest CBS News state-by-state delegate tally.
Clinton in desperate need of a comeback with time running out - if it hadn't already.
"Hillary Clinton, if you believe the polls, and that's always a danger, seems to have made her move in the last couple of days," CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield said. "I think part of that may have to do with her pounding away on the fact that Barack Obama doesn't have the experience - that so-called 3:00 a.m. ad." Read more about the ad.
CBS News anchor Katie Couric spoke Tuesday with Clinton in Columbus, asking her about the near-impossibility she faces in catching up to Obama in elected delegates.
"We're just working hard today to get all the votes that we possibly can get," Clinton said. "And, remember, this is a long journey. My husband didn't get the nomination until June of 1992 and I have every confidence that we're going to continue to pick up delegates as we go."
"So you're counting on super delegates?" Couric asked. "Are you concerned they'll be under considerable pressure to reflect the views of voters nationwide?"
"Well, you know, I think that superdelegates have a purpose in the process, which is to exercise independent judgment: who they think would be the best president and who they believe would have the best chance of winning. If you look at the states that I've won, these are the states a Democrat has to win," Clinton said. "You know, with all due respect, a number of the states that Sen. Obama has won, which are part of the process and therefore certainly their delegates will count, but these are not likely to be states that a Democrat will win unless there is a tidal wave in our favor."
Some of her supporters, her husband, the former president among them, said she needed to outpoll Obama in both Texas and Ohio to sustain her candidacy.
Without conceding anything, Obama's allies said even that wouldn't be enough, given his lead in the delegate count and party rules that virtually assure primary losers a significant share of the spoils.
Couric asked Obama Tuesday if he would personally ask Clinton to get out of the race if it is, in fact, mathematically impossible for her to catch up in elected delegates.
"No. I mean, obviously this is going to be Sen. Clinton's decision to make," Obama told CBS News. "She is a tough competitor, she has been tenacious and is continuing to raise boat loads of money and I'm happy to continue to compete state by state until we get to the convention."
In appearances Tuesday, Clinton sounded like she might continue her campaign if she only won Ohio, and Obama sounded almost resigned to an extension of the nomination battle.
"You don't get to the White House as a Democrat without winning Ohio," Clinton said in Houston.
In San Antonio, Obama called Clinton "a tenacious and determined candidate" and predicted little shift in his delegate lead no matter who won Texas and Ohio, "which means that either way, we'll go on through Mississippi and Wyoming next week." Pennsylvania, the biggest single prize left, follows on April 22.
"All those states coming up are going to make a difference," he said. "What we want to do is make sure we're competing in every single state."
It takes 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination, and slightly more than 600 remained to be picked in the 10 states that vote after Tuesday.
The Democratic marathon was in contrast to a Republican race that was fierce while it lasted, but long since settled.
McCain, the Arizona senator, began the night with 991 delegates, out of 1,191 needed for the nomination at the party convention next summer in St. Paul, Minn. There were 256 Republican delegates at stake in the four states on the night's ballot.
McCain's sole major remaining rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had 215 delegates, and posed no threat.
It was McCain's second run at the nomination, after his loss to George W. Bush in 2000. Once the front-runner, his campaign nearly imploded last summer. But he regrouped, reassuming the underdog role that he relishes, and methodically dispatched one rival after another in a string of primaries in January and early February.
In the other half of the most wide-open presidential campaign in a half-century, Obama looked for the knockout blow, while Clinton sought a revival.
As before, he outspent her in television commercials, an advantage padded by unions working in his behalf.
Rhode Island and Vermont received little attention from either of the candidates, who devoted most of their time to Ohio and Texas. They debated once in each big state, and stressed issues that varied from one to the other.
In Ohio, a new powerful voting bloc may be asserting its dominance: blue-collar white males. Couric reports that men who work industrial jobs - on assembly lines and steel mills - make up 20 percent of the voting population.
One Cleveland blue-collar worker, John Myers, told CBS News: "I am not ready to back a lady president; I just can't go there."
NAFTA was a focus of the Ohio race.
Obama sent out mass mailings that said Clinton had supported the free trade agreement when it was passed during her husband's administration, and that he had opposed it. She angrily accused him of distorting her record.
But roles were reversed in the campaign's final hours after a memo surfaced in which a Canadian official described a meeting in which Obama's senior economic adviser said the Illinois senator's criticisms of the trade agreement were political positioning. Clinton said Obama had given a "wink-wink" to Canada on the issue.
Obama said, "Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to assure them of anything."
The Texas campaign revolved more around readiness to serve as commander in chief.
Clinton aired a television commercial that showed children asleep in their beds. "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?" the announcer said.
Obama wasn't mentioned, but responded quickly.
He told reporters that Clinton had already had her "red phone moment" -- and voted for the Iraq war.
He launched his own ad, with sleeping children and a telephone ringing ominously.
"In a dangerous world, it's judgment that matters," the announcer said.
Couric asked Obama if he's now having trouble countering attacks by Clinton on his national security experience - and how he would handle similar attacks by McCain come fall.
"I don't think we've had difficulty countering them. That's why we won 11 contests straight. Sen. Clinton's has been making this argument since the beginning of this campaign and the American people, I think, have recognized that what we need in national security is judgment, a judgment that Senator Clinton and John McCain both failed to show."
Good luck with that.
America goes down either way. It was nice while it lasted though. Oops, sorry, have to switch back to para en espanol solamente, jefe....
Bump for now. Will read this in the morning.
Sorry. My mistake.
I will not abandon my son and his fellow soldiers by voting for some turd party candidate who has a snowball’s chance to win, and thereby giving the Dims the win by default. If that happens, our military will be gutted. We will lose this war. And the lives lost to this point will have been for naught. And, we will eventually have to do it all over again - only next time it will be much harder with huge casualty loses. No thanks. McCain has earned my vote.
McCain next President of The United States!
God Bless John!
It’s okay.
You and I posted back and forth last year on FR about a 2nd BCT, 10th Mtn Div soldier I knew who died 4/1/07, but you may not recall that.
My family and I still remember him.
See ya-
CD
Praying that you’re correct.
I remember that. I think of all the 52 2nd BCT 10th Mountain Soldiers who lost their lives during the 15 month deployment my son was a part of.
This was SSG Eric Vick, my sister’s ex-boyfriend who she almost married.
But they are all heroes to me.
Take care.
For the last couple years I have been wavering on whether or not I can call myself a Republican. Now I know I cannot without any remaining doubt. I am leaving the party.
Classic politics is that a Republicans moves right to capture the nomination, then moves to the center.
Now that McCain has the nomination, he will move even farther left.
Yes, the McCain we all dislike will now move even further across the aisle, he’ll be sitting in Teddy Kennedy’s lap.
Thanks for abandoning my son and his fellow soldiers. Enjoy your part in helping to elect whichever dim is their nominee, who will then gut our military, lose this war (snatching defeat from the jaws of victory), and steal money from those in this country who work hard to earn a living.
” I would take McCain over Clinton and most definitely over Obama”
Versus Clinton, I would vote for McCain with reservations. Versus Obama, I would vote for McCain without question and without regret.
THEME SONG JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME!!!!
Agreed, Seems to me a rather pathetic showing on republicans and I dont blame them one bit.The powers that control these things have got to see that and are crapping in their pants.
Should I leave the Republican Party tomorrow or wait until it is official?
This is not an answer, but merely my observation. My values haven’t changed, but the GOP took a hard left turn a while back. In other words, they left you, and I, long ago.
No problem. My post not pointed at you, just hoping to calm Soldier Dad. I like him, though he doesn’t know me.
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