Posted on 05/20/2008 7:06:42 PM PDT by mdittmar
Hillary Clinton scored a consolation win in Tuesday's Kentucky primary, but Barack Obama remained on course to surpass a milestone toward the Democrats' White House nomination.
The former first lady was projected to be the big winner in the bourbon and horseracing state of Kentucky, whose blue-collar voters and older women formed the same kind of pro-Clinton coalition seen in other states.
The New York senator vowed anew never to give up until after the closely fought Democratic primary season ends on June 3.
"It's not just Kentucky bluegrass that's music to my ears. It's the sound of your overwhelming vote of confidence even in the face of some pretty tough odds," she told raucous supporters here.
"This is one of the closest races for a party's nomination in recent history. We're winning the popular vote and I'm more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted," Clinton said.
With more than 86 percent of the Kentucky vote counted, Clinton was trouncing Obama by 65 percent to 31.
But Obama was tipped to take the liberal western state of Oregon, where voting was ending at 0300 GMT Wednesday, and clinch a symbolic majority of elected delegates after more than five months of Democratic nominating battles.
"The more people see Barack Obama ... the better we're going to do with the voters and the people of this country," she said.
But Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, said the Kentucky outcome was enough to give superdelegates reason to doubt Obama's capacity to win against McCain in November.
"Everybody keeps saying it's over, but Hillary Clinton keeps winning in purple states," he said, referring to swing states that are a mix of Republican red and Democratic blue.
"Every single poll we have seen shows Hillary Clinton beating John McCain."
According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama had 1,610 pledged delegates heading into Tuesday's primaries, just 17 short of a majority on the final stretch of the Democratic primary campaign.
With party elders known as "superdelegates" thrown in, the website said he had 1,915 delegates in total -- so needed 111 more to reach the newly revised winning line of 2,026, counting a recently elected Democrat from Mississippi.
A total of 103 delegates was up for grabs in Oregon and Kentucky.
McAuliffe turned to no lesser an authority than Karl Rove, Bush's long-time counselor and a hate figure for most Democrats, to burnish his arguments about electability.
An electoral map prepared by Rove's consulting firm and leaked to the press showed Clinton beating McCain easily in November. The race with Obama as the Democratic nominee was suggested to be much tighter.
But that contention, and Clinton's claim that she now leads in the popular vote including disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan, has not cut much ice with superdelegates as more party elders drift towards Obama.
Both Obama and Clinton were heading to Florida Wednesday. The Sunshine State's primary results, like Michigan's, were voided by Democratic bosses over a scheduling row.
Heading to the final contests in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, Clinton's hopes hinge in large part on getting the Florida and Michigan delegates reinstated at a Democratic National Committee meeting on May 31.
Some people have thought it worrisome that McCain only gets 75+ percent of the vote.
But here this is the 2nd big state in a row where Obama has come in under 40% — FROM HIS OWN PARTY.
Those bitter god and gun clingers just wont give the boy a chance!
She had a good speech writer, and delivered the speech convincingly. She pushed all the buttons - of course, for us, all the wrong ones, but she did it nevertheless. I can’t stand her, but I was somewhat impressed.
Awesome video:
The same kind of terrorists who support Obama did this:
http://www.frugalsites.net/911/attack/
Never apologize for them.
Never appease them.
Never forget.
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