Sure thing. Will do.
Not.
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."
Oh, I’m sure there will be hundreds of calls for conservatives to vote for Ron Paul as a protest vote against McCain. Yep, that’ll happen right after juniper berries grow out of Obama’s ears. God forbid anyone vote for Paul, an actual conservative, to send a message for conservatism—though ‘sending a message’ through that hack Huckabee, that was just fine.
Sure thing. Will do.
Not.
“Roundabout that time we’ll see the GOP rediscover its moral compass in time to retake Congress in 2010.”
You’ve reiterated the conservative conventional “wisdom” of course. And it’s possible this scenario will play out as you stated it. After all, the voters elected a Republican congress in ‘94, right?
However, as you no doubt know, the electorate re-elected Bill Clinton in ‘96, over Dole, even after living through fours years of Clinton’s first term, and even after witnessing the implementation of a major portion of the Contract With America.
I’m not at all confident Republicans can pull it off a second time. We’ll see.
Also, PFC Fouty and SPC Jimenez, who’ve been missing since May 12 07.
I don’t personally like McCain, but at this point, it seems I can choose between the frying pan and the fire. As a veteran and firm believer in the War on Terror, McCain appears to be the only viable choice.
It sucks, but we have to vote McCain and then bust our asses to get every conservative we can to run and win in the Congress and the Senate. Start the grassroots now for Huckabee to run for Pryor’s seat...with his cache, he can be a major pain in Pres McCain’s ass, in the Senate...at least on Social Con issues....
We can box McCain in with a muscular Conseravtive caucus in the house and Senate....its up to us to give him those who will obstruct his sell outs...
Just sayin is all....
AMEN....they are crazy.....end of discussion...when you go to vote...ask yourself this...who would bin laden fear...say what you want about McCain but there is no doubt, he wants Bin Laden swinging from a yard arm...like any other scumbag pirate.
I think you are overstating McCain’s problems -
“anti-gun,” he’s got a C from the NRA, and most of his anti-gun votes have not been of the ban-all-guns variety
“pro-embryo-harvesting,” a bad vote, but a consistently pro-life ethic and voting record otherwise. Also as research shows that adult stem cells are much more ‘promising’ this should become a non-issue
“anti-1st Amendment” yes McCain-Feingold was an attack on free speech, but I think his motive was to clean up politics, misguided as it was. We still have the Supremes and I understand most of McCain-Feingold was gutted.
He’s not as conservative as I would like but he is still a good candidate and will be a good president, I think.
“A vote for McCain is like voting for Obama or Hillary”
Tell that to our boots on the ground. How would they vote?
“McCain will pick up 5 independents for every hyperpartisan he loses.”
I hope you are right and the polls seem to be indicating that you are.
“Now that McCain has the nomination, he will move even farther left.”
I predict he will move further right and we will see that reflected in his VP choice.
If he is as smart as I think he is.
The sound of a conservative giving up her principles. John McCain is an opportunist and a traitor—and so is anyone who votes for him.
“John McCain is an opportunist and a traitor—and so is anyone who votes for him.”
I can’t believe you would call me an opportunist and a traitor just because I intend to vote for McCain. Are all the military asking us to vote for him opportunists and traitors, too? That is really too much.
Conservatives make up 60% of the GOP.
Only 28% of all Americans voters identify themselves as Republicans.
That makes "Conservative Republicans" less than 17% of all American voters.
Although we may think it really sucks, the other 83% of America can and does vote.
Expecting a "Conservative Republican" to always win is simply not realistic in 21st Century America.
You may believe that you are pissed off at the "GOP" but you are actually pissed off at 83% of America.
You're not alone, man...you're not alone.
May I suggest that the two of you are more like a German Jewish voter in September 1930 who refused to vote for a viable party in order to stop the National Socialist German Workers' Party because it would be a cold day in Hell before you would "compromise your principles" and vote for a political party that did not agree 100% with you.
I suppose time will tell????
We have 140,000 troops in harm’s way.
Only ONE candidate running for president wants them to achieve victory.
None of them had a vote on Immigration. None of them voted on McCain-Feingold. They were sent to protect us by those we elected. NOw that they are there, some of you want to tell them you want them to lose because you didn’t find the perfect conservative??
A BIG reason I am supporting John McCain is he is the only candidate supporting our troops. PEriod.
McCain 2008
If you'd been less willing to label us kooks and more willing to actually do the research this wouldn't be any sort of a surprise. It's not to me. There are some excellent books on my about page for this if you want to catch up. Folks have denigrated and marginalized the conspiracy buffs for years. Yet now our predictions are all coming to fruition and folks act all surprised and outraged like we've not been trying to sound a warning for decades. Nobody who really understands the true power structure in this country and it's links to similar power structures globally is at all surprised by anything that has happened in this election cycle.
I have zero confidence that the true R's (are there really any left?) will mount an effective resistance to a RINO POTUS. I know my two Senators will fold like a cheap card table and will be standing side-by-side with "their friend form across the aisle", Ted Kennedy, at the signing of the Comprehensive Amnesty Bill.
I can't wait for the globull warming initiatives or the SCOTUS nominees who won't "wear their conservatism on their sleeves" being rubber-stamped in support of Our Party's Candidate. We are playing Russian roulette with an autoloader. The Republic is SO screwed.
If I may: Word.
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