McCain is IN, Clinton is BACK!
The results are in for the hotly-contested Ohio and Texas primaries. There’s little surprise that John McCain has now clinched the Republican nomination, soundly winning Ohio and Texas, as well as Rhode Island and Vermont. Mike Huckabee made a gracious concession speech and vowed to work to unite the Republican party behind it’s chosen nominee.
The only question now for the GOP is who John McCain will select as his running mate. This is critical on many levels. McCain has to continue to appeal to moderates and independents, while bringing conservatives into the fold. The added factor of his age makes the selection of a VP-candidate even more critical than usual. While no rational person wishes death on an opponent, realistically, McCain is older than the average candidate.
But the real come-back-kid of the day is, once again, Hillary Clinton. By now, probably everyone has figured-out that it’s foolish to try to predict what’s going to happen on the Democratic side of the fence. Hillary had a resounding victory in Ohio and Rhode Island, and managed to win by several points in Texas. Barack Obama scored his twelfth win in Vermont, but couldn’t take the big wins of the night.
In interviews following the results, Hillary was clearly jubilant over her success and even discussed the possibility of a Clinton-Obama ticket, clarifying that a one-two ticket would be acceptable depending on who was Number One. Her ads emphasizing the Commander in Chief aspect of this election certainly paid off.
Interviews with Obama showed him trying to minimize the effect of Hillary’s big triple win. He continued to emphasize his greater number of pledged delegates and his wins in more states, while downplaying the fact that Clinton has taken ALL the big states, so far. I could be wrong, but the impression I got while watching Obama being interviewed was that he was surprised and stunned by Hillary’s big wins. I believe he really thought he was going to win at least Texas, if not both Texas and Ohio.
As for delegates, Obama currently has 1,340 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,206. There are 747 pledged delegates remaining to be claimed between now and June. Obama needs 685 of those to clinch the nomination. Since that is HIGHLY unlikely to happen, it looks like the Dems will have to wait until the Democratic National Convention and the decisions of their 795 Super Delegates to find out who their nominee will be. So it looks like we get to see a brokered convention for the first time in a long time. This should be an excellent learning experience for all those new voters who’ve been activated by this long drawn-out run for the White House.
Tags: Barack Obama, brokered convention, Commander in Chief, delegates, Democratic National Convention, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Ohio primary, Politics, Presidential primary, Republicans, Rhode Island primary, Texas primary, Vermont primary, White HouseLeave a Reply
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