Wednesday 13 February 2008

The Potomac primaries

Barack Obama is building up a lot of momentum, especially after his successes in the Potomac primaries. John McCain solidified his lead by winning in all three of the states that were voting (this happened on February 12th). The tables below are the results.

Democrats
StateCandidateVote %Delegates
ColumbiaBarack Obama759
Hillary Clinton242
Uncommitted10
MarylandBarack Obama6011
Hillary Clinton375
Uncommitted10
VirginiaBarack Obama6450
Hillary Clinton3526

Republicans
StateCandidateVote %Delegates
ColumbiaJohn McCain6816
Mike Huckabee170
Ron Paul80
MarylandJohn McCain5513
Mike Huckabee290
Ron Paul60
VirginiaJohn McCain5060
Mike Huckabee410
Ron Paul50
N.B. - Mitt Romney was on the ballot papers and received some vote (strange). However, I've not included him in these tables as he is out of the race.

For the Republicans, Maryland was the smallest of the three primaries, but Ron Paul must have been unhappy with his result there because he finished below Mitt Romney (in terms of vote percentage) and Romney isn't even in the race! However, there is no chance of Paul getting the nomination anyway. It's more about making a statement and raising important issues now. Any profiling he does will help him if he wants to run as an independent.

Mike Huckabee didn't get any delegates, but that's because the GOP have a system where all the delegates go to the winner. The important thing for him will be the vote percentage and, unfortunately, that doesn't look too good. I'm not sure if Huckabee will stay in the race until the end now. After 'Super Tuesday' I thought he would, but these results have made things more difficult for him. He's still a possible VP pick though.

This is what John McCain had to say after the results were announced:
"We do not yet know for certain who will have the honor of being the Democratic Party's nominee for president. But we know where either of their candidates will lead this country, and we dare not let them. They will promise a new approach to governing but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government's failures is to simply make it bigger."
He also said:
"I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me"
I think it's interesting that most of McCain's quotes are either inspirational or negative. In a victory speech, making inspirational statements is fine - in fact, it's almost expected. However, I would have mentioned something about the next primaries/caucuses and (possibly) something brief about policies (instead of criticising candidates). That sort of behaviour has occurred since the start of the process though.

On the Democrat side, Barack Obama improved his position, although there weren't too many delegates up for grabs. However, his momentum will mean he is more likely to gain large amounts of delegates from the remaining states. This is what Obama had to say:
"Today the change we seek swept through the Chesapeake and over the Potomac. We won the state of Maryland. We won the commonwealth of Virginia. And though we won in Washington, D.C., this movement won't stop until there's change in Washington, D.C., and tonight we're on our way. Tonight we're on our way, but we know how much further we have to go. We know it takes more than one night or even one election to overcome decades of money and the influence, the bitter partisanship and petty bickering that shut you out, let you down, told you to settle."
This was a typical Obama speech - plenty of inspiration and calls for the arguments to stop. Some people say his policies aren't detailed enough, but he included plenty of detail in the debates (see 'Obama vs. Clinton - the CNN debate' and 'South Carolina - not on topic, not much detail').

For Hillary Clinton, her losses in the Potomac primaries weren't the only problems. Her deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, has resigned. He was expected to leave because the person who recruited him - Patti Solis Doyle - also stepped down recently. Some of the US public will see this as a loss of faith in Hillary and her chances of winning.

According to this article, Clinton now sees herself as the 'underdog', which is a huge change for her. ever since the early stages of her campaign, she has mentioned how she has the advantage in terms of experience and policy detail. If she's losing confidence then it confirms that there's a serious problem.

CNN's total delegate estimate is:
  1. Obama - 1215
  2. Clinton - 1190
  3. McCain - 812
  4. Huckabee - 217
  5. Paul - 16
It's interesting how Clinton (second place for the Democrats) has more delegates than the combined total of all the remaining GOP candidates.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: USA, Election, Potomac, Primaries

2 comments:

ryanshaunkelly said...

barack obama mike huckabee vs machine

huckabee obama:
we understand your disgust.
subversion of democracy.

know this:
gravel kucinich paul nader
will fight any ticket
with clinton or mccain on it.

your eyes & ears are open...

Mike Gravel Dennis Kucinich Dr Ron Paul Ralph Nader
united by truth elicit fear smear blacklist.

Too many lies,
democracy rising democracy now.
Rage against the machine.

Honesty compassion intelligence guts.

No more extortion blackmail bribery division.
Divided we fall.

Alfred Thompson said...

It's pretty much over on the Republican side. Romney came out behind McCain today. Huckabee and Paul will stay in for a while to promote their ideas but McCain is pretty much locked in.

On the Democratic side it is really too soon to tell. As McCain showed an underdog can come back. But in the long run I think people just don't like Clinton. She scares more people than she inspires. The reverse is true for Obama.
What will happen in November? Well too much can happen between now and then to predict.