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NASHVILLE, Tennessee: Hillary Clinton quickly bounced up off the
canvas after her most lopsided electoral loss, but Barack Obama’s
South Carolina primary rout posed tough new questions for her White
House bid.
The Democratic hopeful’s motorcade was already
speeding for the airport when the scale of the Obama landslide
became clear, en route for Tennessee, a key battleground in a
nationwide 22-state showdown on February 5.
The Illinois senator, riding a wave of African
American support, drubbed the former first lady by 55 percent to 27
percent in the “first in the south” primary, tying their
nominating race at two major contests each.
But a defiant Clinton dispensed with a
concession speech, and skipped from a state, which had already
voted, to one where battle was yet to be joined.
Senator Clinton did call her rival before her
chartered 737 took off, and as she jetted to Nashville, issued a
statement congratulating Obama, which nevertheless bristled with
verve for the big fights to come.
“We now turn our attention to the millions of
Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the 22
other states as well as American Samoa who will vote on February
5,” she said.
Within a couple of hours, Clinton was wallowing
in the welcome of a gymnasium packed with 4,000 supporters, some
holding signs saying “I love you Hillary” as a college brass
band blasted away.
But the hooplah could not disguise the walloping
handed to Clinton—a victory even more emphatic than the most
one-sided polls had predicted.
In pure numbers, South Carolina handed down the
most stinging defeat of her career as an elected politician—though
it appeared less profound than Obama’s shock victory in the Iowa
caucuses on January 3.
That reverse had threatened to pitch the Clinton
campaign into meltdown, and nerves were only steadied when she
pulled off a sensational triumph in the New Hampshire primary five
days later.
Obama’s win also appeared to represent a
stinging rejection of former President Bill Clinton, who turned on
Obama ahead of the primary.
Exit polls showed undecided voters may have been
turned off by the ex-President’s tactics and flocked to Obama.
The Clinton brain trust must now decide whether
to reassess how it deploys the ex-President.
The primary, which saw Obama claim 81 percent of
black voters, also saw the former first lady deserted by a key
Democratic power base which helped her husband capture two White
House terms.
But Obama was also left with questions. It was
unclear if his primacy among African Americans would be replicated
in February 5 states, where the black vote is less dominant than
South Carolina.
Equally uncertain, was whether the triumph would
unleash a fresh wave of momentum, seen after his Iowa caucuses win,
only halted by Clinton in New Hampshire.
Aboard her plane, Clinton’s aides admitted
they had seen the rout coming, but styled it as an aberration, on
territory—with half of the Democratic electorate made up of
African Americans—favorable for her foe.
One aide said campaign strategists had argued
the former first lady should bypass the state altogether.
But Clinton decided she needed to put up at
least a token fight, to show she would wage a 50 state campaign for
the presidency.
Clinton’s mention of Florida was no accident.
Tens of thousands of people in the southern
state have already cast advance votes ahead of Tuesday’s
Democratic primary, even though its delegates to the national
convention, which formally chooses the nominee, were stripped after
it broke party rules and moved its contest forward.
Clinton says votes of millions of people in a
state crucial to November’s general election, cannot be simply
tossed away.
Not coincidentally, she is tipped for victory in
the phantom Florida primary, which could swing momentum back her way
going into Super Tuesday.
Though she said she will stand by a pledge not
to campaign in Florida, Clinton was due to visit the state on Sunday
for two private fundraisers.
She will then take her campaign nationwide, and
has high hopes, with the edge in opinion polls in big delegate-rich
states like California, New Jersey, and her own patch of New York.
-- AFP
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