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COLUMBUS: Democrat Hillary Clinton racked up stunning
primary
victories Tuesday over Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas, resurrecting
her flagging White House hopes and setting the stage for an epic
nominating end game.
Clinton’s comeback prolonged
the longest and costliest nominating race in US history and ensured
weeks or months more of bruising battle for the right to face John
McCain, who clinched the Republican mantle Tuesday.
The feisty senator and former
first lady, her campaign threatened with oblivion, took Ohio, Texas
and Rhode Island, ending Obama’s 12-contest win streak after he
started the evening with a victory in Vermont.
Basking in the unaccustomed role
of underdog, Clinton, 60, crowed that the results heralded a “new
chapter in this historic campaign” and told a rally in Ohio that
“we’re going all the way” to the White House.
But Obama, a freshman senator
from Illinois, stressed she still faced tough odds to overhaul his
lead of about 100 in the race for the 2,025 delegates needed to win
the Democratic nomination.
“No matter what happens
tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this
morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination,” Obama,
46, told an outdoors rally in balmy San Antonio, Texas.
Obama, seeking to become the
first black US president, and Clinton, vying to be the country’s
first woman chief executive, turned their sights on their next big
showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22.
But some analysts predicted the
fight could go all the way to the Democratic convention in August
with the outcome decided by so called “superdelegates”—party
luminaries who can vote as they like.
With nearly all precincts
reporting in Ohio, Clinton had a 55-43 percent edge over Obama. She
led 51-47 percent in Texas, which followed its primary vote with
caucuses in a two-step delegate selection process.
Clinton came up big after
launching an all-out attack on Obama’s ability to protect the
United States, including a controversial ad aired three days ago
featuring children sleeping as a crisis broke over the White House.
Obama accused Clinton of fear
mongering but some analysts suggested the tactic worked. Texas exit
polls showed more than 60 percent of people who made up their minds
in the last three days opted for Clinton.
“We have two wars abroad, we
have a recession looming here at home,” she told the Ohio rally.
McCain, 71, also capped an
amazing comeback after his campaign had looked dead and buried in
mid-2007, crippled by overspending and infighting that led to an
exodus of top aides.
His victories Tuesday took
McCain, a Vietnam war hero distrusted by many conservatives for his
maverick stance on issues such as immigration, over the Republican
finish line of 1,191 delegates.
The Arizona senator promised to
combat Islamic extremism, keep the US economy open to world trade
and lower taxes if elected the successor to George W. Bush, whose
blessing he was to receive at the White House on Wednesday.
--AFP
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