Focus Shifts to Three More Contests, After Huckabee Wins Saturday Kansas Republican Caucuses
Barack Obama, shown here at a campaign rally Saturday in Bangor, Maine, faces off against Hillary Clinton in Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska. (AP Photo)
The presidential race immediately shifted to the three remaining states holding contests Saturday, after Mike Huckabee pulled out a win in the Kansas caucuses earlier in the day.
GOP candidates move on to compete in Louisiana and Washington, while Democrats are looking to contests in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and the Virgin Islands to pick up momentum before the more bountiful upcoming primaries in populous East Coast states.
For Democrats, the still airtight race likely will go on for many weeks — but a sweep of wins in the upcoming contests could help boost one of the candidates to the front and prevent the race from coming down to the convention in August, which some party officials dread will happen.
For Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, 161 delegates are at stake Saturday, and 24 are available in Maine’s Democratic caucuses on Sunday.
Washington, with 78 delegates, is the biggest prize and the first of many unlikely states to be showered with attention by the candidates.
Click here for full results from the Saturday contests.
Clinton’s campaign began downplaying expectations ahead of Saturday evening’s results.
Depicting Clinton as the underdog financially, spokesman Phil Singer said the states were contests where “the Obama campaign has long predicted they would win by large margins.”
Obama raised $32 million in January, compared to Clinton, who raised $13.5 million and then lent her campaign $5 million of her personal fortune on top of that. Both candidates raised close to $7 million in the two days after Super Tuesday.
“The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads,” Singer said. “Although the next several states that hold nominating contests this month are more favorable to the Obama campaign, we will continue to compete in them and hope to secure as many delegates as we can before the race turns to Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.”
Both candidates campaigned in Seattle and other major Washington cities ahead of the state’s contest, but headed to Maine Saturday.
There they argued how their own assets would stack up against John McCain in November, if he is the GOP nominee.
Obama said in Bangor that McCain chose to “embrace the worst aspects of the Bush legacy” by shifting to support the Bush tax cuts and backing his foreign policy.
“So the wheels came off the straight talk express because now he supports making those tax cuts permanent,” Obama said. “I greatly respect Senator McCain’s half-century of service to this nation but what America needs right now isn’t a leader who embraces the failed polices of the past … what America needs is a new generation of leadership … That’s the kind of leadership I intend to offer as president.”
Clinton said in Orono, Maine, that “every delegate is important,” and argued she’s the strongest candidate to go up against McCain.
“You’ll never have to worry about me being knocked out of the ring. I think I can go toe to toe with John McCain every single day,” she said.
She even argued Obama — the anti-war, one-term senator — is the establishment candidate.
“He has increasingly run an establishment race and he has increasingly relied on big endorsements and celebrities to attach himself to to get the kind of validation that comes from that sort of endorsement,” she said. “If we want a Democrat to be the standard bearer who stands for the positive agenda of the Democratic Party … I think I’m the best candidate to carry that message.”
Both campaigns also focused on Louisiana. Obama spoke in New Orleans Thursday about recovery needs after Hurricane Katrina, while Bill Clinton made a Friday swing through the state for his wife.
Click here to see photos from the campaign trail.
But the 185 Democratic delegates at stake in this weekend’s contests won’t guarantee a win. Neither will the 175 at stake Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas. Neither will the 370 at stake on March 4 in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Coming out of Super Tuesday, Clinton and Obama are effectively tied. The latest tallies show Clinton with 1,055 delegates and Obama with 998, and they each need about 1,000 more to win the nomination.
Complicating that is the fact delegates are awarded proportionally for Democrats, so candidates are not just looking for wins, but big margins. And they’re looking at all the states.
Obama has been airing commercials for more than a week in television markets serving every state that has a contest though Feb 19.
Clinton began airing ads midweek in Washington state, Maine and Nebraska and added Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Friday.
On the GOP side, Huckabee’s win in Kansas demonstrated the lingering rift in the party after McCain was minted the clear front-runner Super Tuesday.
Huckabee beat McCain by a margin of three-to-one. Huckabee had the support of anti-abortion activists, while McCain had the backing from conservative Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. But McCain still is trying to reach out to conservatives, many of whom are skeptical of him for taking moderate positions on campaign finance, taxes and immigration.
Huckabee pledged Saturday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., that he would be staying in the race, even though Mitt Romney’s exit earlier in the week made McCain the virtual heir to the GOP nomination.
“This is a huge win for us,” Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman said. “This is a state that both candidates competed in. This shows that Washington pundits don’t pick the nominee. The folks in the states and outside the Beltway pick the nominee. So not so fast, we still have a long way to go until the nominee is picked, with 20-plus states left.”
Huckabee will have a lot farther to go to catch McCain. Kansas offers 36 total delegates, but the Arizona senator began the day with 719 delegates. Huckabee had 198, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.
McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker downplayed the Kansas loss, saying in a statement, “Our campaign fully expected to fall short in the Kansas caucus. John McCain is the presumptive nominee in this race, our path forward is unchanged by today’s results, and our focus remains the same: uniting the Republican party to defeat Democrats in 2008.”
There are 74 delegates at stake for the GOP in Saturday’s contests in Kansas, Louisiana and Washington. McCain’s campaign has said the earliest the Arizona senator could seal the nomination with the needed 1,191 delegates is the March 4 primary.
FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and Serafin Gomez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I’m a Republican who likes to dress up in high heels.
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.
>Comment by Osgood1750
>February 9th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
>I can’t believe Andy (above) said he is “pro-torture.” That is the true legacy that “W” has left >America. If I’m not mistaken, torture is one of the things that our founding father’s specifically >outlawed. The absence of torture as a government tool is a rare thing in human history. But I’m >sure that Andy knows better than they, because he is a “true” conservative, right?
Obviously, Osgood didn’t read my entire litany. I am anything but a true conservative. I’m also pro-choice and a few other heretical things.
My views on torture have nothing to do 9/11 or Bush. They are based on the historical fact that torture used by professionals to extract information works nearly all the time. I’m not talking about deputy redneck beating a false confession out of a suspect. I am talking about methodical, verifiable information gathering. The former is guaranteed to produce nonsense. The latter has been proven accurate for thousands of years. For intelligence purposes, the goal is to produce new information or a confirmation of know information.
So, Osgood, you have a guy in your hands. You KNOW he can tell you what it takes to stop 9/11, but you have a very limited time frame. Whatcha gonna do?
This race is often refered to as a horse race. As we see in those type of races are the favorites leading in a pack as they near the final turn..Then from just behind them comes a determined challenger with a head of steam..As he draws to their side in the stretch , they must change their pace rapidly soon finding they have no reserve. He barrels to the finish line much to the surprise of all in attendance.Another victorious longshot adorned in flowers standing in the winners cicle. All the experts..wrong again. Mike Huckabee is that longshot horse..riding the hoofs of the pack..readying his move.. i love a good race and I look forward to the finish line
The recent election results seem a more than fair indicator that McCain is not the winning choice for Republican’s. He is the choice of pundits and News Programs that fail to accept that Huckabee (and should of all along) been included in the conversations and debates equally instead of always being treated as the stepchild. Although it may seem an impossible CLIMB for Huckabee to be the Presidential nominee, I am sure it is not impossible for the driving force inside him that has him continuing to run. I for one will not be surprised if he is the party nominee.