Indiana, N.C. Voters to Settle Largest Remaining Contests
May 6: Barack Obama chats with Rick Jones, 59, at Four Seasons Family Restaurant in Greenwood, Ind. (AP Photo)
Record numbers of voters streamed to the polls Tuesday in Indiana and North Carolina, which saw themselves — like many states this cycle — in the political spotlight for the first time in decades.
The sun had barely risen on polling stations when reports of lines, an excited electorate, as well as a few minor glitches, began to stream in. This comes as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama found themselves scheduled for a long day, with both making stops in each state.
It’s going to be “a heavy voting” day, the Marion County, Ind., clerk told The Associated Press, as lines stretched toward ballot boxes. And a North Carolina elections official projected voters there would be “making history” in a state where nearly 500,000 voters cast early and absentee ballots by Monday — more than half of all votes cast in the 2004 primary.
Click here to read on-the-scene reports from Indiana by FOX News’ Jeff Goldblatt.
Indiana was seen as a competitive state to begin with, with Clinton favored to win, and North Carolina has become more of a question mark: Obama was favored to win the Tarheel State by more than 20 points early in the race, but Clinton has narrowed the gap to within single digits in recent days.
Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe sidestepped questions when asked about fresh reports Tuesday from within the Clinton campaign that staffers were beginning to play down their possibilities North Carolina. The DrudgeReport cited anonymous sources in expectations of a loss of 15 points.
“I think we’re going to be pleasantly surprised,” McAuliffe told FOX News, adding, “I think North Carolina is very hard because of where we started this thing 25 points down (in the polls). I think we’re going to do better than people had thought.”
McAuliffe predicted a win in Indiana.
Obama, speaking to reporters in Greenwood, Ind., was little more circumspect.
“I feel good … ,” Obama said. “I think it’s gonna be close. I don’t think anybody really knows exactly what’s gonna happen. … But as usual I’m seeing a lot of enthusiasm among the voters. People are just really engaged and excited about this campaign, this process.”
The two states are the largest remaining races in the Democratic presidential nominating contest with 115 pledged delegates up for grabs in North Carolina and another 72 in Indiana. But expectations are low that either state will change the direction of the race that has so far been marked by an uncharacteristically long primary season, and is expected to last until June, or possibly not be settled until the August party convention.
Both Clinton and Obama predicted they’d still be campaigning in June.
North Carolina and Indiana cannot mathematically settle the nomination. A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to win, and Obama had 1,745.5 to Clinton’s 1,608 Monday.
The key to the nomination is held by superdelegates, party leaders who aren’t bound by the outcome of state contests. About 220 are still undecided.
Indiana reported a handful of voting problems early in the day. Two inspectors showed up late. In two other precinct, ballots did not arrive, but they were printed to get that station opened by 7 a.m. And another voting district discovered problems with a touch-screen machine.
Leading up to the latest Big Day
Clinton, at her scrappiest when her campaign is on the line — which it has been for weeks — brought a full-throated roar to a series of events in a day of frantic travel spilling into the wee hours Tuesday.
A wealthy inside-Washington veteran, the former first lady worked hard to make common cause with blue-collar voters crucial to Tuesday’s outcome.
“I do see you, I do hear you,” she told supporters in Merrillville, Ind., speaking outside the local fire station as a dozen firefighters looked down on her from the fire truck behind her.
She pressed her proposal for a federal gas tax holiday that Obama has dismissed as a gimmick, one of the few issues where the two Democrats clearly diverge.
“It’s a stunt,” the Illinois senator said in Evansville. “It’s what Washington does.”
Obama’s stance was backed up by 230 economists who released a letter Monday opposing the temporary tax break, which would take 18.4 cents off the price of a gallon if consumers got the full savings at the pump. The signers included four Nobel Prize winners and economic advisers to presidents of both parties.
Clinton shrugged off the blistering reviews from policy makers, industry experts and editorial writers.
“I believe we should start standing up for the majority of Americans who are paying the outrageous gas prices,” Clinton said. “I’m ready to take on the oil companies.”
Obama hurtled from Indiana to North Carolina and back.
“I want your vote. I want it badly,” he pleaded on a factory floor in Durham, N.C., one of many settings drawing the working-class voters he needs.
Obama capped his day with a rain-soaked, get-out-the-vote rally in Indianapolis featuring Motown legend Stevie Wonder, followed by a visit to a factory for the midnight shift change.
Standing at the gates outside the Auto Components Holding plant, partly owned by Ford, Obama shook hands one-by-one with employees as they left. “If I got your vote, it would mean a lot,” Obama told them.
“We need all the help we can get here. They’re trying to close us down,” one worker told Obama.
The plant, once owned entirely by Ford, makes steering components. It employs 1,200 workers — roughly half of them on the Ford payroll — and is scheduled to be shut down at the end of 2010, said Jim Lewis, United Auto Workers president at the plant.
Addressing a group of employees, Obama said, “What you do here — this represents the best in America.” He said he recognized the situation with layoffs and plant closing and promised to be an advocate for workers if elected president. “We’re not going to reverse it overnight,” he added.
“I need everybody’s help,” Obama said. “This is going to be a close race.”
At a late-night rally in Evansville, Clinton spoke to a sparse crowd that filled only half of a stuffy high school gymnasium. Nevertheless, she seemed just as animated as she had at her first stop of the day, and spent time after her event signing autographs, posing for pictures and shaking hands.
“Jobs, jobs, jobs,” she stressed before the crowd waving Clinton campaign signs with union seals on them.
Clinton predicted a record turnout in Indiana and noted that this is the first time in 40 years that the state will have an impact on the presidential election.
“It’s way past time,” she said.
“What we need to do together is understand that this is not about me, this is about you,” Clinton added. “Solution, not speeches. Results, not rhetoric.”
Despite a rash of recent troubles and his loss to Clinton in the big Pennsylvania primary two weeks ago, Obama has continued to nibble away at Clinton’s lead in superdelegates. He picked up two from Maryland on Monday, leaving him trailing Clinton 269-255.
Clinton’s main hope is to persuade most of the still-neutral superdelegates to disregard his lead in the delegate chase and support her instead. Her campaign also hopes to get a boost by getting delegates from Michigan and Florida seated.
Obama easily outspent Clinton in both states while outside supporters threw big money into the contest, too.
The Service Employees International Union, which is backing Obama, spent about $1.1 million in the state, much of it on ads. The American Leadership Project, which has received most of its money from labor groups backing Clinton, spent more than $1 million on ads in Indiana that questioned Obama’s economic policies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
There are pictures at savagepolitics.com showing illegal campaigning within 100 yards of the voting. Please FOX, you are our fair and balanced coverage! Obama should not be allowed to cheat!
If Hillary Clinton (the Clintons) becomes the Democratic nominee, the American people simply will not have a good choice in November. The policies, positions and programs offered by her and Barack Obama are not significantly different and their contrasts with John McCain’s positions are near identical. Where there is remarkable difference is in their personalities and in the hope offered for getting things done to benefit other than Special Interests and a select few and to have other than more Washington as usual. Hillary (and Bill too) has demonstrated throughout this campaign and her career a propensity to say/do anything that she feels will benefit her, without conscience, guilt, apology or hesitation. She has been aggressive, arrogant, dishonest, self-focused, belligerent and ready to offer anything at any time with her only criteria being that it is to her advantage. In the past she has shown that all that matters to her is her prestige and personal gain, ignoring her husband’s indiscretions, excusing her own dishonesty and accepting any advantage she can get. She attempts to present all of this as being strong, as being a fighter but it is literally divisive and, as shown throughout her career, it really handicaps her in getting things done. Much like George W. Bush, Hillary exhibits a strong, sociopathic personality that says everything is about her and, as we have seen, that is nothing but trouble. Should Hillary Clinton get the nomination then the choice in November will be to continue with more of the same GWBush policies (McCain) or more of the self-centered GWBush style personality (Clinton). Really not much of a choice!
I see a lot of Hillary supporters are on here supporting the pandering of HRC (gas tax relief, LOL) and holding the company line of “electablilty.” If you all truly believe this, how can Hillary win without the black vote? The black vote is by far the most loyal constituency within the democratic party. I agree that many of Hillary supporters will vote for McCain, but I know for a fact that just as many Obama supporters will sit this one at if he is not the nominee.
“Remember, you don’t have a right to complain about the result if you don’t vote.”
Whose law is that? I don’t remember reading that in the constitution…
If you don’t support any of the candidates than not voting is a political statement. If I don’t vote I’ll complain all I want, it’s my right.
Get rid of the superdeligates and let the American People pick the person they want. I thought we were living in a democracy. Also, vote for Hillary, the lesser of “three evils”.
Glad I got to be a part of Operation Chaos today! Fellow Hoosier GOPers, pimp yourself and vote Hillary!
HILLARY CLINTON for PRESIDENT 2008! I hope she can really hang on. I don’t trust that other guy. Especially knowing that his mom was aetheist. Im tired of him always playing the card race. I can just see if he wins the presidency, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, & his miserable pastor Jeremiah Wright, would be barking and lingering around the white house.
Should Hillary lose the nomination, then John McCain is the man. I don’t think Hillary should accept the vice president position if she was asked to, she should run in 2012.
Go Hillary! All the way!!!!!!!!
If Obama wins I urge, Hillary supporters to come and support John McCain!
Are you guys gonna elect an racist who was so mean to the Clintons?
Why isn’t some reporting that most of the voting machines in North Carolina are broken in the black community and people have been out there waiting for hours. The black community knows exactly what’s going on.