Yesterday was the 88th anniversary of women’s right to vote and the platform for the Democratic Party Convention was all about women. The day started out with a women’s caucus featuring Mame Reilly of Virginia moderating. The caucus focused on all the accomplishes in the United States since women received the right to vote. It also emphasized the stakes of this election. It was repeated that John McCain voted against women on the equal pay for equal work bill before the Senate. Also, the importance actress Fran Dresher emphasized how important it is for the government not to legislate women’s bodies by taking away the right to choose. Ms. Dresher told her personal story of how she hates that her right to choose was taken because of a radical histerectomy and how women in general will also hate if their right to choose is taken by electing McCain. Dresher said that women should not allow the goverment to take their right to choose by electing John McCain as president. Ann Richards daughter, Cecile Richards electrified the caucus when she spoke about her mother and the many reasons for choosing Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain. Richards also empasized the record of Sen. Barack Obama on women’s issues. Obama voted for birth control, comprehensive women’s health education, and a women’s right to chose. Richards told how Sen. McCain has voted against women’s healthcare 125 times. She also reiterated that McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, the quote of the day from Richards was when she said “a woman voting for John McCain is like a chicken voting for Cornel Sanders.” Other speakers were United States Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. There was also a tribute to United States Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.

Barack Obama wins a landslide victory in Mississippi.  Final count, Obama 61%, Clinton 37%.  Obama and Clinton battled it out in the Mississippi Delta and Obama inhaled the sweet smell of magnolias.  Mississippi voters came out for the Illinois senator big time.  The turnout in Mississippi was two and a half times what the Secretary of State predicted.  Over 400,000 people came out to vote in the Magnolia State.  More people turned out in this primary than in the 2004 general election.  The state will proportionally distribute 33 delegates to the candidates.  Exit polls further revealed that Mississippi voters think that Barack Obama is more qualified to be Commander and Chief, 54% to Clinton’s 43%.  Obama also won the 17-29 voting block 67% to Clinton’s 32%.  Clinton won the 65 and older voting block 56% to Obama’s 44%.  Clinton also won white voters 72% to Obama’s 28%.  However, Obama won African-American voters 91% to Clinton’s 9%.  Of voters who decided in the last 3 days, Clinton won 55% to Obama’s 45%.  Mississippi voters were also asked if they believe that Obama is honest and trustworthy, 70% said yes.  When asked whether they believe that Clinton is honest and trustworthy, only 48% said yes.  Obama also increased his popular vote lead over Clinton by 100,000 votes. One interesting fact that came from the exit polls is that a majority of Clinton voters in Mississippi have a favorable view of John McCain.  Therefore, it stands to reason that if Clinton’s voters have a favorable view of the GOP candidate, that they are more open to being persuaded to vote for McCain in the general election than Obama supporters.  A possible Clinton electability issue that should be explored further.  Both candidates campaigned heavily in Mississippi.  The state has an open primary were independents and republicans voted. What was most on the minds of Mississippi voters, Katrina recovery.  The state has been devastated Katrina and recovery is not coming soon enough for its citizens.  Voters looked to the candidates for commitments to make the recovery a priority. Healthcare and the economy were also big issues for Mississippi voters.  Breaking News Update:  CNN just reported that Barack Obama won the Texas caucus.  This fact gives Obama a higher delegate gain in Texas than Clinton.  Because Texas is a two-step process, logic dictates that the candidate who comes out ahead after combining the two steps is the winner of the Texas primacaucus.  Obama received a combined total of 99 delegates from Texas, Clinton received a combined total of 94 delegates.  Final tally, a net gain of 5 delegates for Obama.  Therefore, Obama won Texas!  Obama continues to lead in the delegate count 1608 to Clinton’s 1478. 

Obama makes a comeback after last Tuesday.  Even though it is debateable as to who won Texas because Obama is leading in the second step of the primacaucus right now, Wyoming held its caucus today and Obama came out smelling like a rose.  Senator Barack Obama wins Wyoming handedly with a double digit margin over his rival Senator Hillary Clinton.  Obama will receive a proportional amount of the 12 delegates being allocated in Wyoming.  In addition, Wyoming also has 6 superdelegates.  The final tally was 61% to 38%.  This is a landslide victory for the senator from Illinois.  It was a record turnout in the the Equality State.  Nicknamed because it was the first state to give women the right to vote in 1869.  The irony is amazing.  It truly has earned its moniker as the state of equality given today’s results.   Another irony is that it is also the state that pushed John F. Kennedy over the top to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in 1960.  The turnout in Wyoming was so overwhelming that party officials had some issues accomodating everyone wanting to participate.  However, they were able to accomodate everyone.  There were 23 county caucuses across the state and a total of 59000 democrats registered in Wyoming.  Before the Wyoming caucus, Obama lead in delegate counts 1571 to Clinton’s 1462.  A total of 2025 delegates is needed to win the nomination. 

MI Caucus Likely, Says DNC Rules Committee Member

A member of the DNC’s Rules And Bylaws Committee–the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th–told me that Michigan plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days.“They want to play. They know how to do caucuses,” the DNC source said. “That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary.” Michigan Democrats had originally planned on caucuses after the legally permissible Feb. 5 date, but then went along with top elected Democrats, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who pushed for an early primary.

Hillary Clinton won that Jan. 15 primary, but was the only major candidate on the ballot. Barack Obama and John Edwards had removed their names, see story

Looks like the Governor of Florida is offering his support for a repeat democratic primary.  Because taxpayers pay for primaries in Florida, this would help with the financing portion of the repeat.  How kind of the the Governor to help out the democrats…(sarcasm intended).  Newsflash: if the REPUBLICAN Governor of Florida, who endorses his party’s nominee for his governing state’s primary, offers assistance to the opposing party……beware of true motives.  I’ll just point out the obvious.  It is in Crist’s interest to drag out the democratic primary with the two democratic candidates slinging as much mud as possible so that his party has ample necessary opposition research.  Democrats can be sure that all the negatives asserted between the two democratic candidates during this primary will show up in the general election in the form of republican ammunition.  I know that the media wants to drag this out because it translates into millions of advertising dollars, but it is really time for the democrats to UNITE behind a single nominee or face a serious risk of losing the general election in the fall.  We also now have conservative republican talk radio hosts encouraging their listeners to vote for Clinton because McCain has pretty much locked down the republican nomination.  The shock jocks are asking their listeners to use their vote in Ohio and Texas to sabotage the democrats for the general election by way of voting for the candidate that they have railed against for the last 20 years.  The longer this is drawn out the more susceptibility to mischief by the opposing party.  Democrats, its time to choose a candidate and make a decision before you shoot yourself in the foot.  Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who has not endorsed either democratic candidate, has also said whomever is ahead in delegates on Wednesday Oct 5th, should be the nominee and the other candidate should drop out of the race.  This should be about who can best lead and unite the democratic party as a whole, as well as who can beat the opposing party in November.  This should be less about supporting an entitlement theory.  Those who are backing the theory that Clinton should wait it out in hopes of Obama making a mistake is based on an underlying false premise that somehow Clinton is entitled to the nomination.  Or, there is some sort of financial gain involved for the person/industry supporting the strategy.  I have heard a couple of pundits pushing this approach.  I wholeheartedly disagree.  Democrats need to be DECISIVE on March 4th and start preparing  for the general election uphill battle in November.

The democrats overseas have spoken and Barack Obama wins their votes.  Their are a total of 11 delegates to be apportioned.  The final tally from the Democrats Abroad Global primary is 65% Obama and Clinton 32%.  The global primary began Feb 5th and continued through Feb 12th.  Voting stations were set up in 33 countries.  Democrats in countries that did not have voting centers were able to vote via mail, Internet, and fax.  The largest number of expatriates live in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico.

Barack Obama won handily in Hawaii by 76% of the vote. Obama’s winning streak increases by 2, to equal 10 wins in a row.  It looks as if the Windy City Senator has won the momentum fight going into the March 4^th primaries in Texas and Ohio.  Wisconsin was a sort of test site for the Clinton campaign as to whether its decision to use negative campaigning would boost their numbers and slim Obama’s margin of victory.  Clinton campaign officials have said that they will continue to go negative because the strategy did work in Wisconsin, even though Obama won by 17 percentage points.  The campaign opines that the Wisconsin victory margin is less than that of the Potomac Primaries so the strategy was a success.  Wisconsin exit polls revealed that 58% of voters felt that the Clinton campaign unfairly criticized Obama.  Only 33% thought that the Obama campaign unfairly criticized Clinton.  Wisconsin is known for its distaste of negative campaigning. Further revelations from the exit polls showed that 51% of the voters thought that Obama would be the best Commander-in-Chief.  Also, when Wisconsin voters were asked who cares about them, 54% believes that Obama cares more about them as people.   For Clinton to be competitive for the nomination at this point, she will have to win over 70% of the popular vote in the remaining battleground states.  In which, she would receive 65 percent of the delegates in those states.  This would be a shock heard around the world if Clinton were able to pull off such a feat given the dynamics of the race thus far.  If Obama wins 65 percent of the remaining delegates, he can win the nomination with just elected delegates.  The Senator would not need the superdelegates, he could clinch the nomination just from the primary and caucus vote.  Obama now leads Clinton in elected delegates by about 150, has won more states, and leads in the popular vote.

Both the democrats and republicans will be battling it out in the Wisconsin primary today.  Other states holding contests today include Hawaii with its Democratic caucus and Washington State with its GOP primary.  For the democrats there are 92 delegates up for grabs in Wisconsin and 20 delegates at stake in Hawaii.  For the republicans, Wisconsin has 40 delegates available and 19 delegates at stake in Washington state.  The real focus will be on Wisconsin today.  Both Obama and Clinton are neck and neck in the Copper State.  Wisconsin is a state made up of Clinton’s base, blue collar, working class, and only 6 percent african-americans.  Most would say that Wisconsin is tailor made for the Clintons, yet the Clinton campaign initially decided to pass on trying to win the state.   The Clinton campaign has said  that it does not have to win Wisconsin to win the nomination.  The question is whether Obama can pull out a win in the Badger State.  This is a very tight race between the two democratic candidates.  Turnout is expected to be record breaking, notwithstanding current weather conditions.

The Omentum seems to continue as Barack Obama adds another victory to his  sweep of victories this weekend.  This will be the fifth victory in a row for the Senator from Illinois.  The Maine caucus was one where the Clinton campaign thought that they would be able to pull out a win due to the positive numbers that they received in the state recently.  Clinton also hoped to win Maine in an effort to blunt Obama’s momentum going into the Feb 12th primaries.  Apparently, Maine voters had a different plan in mind.  Both campaigns saturated the state with radio and TV advertising.  The excitement about the caucus, even after the pinnacle of Super Tuesday, was not diminished.  There was tremendous anticipation and exhileration among voters showing up at the polls.  Not even the frigid temperatures could chill the enthusiasm of many of those who stood in long lines to make sure that their vote was cast.  Each of the candidates will receive a proportional share of the 24 delegates allotted.  As a side note:  Hillary Clinton replaced her campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle.  This new development took place on Sunday, right after Clinton lost four contests in a row to Obama.  The Clinton campaign has stated that Maggie Williams will be taking over as campaign manager beginning next week. 

The governor from Arkansas has taken Kansas and Louisiana.  Kansas is a very conservative town and flocked towards the conservative candidate to give him an landslide victory.  Huckabee won 62% of the vote.  In Louisiana it was a close race between McCain and Huckabee but Huckabee squeaks out the win.  However, according to Louisiana rules a candidate must receive 50% of the vote to receive any delegates at all.  Unfortunately for Huckabee, he did not reach the threshold.  McCain wins Washington.  Huckabee reiterated yesterday that he is not quiting.  Even though pundits speculate that it is nearly impossible for the Huckabee to win the nomination given that  John McCain is so much further ahead in delegate count.  However, Huckabee stated that he would rather be right and lose rather than be wrong and be part of the crowd.  It looks like he stood out from the crowd in Kansas and somewhat in Louisiana. 

It was a big night for John McCain and he proudly proclaimed himself the frontrunner for the republican nomination.  The senator from Arizona won key delegate rich states from New York to California.   Few would disagree that McCain has gained tremendous momentum.  McCain’s rivals, Romney and Huckabee, vow to stay in the race until the convention if necessary.  As for Obama and Clinton, both won victories in key states to end the night with no end in sight.  Obama won more delegates and more states.  Clinton won most of the northeastern corridor.  Neither of the two democratic candidates can legitimately claim an overall victory. However, I am sure that the campaign staffers will figure out a way to spin the results so that their candidate comes out on top.  Clinton maintained a majority share of the latino vote.  Obama maintained the lion share of the african-american vote.  However, Obama averaged 40% of the white vote which is what many of the analyst predicted that he would need in order to form a formidable coalition of voters that can push him through to the White House.  Unlike in previous contests where Clinton held a sizeable lead over Obama with women and white voters,  Clinton now only holds a slight edge with these groups.  Clinton won California which was billed as one of the big prizes of the night.   Obama won Missouri which has been billed as the bellwether state. New Mexico has yet to declare the democratic winner of it’s state but the last update showed a 70 vote difference between Obama and Clinton.  Obama is slightly ahead in the delegate count.  The February 9th primaries for the democrates  are Lousiana, Nebraska (caucus) and Washington (caucus).  For the republicans, its Louisiana, Kansas, and Washington (caucus).  The democrats have the Maine caucus on February 10th.  Both parties have primaries on February 12th in Maryland, Virgina, and DC.