Results tagged “clinton”

We’ve been waiting for the moment when Hillary would acknowledge she’s no longer the front-runner. She did that this morning in Washington DC at a party for supporters. Obama thanked Hillary via his Web site, and had this to say:

With the last primaries in this seemingly endless Democratic primary season finally over, Barack Obama took the stage in St. Paul MN to address supporters. "Tonight I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," Obama declared. Speaking to supporters in New York, Hillary Clinton congratulated Obama, while leaving the end of the nomination battle open. "Now the question is where do we go from here," Clinton said. “You know, I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want?” Clinton asked rhetorically, before answering “I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.”

Last Thursday the Illinois State Board of Elections finalized its list of delegates selected in the February 5 primary. For Republicans, it's simple: John McCain has 54 delegates, Mitt Romney has 3. For Democrats, though, the complex rules of their party primary mean that 69 delegates will go to the convention to vote for Barack Obama, and 31 will vote for Hillary Clinton. Also tagging along will be a gaggle of superdelegates, some of whom have committed to a candidate, and others who haven't.

With Democrats hell-bent on dragging their primary season all the way to the convention, and John McCain all but the GOP nominee, the question of who is more electable is weighing on the minds of many voters. SurveyUSA, whose polling is usually pretty good, put together a couple of nice maps.

Yesterday's primaries in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island saw John McCain assume the mantle of the Republican presidential nominee, with commanding victories in all but Texas, and Mike Huckabee's announcement that he's withdrawing from the race. "It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but now what must be -- and that is a united party," Huckabee told told supporters in Dallas. After it became clear that McCain would sweep all four races, Barack Obama called McCain to congratulate him on winning the nomination, adding that he was looking forward to facing the Arizona senator in the general election.

It's quite possible that the fat lady will sing for Hillary Clinton tomorrow. Or not. Sometimes politics is like baseball: you never know what's going to happen. Voters in four states will make some pretty important decisions tomorrow: Will Clinton go on to Pennsylvania? Or will her campaign end tomorrow night in a series of defeats in big, critical states? Will Barack Obama assume the mantle of the presumptive Democratic nominee, and will the GOP get the fight they have been both anxious to begin and cautiously planning for?

In a race that may be a precursor to the Ohio and Texas Democratic primaries in March, Barack Obama won a decisive victory in Wisconsin last night, leading Hillary Clinton by nearly 20 points. He also won Hawaii, taking over 75 percent of the vote in a state where he had campaigned as a "native son." His victories last night mark his ninth and tenth consecutive primary or caucus wins and put his pledged delegate count at 1,140. Clinton has 1,005 pledged delegates. When you add in committed superdelegates, Obama leads Clinton 1,301 to 1,239, with John Edwards's 26 delegates still in play. Chris Bowers at OpenLeft points out that Clinton has now surpassed Jessee Jackson's 1988 total of 1218 delegates. 1988 saw the highest number of delegates ever won by a Democrat who did not win the nomination.

It seems like everybody in town knows Tony Rezko's name. And why not? Besides being under federal indictment, he's a big player in Illinois politics. He's also gotten some national attention, with Former Gov. Jim Edgar musing that Rezko isn't really Obama's problem, and a photo of him with former President Bill Clinton surfacing on the Today show.

Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primary last night, bringing his winning streak to eight, and eclipsing Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, 1,059 to 956 among pledged delegates.

At the risk of feeding the hype machine, we still have to offer a congratulations to Mr. Kanye West for pulling in some Grammy gold last night. While we still don't buy the Grammys as an accurate barometer of the music industry and what's actually, you know, good in music these days, it's still the industry's main award show so there's something to be said for coming away with multiple trophies. While the night's big winner was Amy Winehouse, Kanye still managed to pull in four awards, as well as one of the night's most memorable acceptance speeches (surprise!) when he gave producers the verbal smack-down for trying to run him off in the middle of a tribute to his mother.

Obama's landslide victories in the "Significant Saturday" contests - including Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands, and his Sunday win in the Maine caucuses, could break the deadlock over pledged delegates for the Democratic nomination. Obama is hoping that these wins will generate the momentum that he needs to carry Ohio and Texas on March 4. Rhode Island and Vermont hold their primaries that day, too. Obama's wins this weekend were bad news for Hillary Clinton, who tried to inject a ray of optimism by announcing that her campaign had raised $10 million from over 10,000 donors. Obama's campaign quickly announced that over 350,000 donors had already contributed this year.

Patty Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager and sister of 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis, stepped down Sunday after a string of primary losses to Barack Obama. She will be replaced by Maggie Williams, who had been working in an informal top role on the campaign since Obama won Iowa. Solis Doyle cited the extraordinary length of the campaign, and the toll that it was taking on her and her family. Shortly after Solis Doyle sent an email to campaign staff announcing her departure, Clinton issued a statement that read, in part, "this already has been the longest presidential campaign in history and one that has required enormous sacrifices of everyone and our families. I look forward to her continued advice in the months ahead."

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention… I forestall the launch of a national campaign, and frankly I would be making it easier for Sen. Clinton or Obama to win... Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Is it possible to be the inevitable presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in America and not have the funds to carry on? That's a question that Hillary Clinton's campaign is facing after she loaned her campaign $5 million. Clinton's staffers are also working without pay, and she loaned her campaign $5 million last month. Shortly after the announcement yesterday, an email went out to her supporters asking for additional funds:

John McCain won big in last night's Republican primaries, winning nine states and pushing his delegate count up to 559--not enough to win the nomination, but big enough to secure his standing as the front runner. Mike Huckabee got a boost last night as well, winning a string of upsets in the Southern states, enough to justify his continued candidacy. Mitt Romney, however, has bigger problems, winning only a handful of states, and with Huckabee still in, he won't get the one-on-one race he so desperately wanted.

Obama wins Illinois; Clinton takes Arkansas, Tennesee and Kansas. McCain took Illinois, Romney Massachusettes. [Trib, Trib]

In a memo released to the press yesterday, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe tried to manage expectations for tonight's returns:

Today's the big day. Along with 24 other states, we're voting in Super Duper Tuesday. Up for grabs are 1688 pledged Democratic delegates, and 900 Republican delegates. Delegate-heavy states such as California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Georgia could play a deciding role in the outcome of both races. But with polling showing a tight Democratic race, and Obama working overtime to split votes in odd-numbered districts, tonight's results won't produce a nominee for the Democrats.

While John McCain spent Super Bowl Sunday in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney made his pitch to the most reliably conservative county in Illinois. At a packed rally of several hundred people at the College of DuPage yesterday, he tried to convince voters here that he is the true conservative standard bearer. Romney vowed that as president he would "stand up for the principles of the Republican Party and to live in the house that Ronald Reagan built."

With the race for the Democratic nomination showdown just days away, and polls showing Obama closing in on Clinton in key Super Duper Tuesday states, the Obama campaign made a huge ad buy during the Super Bowl in the Super Tuesday states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Washington, (but, alas, not Illinois)

Were the mother and son who were shot in Gary the victims of a car-jacking--or a domestic dispute?

The United States isn't the only country that is having federal elections this year. In March a by-election will be held in Toronto's Toronto Centre Riding. And our sister site, Torontoist has been posting a semi-regular column by their Environment Editor, Chris Tindal, who is running for parliament as the Green Party candidate.

John McCain changed careers last night, from the candidate who was almost out of money (and the race) last summer to quite possibly the Republican presidential nominee. He's now the man to beat. The close but critical win in Florida gave him 57 delegates and a solid lead going into Super Duper Tuesday, (there are no superdelegates at the Republican National Convention). Hillary Clinton won the non-binding Florida race, a largely symbolic victory that featured virtually no campaigning and earned her no delegates to the convention.

Well, when it rains it pours. Today, it's raining awful people and practices, so let's get all the coverage done at once, and then we'll try to chase it with some puppies or some such after this. To the jerk cave!

Bill will chill has been answered with the announcement of the former president's campaign itinerary. Next stop on the legacy-tarnishing express: Edwardsville, IL. Hillary's more controversial half will be campaigning in the small town near St. Louis tomorrow morning, hosting a "Solutions for America" rally at Southern Illinois University at 7:45 a.m.

With this year's presidential primaries perhaps the most exciting in recent memory, the media, and the nation, have paid very little attention to today's Democratic primary in Florida. Unlike the Republicans, who will let half of the state's delegates vote at the convention, the Democrats stripped Florida of its delegates to the August convention for holding a primary earlier than party rules allowed. As part of the party's castigation of the state, Democrats have agreed not to campaign in Florida, an agreement that has been honored until now.

The South Carolina Democratic primary could have been a footnote in this year's race to the nomination. The Clintons fought hard in South Carolina, hoping that Bill's popularity in the black community could divide the vote, giving an unexpected win to Hillary. By the time the exit polls indicated that Obama had carried the state by wide margins, the Clintons were dismissing Obama's win as a by-product of the racial demographics in this southern state, the "black candidate" that carried a mostly African-American electorate. But the large turnout yesterday (over half a million by some estimates) combined with Obama's strong showing among non-black voters give the freshman Senator from Illinois new momentum heading into the February 5 vote.

The Tribune Editorial Board released its list of endorsements in the upcoming Illinois primaries on February 5. Among the list are 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski (striking a blow to challenger and progressive blog champion Mark Pera) and tenacious ice cream magnate Jim Oberweis -- running for Congress in the 14th District -- who is determined to get himself elected to some office, somewhere, some time (we hear Sugar Grove is looking for a new mayor, perhaps he should start there). They also endorse Senator Dick Durbin's challenger, Steve Sauerberg, who has about as much chance of unseating Durbin as Spanky the Clown.

"You've got to be willing to get a cut in your face to get rewarded at the end of the night. If you don't want to do it, you're not going to win the Stanley Cup." -- Blackhawks coach Denis Savard after last night's 1-0 loss to the Blue Jackets.