Obama Takes Delegate Majority

Mark Reached With Big Victory in Oregon as Clinton Wins Easily in Kentucky

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 21, 2008; A01

Sen. Barack Obama crossed another threshold last night in his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination, splitting a pair of primaries with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and claiming a majority of the pledged delegates at stake in the long nomination battle.

Obama scored an easy victory in Oregon after being trounced by Clinton in Kentucky. The results left him fewer than 100 delegates short of the 2,026 currently required to win the party's nomination in one of the closest contests that Democrats have staged in a generation.

The senator from Illinois stopped short of claiming the nomination, a milestone he may not be able to reach until the end of the primaries on June 3. But he staged a victory rally in Iowa, the site of his first big win of the year, to highlight his near-lock on the nomination and to continue to shift his focus to a general-election campaign against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Recalling the lengthy road he has traveled, Obama told a boisterous crowd gathered near the Iowa state Capitol: "Tonight, Iowa, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States."

Obama's claim to the most pledged delegates last night was also a not-so-subtle message to the remaining uncommitted superdelegates that if they now endorse Clinton, they will be going against the will of Democratic voters nationwide.

Well before Obama took the stage in Iowa, Clinton spoke to cheering supporters in Louisville, and again signaled her determination to stay in the race until she or Obama has locked down a majority of the delegates. "This is one of the closest races for a party's nomination in history," she said. "We're winning the popular vote, and I'm more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot counted."

Clinton said that she will campaign in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, where the three remaining contests will be held, and that she will keep pressing to seat the full delegations from Michigan and Florida, whose primaries were disallowed because their timing violated Democratic Party rules. "I'm going to keep making our case until we have a nominee, whoever she may be," she said.

In Kentucky, Clinton came close to replicating her blowout victory in West Virginia a week earlier, and in doing so she once again exposed Obama's weakness among working-class white voters in that region of the country. According to a survey of Oregon voters, however, Obama was winning the white vote.

A total of 103 pledged delegates were at stake in yesterday's primaries. Under current rules, there are 3,253 pledged delegates, which means Obama needs 1,627 to claim a majority. Current rules, which do not include delegates from Michigan or Florida, require the nominee to win at least 2,026 delegates -- pledged and superdelegates.

Both Obama and Clinton opened their speeches last night by paying tribute to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who found out that he has a malignant brain tumor, praising him as a fighter and a conscience of the Democratic Party.

Obama also praised Clinton as a formidable rival who has never stopped fighting for the American people. "No matter how this primary ends," he said, "Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age."

But with his campaign eager to pivot to the fall election, Obama's real focus was on McCain, whom he described as a virtual clone of President Bush on the Iraq war and economic policy and as someone out of touch with the country's mood.

"I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations," Obama's remarks continued, "but the one thing they don't represent is change."

In a statement last night, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Rather than offer solutions and leadership, Senator Obama again tonight launched the tired old political attacks of a typical politician, not the 'new politics' he's promised. America needs a commander in chief who is ready from day one. John McCain has the experience, character and courage to move America forward with strength, optimism and resolve."

The odds against Clinton are now so long that it would take a near-miraculous change in the Democratic race to alter the trajectory that Obama is on to clinch the nomination next month. Her claim to be winning the popular vote depends on including the results from Michigan and Florida. Neither Clinton nor Obama campaigned in either state because of party sanctions, and Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan.

Clinton also pressed the arguments that she has made after other recent victories: that Democrats cannot afford to lose the presidential race and that superdelegates must consider who would be the stronger nominee in the fall. "We have to get this right," she said. "We have to select a nominee who is best positioned to win in November and someone who is best prepared to address the enormous challenges facing our country in these difficult times."

As Clinton carries on her campaign, she has toned down direct attacks on Obama and has made it clear to her advisers that she does not want to do or say anything at this point that could hurt him in a general election. She also hopes to keep alive her case that she would be a stronger candidate in the fall, but she has indicated that she will have a better chance to rally her supporters to Obama's side, if he is the nominee, if she is allowed to finish out the nomination battle on her own terms.

Obama has been similarly careful, telling his staff not to do or say anything that appears to pressure Clinton to leave the race prematurely. Nonetheless, the Obama campaign's decision to stage its celebration in Iowa last night and claim a majority of pledged delegates rankled Clinton and her advisers.

Obama plans to continue shifting his focus to the general election and to the states that will help decide its outcome. Today he will travel to Florida, where he did not campaign earlier this year. Polls in Florida have shown him running behind McCain and faring worse than Clinton against the senator from Arizona.

The Kentucky result continued Clinton's winning steak across a swath of the country that includes Appalachia, as well as industrial states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that will be battlegrounds in the general election. Clinton has repeatedly pointed to her victories in those states to argue that she would be a stronger candidate against McCain.

The Kentucky results once again highlighted Obama's problem of lacking support from lower-income white voters, a potential concern in a general-election race. But Obama looked to largely white Oregon, where he drew an estimated 72,000 people at a rally in Portland on Sunday, to demonstrate that he can appeal to white voters in other parts of the country.

Despite endorsements over the past week by former senator John Edwards (N.C.) and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Obama was routed by Clinton among virtually all groups of voters in Kentucky.

According to exit polls, the senator from New York was carrying about three-quarters of white voters who earn less than $50,000 a year and who do not have college degrees. She was winning four out of five white voters older than 60 and even romped among younger white voters, normally an Obama constituency.

But the survey of Oregon voters showed that Obama ran about evenly with Clinton among white voters with incomes below $50,000 and among those without college degrees.

The polling data highlighted deep cultural differences in the two states. Far more voters in Kentucky than Oregon attend church weekly. Far more Oregon voters describe themselves as liberal than those in Kentucky.

Obama, Clinton and McCain reported their April fundraising results last night. Obama's campaign said he had amassed $31 million in April, including 200,000 new donors, as he continued to shatter records for money raised and for donors. Clinton, who has trailed Obama in the fundraising sweepstakes, nonetheless raised $22 million last month, a figure all the more impressive because it came as her path to the nomination continued to narrow.

McCain's team reported raising $18 million in April, the best month to date in his once cash-starved campaign. He reported having almost $22 million in cash on hand; Obama's campaign said it now has about $37 million in the bank.

Staff writers Perry Bacon Jr., traveling with Clinton, and Shailagh Murray, traveling with Obama; polling director Jon Cohen; and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.