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Obama wins Mississippi, focus turns to Pennsylvania election

WASHINGTON: With a six-week gap until the next primary, Hillary Rodham Clinton turned her attention to Pennsylvania and beyond to counter the latest in a string of victories by Barack Obama in Southern States with large black voting blocs.

Mr. Obama won roughly 90 per cent of the black vote in the Mississippi primary on Tuesday, but only about one-quarter of the white vote. That was similar to the breakdown that helped him win South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana before losing to Ms. Clinton in Texas and Ohio, which has similar voter demographics to neighbouring Pennsylvania with large numbers of older and white working-class voters who tend to favour Ms. Clinton. Mr. Obama had 61 per cent to 37 per cent for Ms. Clinton. Senator McCain, who has already won enough delegates to claim the Republican nomination, rolled up 79 per cent of the vote in Mississippi.

Mr. Obama picked up at least 17 of Mississippi’s 33 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, with five more to be awarded. He hoped for a win sizeable enough to erase most if not all of Ms. Clinton’s 11-delegate gain from last week.

The Illinois Senator had 1,596 delegates to 1,484 for Clinton. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination at the party’s national convention in Denver in late August.

With neither appearing able to win enough delegates through primaries and caucuses to claim the nomination, the importance of nearly 800 elected officials and party leaders who will attend the national convention as unelected superdelegates is increasing.

Mr. Obama leads Ms. Clinton among pledged delegates, 1,385-1,237 in The Associated Press count, while the former First Lady has an advantage among superdelegates, 247-211. The volatile issue of race in the campaign resurfaced earlier on Tuesday following remarks by Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice-presidential candidate and a Clinton supporter. Ms. Ferraro, the first woman to be a candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket, suggested Mr. Obama only achieved his status in the presidential race because he is black. “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman [of any colour] he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept,” Ms. Ferraro said in an interview with the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, that was published last Friday.

The Obama campaign said Ms. Ferraro should be removed from her position as a fundraiser with the Clinton campaign.

Mr. Obama called Mr. Ferraro’s comments “patently absurd” and “divisive” in an interview with a Pennsylvania newspaper.

Ms. Clinton expressed disagreement with Ms. Ferraro’s comments, and said, “It’s regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal.” — AP

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