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Women voters could decide race
09/02/2008 08:02 - (SA)
Washington - Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama appealed for the support of women voters as they faced off for electoral contests on Saturday, after nationwide races this week failed to entrench either candidate as the front-runner for the presidential nomination.
On the Republican side, presumptive nominee John McCain was seeking to heal divisions with his party's right-wing base by casting himself as America's steadfast protector against terrorism.
Clinton and Obama split wins during Tuesday's series of nomination contests in 22 states, a deadlock that promised to transform this already historic race between a woman and a black man into a fight that will last until the party's convention in August.
The two Democrats face four contests on Saturday, with the three most important ones - Washington state, Nebraska and Louisiana - offering a total of 161 delegates or about 10% of the total needed to win the party's nomination. Of those three races, Washington and Nebraska are caucuses, contests that have served Obama well in the past.
Washington battle
No state better illustrates the competition for women than Washington. The governor and both US senators are Democratic women. Clinton scored first, winning the endorsements of Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.
The former first lady has outpolled Obama among women so far, but Obama has fought hard, and by Friday he had his own coup. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire endorsed him to thunderous applause from more than 16 000 people crammed into the Key Arena, where the Seattle Supersonics basketball team plays. Another 3 000 filled an overflow room.
With both Clinton and Obama campaigning in this state on Thursday and Friday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a page-one story on Friday headlined: "Among women, contest is one for the ages."
It described many Seattle-area Democratic women splitting largely along generational lines, with most older women backing Clinton, 60, and many younger ones opting for Obama, 46.
Gregoire is among several women elected fairly recently from politically competitive states who have endorsed Obama, while many of their more veteran colleagues have backed Clinton.
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano gave Obama big boosts in their states, as did Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Obama also has benefited from endorsements by key female celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy. California first lady Maria Shriver also backed him, but could not deliver the state for him.
Still going
Meanwhile, McCain tried to appeal to conservatives and others suspicious of his break with the party-line on immigration, gay rights and other issues by focusing on a theme that has been a winner for the party in the past: Security.
He suggested on Friday that a vote for Clinton or Obama would ultimately encourage terrorists.
"They want to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq that I believe would have catastrophic consequences," he said following a discussion on national security issues in the Navy town of Norfolk, Virginia.
"I believe al-Qaeda would trumpet to the world they defeated the United States of America, and I believe, therefore, they would try to follow us home. There would be catastrophic consequences in the region, and we would be back."
"That is going to be, I think, a major issue in this campaign," the former Vietnam prisoner of war said.
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