|
Mississippi votes in tense race
11/03/2008 16:59 - (SA)
Biloxi - Mississippi headed to the polls on Tuesday in the nail-biting US presidential race with Democrat Barack Obama tipped for another victory over his White House adversary Hillary Clinton.
Republicans were also voting, but John McCain has clinched enough delegates to march to the party's nomination, and the Arizona senator can afford to slot in a high-profile trip to Israel, Britain and France next week.
The Democratic rivals headed into the Mississippi primary staring at deadlock all the way to the party's nominating convention in August.
Pitched battles erupted on Monday as Obama, who leads by about 100 delegates after 45 Democratic contests, ridiculed the Clinton camp for arguing that he is not ready to be commander-in-chief, but could be her vice president.
Polls give the African-American Obama anything from a six- to 24-point edge in Mississippi, where more than half of Democratic voters are black.
Rebuild Mississippi
Both Obama and Clinton have outlined plans to help rebuild communities on Mississippi's Gulf Coast that were obliterated by Hurricane Katrina in mid-2005.
But the former first lady was already looking past the Mississippi with a packed agenda of campaigning in Pennsylvania, a blue-collar state whose 158 delegates are up for grabs on April 22.
Karen Smith, 65, said it was the first time she had ever voted Democratic as she cast her ballot for Obama in West Biloxi on the hurricane-hit coast.
"He's a very special person. I think our country needs him," she said. "I like his character. I like his youth. Now that I'm getting older, I appreciate a young mind."
Another Democrat said she switched her vote to Obama after New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, a prominent Clinton backer apologised, but stopped short of resigning on Monday over reports he had hired a high-end prostitute.
She said the scandal reminded her too much of former president Bill Clinton's own troubles stemming from an affair with a White House intern.
"Superdelegates"
Clinton breathed new life into her faltering campaign with wins last week in Ohio and Texas, helped by an ominous television advertisement that questioned whether Obama was ready to deal with a crisis in the dead of the night.
Obama grabbed some momentum back on Saturday with a landslide win in Wyoming, but emerged from the caucuses with a net gain of only two delegates over Clinton.
Heading into Tuesday's primary, Obama had 1 589 delegates while Clinton had 17 470, according to a tally by RealClearPolitics.com.
Neither can reach the winning line of 2 025 delegates, even if Florida and Michigan go ahead with emerging plans to repeat their contests after running a foul of the national party for holding their primaries early.
So barring a backroom deal prior to the convention, the nomination will rest in the hands of nearly 800 "superdelegates," Democratic luminaries who are under enormous pressure from the two campaigns to sway one way or another.
|
News
