Analysis: Obama has advantage in weeks ahead

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Analysis: Obama has advantage in weeks ahead
By Alan Silverleib


Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters before a rally Sunday in Alexandria, Virginia.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama's dominant coast-to-coast performance this weekend set a new tone for the post-Super Tuesday phase of an unprecedented struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama's overwhelming margins of victory in Washington state, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine, and the U.S. Virgin Islands signaled the start of what may prove to be a rough few weeks for Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. Five weeks and more than 30 contests after Iowa, the race for delegates between Obama and Clinton remains a virtual tie. Both candidates are roughly halfway to the magic number of 2,025 delegates needed to be nominated at the party's national convention in Denver this summer. The prospect of a brokered convention is no longer dismissed as a far-fetched scenario.

The race for money and momentum, however, may be starting to tilt slightly in Obama's direction. While the New York senator recently took out a $5 million loan to support her candidacy, money continues to pour into his campaign coffers with surprising ease. The growing discontent within the ranks of the Clinton campaign was highlighted by Clinton's decision on Sunday to replace campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime adviser Maggie Williams.

It also has become clear that the Clinton camp operates at a distinct disadvantage whenever delegates are chosen by traditionally lower turnout caucuses instead of higher turnout primaries. Obama's enthusiastic supporters flooded caucus sites in Nebraska and Washington on Saturday, propelling him to remarkably easy victories. Perhaps more surprisingly, Obama also bested Clinton in Sunday's Maine caucuses. Maine is one of the poorest states in Clinton's home region of the Northeast, and she generally has performed better than Obama among lower-income white voters. However, the unusual degree of enthusiasm and organization among Obama's backers negated any regional and socioeconomic advantages the state may have provided her....

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If the voting patterns in Louisiana and earlier states are reliable indicators of what is to come, Obama should do well in the remaining February contests. Tuesday's so-called "Potomac primary" in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia will feature sizable numbers of African-American, affluent and well-educated voters. Wisconsin -- which has a long history of supporting progressive reformers since the heyday of home state hero "Battling Bob" La Follette in the 1920s -- takes center stage February 19. The Clinton campaign, anticipating potential setbacks in all four of these primaries, already is placing a strong emphasis on March 4, when voters in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas go to the polls. The senator's team continues to hope that adherence to a "big state" strategy ultimately will allow her to triumph in Denver, even if Obama has won more contests by the end of the primary season....

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/11/monday.analysis/index.html