Obama sweeps Potomac primaries

[FarCenter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2008/feb/13/barackobama.hillaryclinton

Suzanne Goldenberg and Ewen MacAskill in Washington

Barack Obama tonight established himself as the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination after winning three primary contests in the Washington, DC area by overwhelming margins over Hillary Clinton.

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Clinton now needs to win 56% of the remaining delegates if she is to secure the Democratic nomination. Her campaign showed new evidence of disarray tonight with the resignation of her deputy campaign manager, Michael Henry. As the results came in, her campaign worked the telephones in an effort to reassure donors that she remained a viable candidate.

Obama, speaking at Madison, Wisconsin, which holds its primary next week, told supporters he represented a "new American majority". He added:
"We won the state of Maryland. We won the commonwealth of Virginia and, though we won in Washington, DC, this movement will not stop until there is change in Washington, DC. Tonight we are on our way."

Clinton, at a rally in El Paso, Texas, did not refer directly to the elections. She mentioned a Texas putdown - all hat and no cattle. But it was an odd reference given that Obama has won more states than she has and more delegates.

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Tonight's convincing wins for Obama also complicate the Clinton's fallback plan of winning a large share of super-delegates, senior party officials who are free agents in the Democratic contest.

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He also for the first time began to make huge inroads into the constituencies Clinton could normally take for granted: white women and working-class households at the bottom of the economic ladder.

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The Clinton team had been braced for tonight's defeats but the breakdown of the figures was worse than they could have anticipated.

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In a crucial blow to Clinton, exit polls suggested that she had failed to win over the blue-collar voters who had previously supported John Edwards before his withdrawal from the Democratic race last month. Those votes are now going to Obama instead. Obama's coalition until tonight had been built round African Americans, and young people, as well as high-income and highly educated whites. Tonight, he matched her - and, in some cases, took a larger share of the vote - among white women and men and among the poor.