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Barack Obama’s steady march toward the Democratic nomination accelerated Tuesday night with a larger-than-expected win in North Carolina and a paper-thin loss in Indiana.
The results prevented rival Hillary Clinton from adding to the 11th-hour momentum that had injected a new element of suspense into the party’s historic, and exhausting, nomination race.
“Tonight was the biggest night of the campaign for Barack Obama,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, an Obama backer since before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. “Barack Obama did exactly what he needed to do tonight.”
The results suggest that Obama has begun to move past the hotly controversial comments made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He demonstrated that he could take a punch.
“Tonight was a stopper in terms of the momentum that she had,” said Larry Gates, chairman of the Kansas Democratic Party and an undeclared superdelegate. “It’s changed the momentum, clearly.”
Gates said he expects Obama to claim the nomination. Now, the only question is when it’ll happen.
Gates said he’d be surprised if Clinton decided to end her campaign. In fact, Clinton said Tuesday night in Indianapolis that she was proceeding “full speed.”
But Clinton canceled a round of appearances on the morning news programs today. Said Gates, “The math is getting very difficult for her.”
North Carolina represented Clinton’s last clear shot at the White House, analysts said. An upset win would have given Clinton fresh bragging rights that she could carry a key state considered to be solid Obama turf.
But it didn’t happen. In fact, Clinton didn’t come close.
“Senator Clinton did not get out of the night what she needed,” said North Carolina Rep. Brad Miller, an undecided superdelegate. “To use a basketball analogy, she traded baskets. And she needed to do much better than this this late in the contest with her down 150 or 160 pledged delegates.”
Obama was buoyant, telling supporters in Raleigh that his victory came in “a big state, in a swing state, in a state where we will compete to win if I am the Democratic nominee.”
All that remains now are six final contests in a series of smaller venues: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
With only 217 delegates at stake in the six, Obama is all but certain to end the nomination race with his lead among pledged delegates intact. Obama aides confidently predicted Tuesday night that he would win a majority of the delegates on the line this month.
The key moment in the Indiana-North Carolina campaign, McCaskill said, was Obama’s refusal to sign off on the proposed federal gas-tax holiday plan that both Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain endorsed. The two are selling the 18-cent-a-gallon break as a way to save hard-pressed consumers money, although it would wipe out millions in federal highway construction dollars. Experts have questioned whether consumers would even save money.
“He respected people and was truthful with people,” McCaskill said. “It was a clear distinction between the old politics and the new politics.”
Still, an old demon continued to plague Obama — his inability to win working-class white voters. He lost that bloc in both states as a large number of voters signaled that they remained concerned about his ties to his former pastor. Those who considered that an important story broke solidly for Clinton.
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