March 4, 2008
Obama and McCain Are Projected to Win Vermont
By JODI KANTOR and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Senator Barack Obama appeared poised to pick up his 12th straight victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic nominating race on Tuesday as the television networks and The Associated Press projected that he would win the Vermont primary, the first of four contests on a potentially decisive night.
But attention remained focused on the contests in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas, where Election Day polls showed Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, locked in a tight race. They are also competing in Rhode Island.
While Mr. Obama is hoping to firm up his status as the front-runner, Mrs. Clinton faces a pressing need to win at least one of the bigger states, if not both of them to remain a viable nominee or risk a rapid drop-off of support within her party.
On the Republican side, Senator John McCain moved closer sealing his claim to his party's nomination as the networks and The A.P. projected that he won that party's primary in Vermont.
Voting officials in all four states marveled at the Democratic turnout. "Best I can tell it's a tsunami of voters," said Gerry Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, which encompasses Houston and its environs. At some polling sites there, as many as 100 voters lined up before the polls opened at 7 a.m., Mr. Birnberg said.
An estimated 3.3 million Texans, a primary record, are expected to cast their ballots by the end of the day, according to state election officials. About 1.2 million Texans in the state's 15 most populous counties already took part in early voting, four times the previous high set in 2000. The large numbers could slow the reporting of results.
While the Mrs. Clinton projected confidence, the Obama campaign issued reminders of Mr. Clinton's earlier statements saying that Mrs. Clinton needed to win Texas and Ohio.
"Three weeks ago, when they led polls in Texas and Ohio by 20 points, the Clinton campaign set their own test for today's primaries," Bill Burton, a spokesman, said in an e-mail statement. He set expectations for his candidate's performance fairly low, saying only that Senator Barack Obama will maintain his delegate lead. Behind the scenes, leading Obama supporters of were working to persuade Democrats, particularly the superdelegates who could decide the nomination, to step forward and coalesce behind him as soon as Wednesday, according to Obama supporters and campaign officials.
"You know this is a long process," Mrs. Clinton told reporters Tuesday morning outside a polling place in Houston. "Never underestimate the intelligence of the voters," she said, referring to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll in which voters expressed a preference for her campaign to continue if she wins either Ohio or Texas.
Her message was entirely different from the one delivered by former President Bill Clinton just a few weeks ago, when he told Ohio and Texas voters that his wife would not succeed without victories in those delegate-rich states.
But while the Obama campaign was issuing reminders about what Mr. Clinton said a few weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton reached back much further into the past, citing her husband's nomination victory in June 1992 as well as the long-lost days when parties chose candidates at summertime conventions. Her campaign is just hitting its stride, Mrs. Clinton said, even though she has been running for well over a year, in a race that has gone on longer than anyone expected.
"We're just beginning to draw those contrasts and those differences and that's when voters start to zero in," she said, expressing optimism despite 11 straight recent losses to Mr. Obama.
On a conference call with reporters, representatives from her campaign played up later contests particularly Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, where Mrs. Clinton is the early favorite.
A few months ago, today's voting was not expected to count much, thanks to a front-loaded calendar that was supposed to settle the nominations of both parties early. Faced with their unexpected responsibilities, some of Tuesday's Democratic voters struggled until the final possible moments with their choice.
At Canterbury Elementary School in Cleveland, Ohio, a graduate student at Case Western University said she had procrastinated until the very last minute, even dawdling of minor judicial selections in the voting booth. "I was filling out circles for random judges until I ran out of circles," she said.
In the end Mr. Obama got her vote, in part because the woman said she thought he would be more electable than Mrs. Clinton, and in part because of his stance against the conflict in Iraq.
mostly because of his stance against the conflict in Iraq. "Hillary voted for the war, and I know she says she regrets it, but I can't forgive her for that," said Ms. Pecora, an immunologist.
She added that the Obama presence in Cleveland has overshadowed that of Mrs. Clinton, who has fewer ads on television and fewer signs on front lawns. "Everywhere you look, it's Obama, Obama, Obama," she said.
Rasheda Thomas said she had finally made up her mind on the drive over to the same polling place. "It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and it will take a Clinton to clean up after the second Bush," Asked if she had any qualms about not supporting Mr. Obama, Ms. Thomas, who is black, said, "I'm a woman first."
Meanwhile, as Mr. McCain campaigned Tuesday morning in San Antonio, he said that he hoped to win enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination and force Mike Huckabee from the race. And he took a swipe at the Democratic candidates, implying that they were harsher in their criticism of Nafta when they campaigned in Ohio, with its struggling industrial sector, than in Texas, which has benefited from trade with Mexico.
"I didn't go to Ohio and say anything that I'm not saying here in the state of Texas," Mr. McCain said. "I support Nafta. I support free trade. I support it in Ohio, I support it in Texas, I support it all over the country."
The stark contrast between the hotly contested Democratic race and the all-but-decided Republican contest was on display at adjacent party polling places at a senior citizens housing complex on Allen Parkway, Houston's greenbelt built by oil barons to beautify their commutes downtown. At the Democratic location, 125 voters had cast ballots by 11:30 a.m. At the Republican location, exactly 5, including the two election judges, Rene Aninao, and Tom Hicks, both 26 and financial advisers.
Jared Woodfill, the Republican chairman of Harris County, said his party's vote elsewhere was "pretty heavy." He said there were also "a lot of Republicans crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary," as urged by some conservative commentators.
But on Allen Parkway, the minutes ticked by with no Republicans in sight. "Haven't had a voter since 9:30," said Mr. Aninao. Some Republicans voted in the Democratic contest in hopes of positioning either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton as an easier target for Mr. McCain. Indeed, said Mr. Aninao, his parents and sister, staunch Republicans like him, had voted for Mrs. Clinton "because they think McCain actually has a better chance against her than Obama" - the same tactic that Rush Limbaugh recently suggested to listeners.
Just before noon, the lull was broken by Hien Nguyen, a cashier, and her husband, Phong, residents of the complex, who came in to vote for Mr. McCain. Now the tally was up to 7. "Percentage wise, a humongous jump," Mr. Aninao declared.
Reporting was contributed by Ralph Blumenthal and John Broder in Houston, Michael Cooper in San Antonio, Andrew Jacobs in Cleveland, Michael Powell, Ian Urbina in Washington, Katie Zesima in Boston and Jeff Zeleny in Austin.
