As We Go to Press
Senator Barack Obama has emerged as the overwhelming leading candidate for the presidential nominee in the Democratic Party. Recently, having decisively beat Senator Hillary Clinton in North Carolina and losing to her by only two percentage points in Indiana, Barack seems to be the man to beat. He only needs 188 delegates to officially secure the nomination.
The fact that an African American man has mounted so successful a campaign for the nation’s highest political office speaks volumes about the changes that have occurred in America even since Jesse Jackson made his bids for president in the Democratic primaries in 1984 and 1988. Since 1988, an “anti-racist majority” of young, middle-aged and some elderly voters have emerged as a mature sector of the electorate.
Though the Democratic primary process is a race to the finish; in the overall race for the nomination, Obama leads with 1,840.5 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as “superdelegates.” Clinton has 1,688. With six primaries left, it is estimated that Clinton will probably win Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, and Obama will probably win Oregon, Montana and South Dakota. There are 217 delegates in the final six primaries.
Obama, however, won’t win enough of those delegates to claim the nomination because of the proportional method used by the Democrats to award them.
That leaves the nomination in the hands of about 270 superdelegates who have yet to be claimed. Superdelegates are the party and elected officials who will automatically attend the national convention and can support whomever they choose, regardless of what happens in the primaries and caucuses.
Nearly 800 superdelegates will attend the national convention. About 220 remain undecided and 50 others will be named at state party conventions and meetings throughout the spring.995
So the superdelegates will probably choose the next Democratic presidential candidate basd on their ability to swing the blue-collar white American vote. Obama’s previous association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his weakness of drawing white blue-collar voters in large states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas may be a telling point in the choosing of the 2008 Democratic Party’s Presidential Candidate.
If Obama secures the nomination and chooses a good white Vice Presidential prospect who can pick up the white blue-collar vote, then such a ticket has a good chance of defeating the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain and whoever he picks as his running mate. All in all, 2008 is a historical year in terms of the struggle for democracy and equality in America and the world.
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