Washington - Senator Barack Obama won the Vermont primary,
exit polls showed, capturing the first of four states up for grabs in
balloting Tuesday to determine the Democratic presidential nominee.
On the Republican side, Senator John McCain, 71, captured Vermont,
further tightening his grip on the centre-right party's nomination
for the November 4 presidential election. Major television networks
also projected McCain would win in Ohio.
Obama, 46, defeated Senator Hillary Clinton, 60, in Vermont, and
and the campaigns for the hotly contested centre-left Democratic
nomination were awaiting the results in Rhode Island, Texas and Ohio.
Polls show Clinton and Obama in tight races in Texas and Ohio, the
two most important states in Tuesday's elections.
Obama has recently emerged as the clear Democratic frontrunner; if
Clinton loses in both Ohio and Texas, the former first lady would
probably fall insurmountably behind.
Obama was expected to win in Vermont, and pre-polls showed that
Clinton had a sizeable lead in Rhode Island. Pre-election polls in
Texas showed a dead heat, and Clinton had held a small lead in Ohio.
Heading into Tuesday's voting, Obama had won 11 consecutive state
contests, establishing himself as the frontrunner in the delegate
count and building up momentum. Meanwhile, Clinton's campaign has run
short of money and struggled to combat her rival's growing image of
inevitability.
Former president Bill Clinton has said that his wife must win in
Texas and Ohio to keep alive her hopes of becoming the first female
president. Hillary Clinton has vowed to go forward with her campaign
regardless of Tuesday's outcome.
Some Democrats, however, have urged Clinton to drop out of the
race so that Obama can begin focusing on McCain in the presidential
election without having to devote campaign resources to continue
duelling with Clinton.
McCain effectively sealed up the Republican nomination weeks ago
and has increasingly refocused his presidential campaign on the
November general elections. He has begun making the case for keeping
US soldiers in Iraq - a position Clinton and Obama oppose.
'I feel really good not only about the primary today but also
about what's possible for us in Texas come the fall,' Clinton said in
last-minute campaigning in Houston.
The Clinton and Obama camps have become nastier in recent weeks,
exchanging barbs over campaign tactics and highlighting their
differences over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
enacted during Bill Clinton's administration.
While the trade accord has benefited border states like Texas, it
is unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered from a loss of manufacturing
jobs. Both candidates say that NAFTA needs to be changed to protect
US workers, and both have proclaimed willingness to pull out of the
agreement if it cannot be renegotiated.
The Clinton campaign has drawn attention to allegations that one
of Obama's economic policy aides met with a Canadian official to calm
fears that he would ditch NAFTA, saying Obama's comments were just
political rhetoric.
Obama responded by saying that Clinton was pedaling a false story
of 'contradictions and winks and nods that has been disputed by all
parties involved.' He also pointed out that Clinton and her husband
pushed NAFTA through Congress in 1993.
Clinton aides have raised Obama's relationship with a developer in
Chicago, Antoin Rezko, now on trial for exploiting political
relationships with the current governor of Illinois to obtain
kickbacks on state contracts.
Obama charged that Clinton was throwing the 'kitchen sink' in an
effort to rescue her bid for the White House.
Clinton has also turned to comedy to try to swing momentum and
alter her no-fun image. She appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live and
Comedy Central's The Daily Show, at times poking fun at herself.
Clinton has touted her experience in the White House and longer
tenure than Obama in the Senate to argue that she is better prepared
for the presidency, and usually says she will be ready to take the
helm on 'day one.'
Obama's message of change has caught on with voters and propelled
him to the front of the race, bucking Clinton from her dominating
position early in the campaign.
A recent television ad from Clinton's campaign shows sleeping
children, then asks whom viewers would want to be in the White House
when the phone rings at 3 am. Obama quickly aired a similar ad,
likewise showing sleeping children and asking Democratic voters
whether they want someone in the White House who voted to authorize
President George W Bush's use force in Iraq.
Clinton voted for the October 2002 measure, but says if she knew
how the Bush administration would bungle the post-invasion planning,
she would have voted against it.
USA
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