8 Questions That Will Shape Where the Race for the Democratic Presidential Nominaton Goes From Here
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 23, 2008; A09
1. What is the most likely outcome of the dispute over the delegations from Florida and Michigan?
The collapse of efforts in Florida and Michigan to conduct do-over primaries makes a negotiated settlement to seat the two delegations the most likely outcome. But the ultimate resolution will have only a marginal impact on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's attempts to narrow the overall delegate count, many Democrats familiar with intraparty rules and credentials battles say.
Tad Devine, one of the architects of the system of proportional distribution of delegates in primaries and caucuses under which the nomination battle has unfolded, predicts that Florida's delegates will be allocated on the basis of the Jan. 15 primary -- meaning a slight advantage for Clinton -- but with just half a vote given to each pledged delegate and a full vote for each superdelegate. Michigan, too, may end up with only a portion of its original delegates counting, but the delegate split could be closer to 50-50.
Negotiation and compromise may be the ideal solution, but any number of Democrats see nothing but more acrimony and conflict ahead. Democrats fear -- and Republicans hope -- that the Michigan and Florida problem will play out all the way to the Denver convention and perhaps remain unresolved until a clash before the Democratic National Committee's Credentials Committee, legal warfare and an ugly floor fight in Denver that would leave all sides bitter and demoralized.
Party leaders in Michigan and Florida, with help from an effective spin operation in the Clinton campaign, have generated considerable media attention with their concerns about disenfranchising voters in two big battleground states. Inside the party, however, there is far less sympathy. The view of party leaders is simple: The two states broke the rules, and to simply seat their delegations now would invite even more calendar chaos in 2012. The controversy continues to be another stain on the process.
2. What remaining state contests will be most important and why?
There are 10 contests remaining -- eight states and two territories. In virtually every one of these contests, Barack Obama or Clinton begins as the favorite. She is favored in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. He is favored in North Carolina, Oregon, Guam, Montana and South Dakota. Indiana may be the closest thing left to a tossup, though it tilts slightly to Clinton.
So which are important? The next contest, and the biggest prize left if Florida and Michigan don't vote again, is Pennsylvania on April 22. An Obama victory in Pennsylvania could effectively end the nomination battle, but that's unlikely. His real challenge is to prevent Clinton from running away with the state the way she did in Ohio so he can blunt her argument that she significantly outperforms him in big states that will be critical in the general election.
The May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina have the most potential to change the race, although probably only if one candidate wins both. If Obama were to win Indiana, he could claim to have successfully cracked Clinton's coalition of women and working-class white voters. If Clinton were to carry both, she would gain real momentum, if not necessarily a huge bump in delegates. Finally, a Clinton win in Oregon or an Obama win in Kentucky would be seen as a major upset.
Such outcomes, noted Ron Klain, a Democratic strategist, "would be the primary-season equivalent of breaking service in a tennis match: a big momentum shift and a shift in the balance of power."
3. What is Clinton's path to the nomination?
Clinton needs at least four things to happen. First, she must significantly narrow Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count. Under almost no scenario is there a way for her to overtake Obama in that column, given the rules of proportionality. But by winning the overwhelming share of the last 10 contests, she can begin to cut down the margin and also claim momentum at the end of the race.
Second, she must also finish the primaries ahead of or nearly tied with Obama in the popular vote. Because she cannot take a lead in pledged delegates and because Obama will have won more states by the end of the primaries and caucuses, she will need the popular-vote edge to give uncommitted superdelegates a rationale to deny Obama the nomination.
At this point she is more than 700,000 votes behind -- more than 400,000 if the Florida results (but not those from Michigan) are included. She will need big victories in Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Kentucky and West Virginia to come close. But without new voting in Michigan and Florida, her chances of winning the popular vote are greatly diminished.
Third, Clinton must emerge in national polls as a stronger candidate against John McCain. Clinton has gained ground in recent polls, but the superdelegates will look at the polls in June, not March, before making their decisions.
Finally, Clinton must persuade uncommitted superdelegates to deny the nomination to the candidate who has more pledged delegates. But to side with her would almost certainly offend African Americans, the party's most loyal constituency. How many superdelegates will be prepared for that?
What's not clear is whether Clinton can accomplish all this without a much more negative campaign -- and that could prompt rebukes from party leaders and calls for Democrats to coalesce around Obama.
4. Has Obama successfully dealt with the controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.?
Democrats say his Philadelphia speech last Tuesday may have accomplished what he needed to keep his advantage in the nomination battle. Republicans -- and Democrats -- say that, if he is the nominee, he will need to do more to minimize its potential to harm his chances of winning the White House.
"He has been very successful in both broadening the debate and changing the subject," Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said. "But the Republicans will be bringing it back."
Democratic strategist Steve Murphy said: "The Wright controversy is over in the contest for the nomination. In the general election, Obama will find it necessary to more forcefully renounce Wright's anti-American statements about 9/11."
"In the national press? Yes," a Democratic strategist wrote. "Among blue collar voters, I don't think so. They're not racist but they don't necessarily want to talk about these topics. The speech he gave would be a great speech for a president to give. Unclear to me whether it's a great speech for a candidate to give."
"Not by a long shot," Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said. "A good speech doesn't take the place of Obama's impaired judgment on this issue."
Another Democrat said Obama took the controversy off the front pages but could be vulnerable to the kind of "Swift boat" attack that so badly damaged John Kerry's candidacy four years ago.
5. Will the nomination battle go all the way to the convention?
This is the big question and the big worry inside the Democratic Party, and on this, there is no consensus.
"Deliciously, yes," wrote a Republican who admitted that he was simply enjoying the contest so much he does not want it to end.
"Please, Lord, no," wrote one veteran of presidential campaigns, reflecting the sense of fatigue, exhaustion and fear among Democrats.
Those predicting that it will not go all the way to Denver believe that Democrats collectively will conclude it's too risky to keep the race going.
"The superdelegates will move behind the front-runner in delegates in June and it will end the nomination contest," Democratic strategist Bill Carrick wrote. "Either the superdelegates end it in June or Democrats will self-destruct in August in Denver."
But another Democrat who is partial to Obama said that, unless Obama sweeps the remaining contests, it is "highly unlikely" that Clinton can be pressured to get out of the race in June, even if she trails in pledged delegates.
Democrat Donnie Fowler underscored the consequences of a fight that goes on into the summer. "Suffice it to say that every week that goes by without a nominee is another tick on the clock where the Democratic Party is not fully able to put campaign teams together in the 15 to 20 battleground states," he said. "In the past three elections, state directors have set up shop in May . . . and that's after a two-months process of searching, hiring, and announcing them."
6. Will Democrats unite after the Obama-Clinton fight ends?
The overwhelming desire among Democrats to win back the White House should reunite Obama and Clinton supporters once a nominee emerges, but with every day the fight continues -- and with every attack and counterattack -- the odds diminish. And party leaders know it.
"It depends on the way it ends," said one Democratic strategist who has remained neutral. "If the Clintons spill too much blood on the floor, it will be hard for Obama supporters to forgive and forget, and hundreds of thousands of new voters will be sapped of their energy in this election."
"Absolutely" there will be unity, countered a Democrat who was working for one of the candidates now on the sidelines. "As bitter as most of these campaigns get, they always unite. And, please, this campaign has not been all that bitter."
The Democratic race has not produced the kind of deep ideological divisions that make reuniting especially difficult. This race has been a clash of style and personalities, but many Democrats are hopeful that the huge turnouts in the Democratic primaries reflect not just enthusiasm for Clinton and Obama but a deep desire for change after eight years of President Bush.
Not surprisingly, Republicans already see problems. There are still scars from battles in some of the early states, and with a late-August convention, the nominee will have no time to heal the wounds if the contest has left bitterness in the loser's camp, which seems more likely if Clinton is the nominee.
"It is amazing to watch a party that has so much going for it in this election put it all in jeopardy over this contest," Terry Nelson, a veteran of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, said. "But that appears to be the case."
7. Has McCain succeeded in uniting Republicans behind his candidacy?
If he hasn't, the Democrats and the media have. And Clinton certainly would if she is the nominee. "Republicans are a fall-in-line party, and they've done just that," said Democrat Murphy. "And a little [complaining] from the right wing helps, not hurts, McCain."
Republicans report that the grumbling, even privately, about McCain has begun to subside. Some believe he has more work to do, however, and say his fundraising numbers will help answer how much he has accomplished. But for a candidate who has spent much of his career fighting members of his own party, McCain is doing what he must to bring them around.
8. Would Clinton or Obama be the stronger candidate against McCain?
This is the big question that every superdelegate is trying to answer, as are strategists gaming out McCain's prospects in a general election. At this point, there is as much confusion as consensus.
Start with the assessments of Republican strategists. "For the entire campaign I had thought [Obama] would be, but these last few weeks have me rethinking that," noted Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican who was in Mitt Romney's camp. "Her resilience and toughness [are] impressing me."
"It's a tossup," Newhouse wrote. "I wasn't looking forward to facing the Obama of two months ago, I'm more encouraged about facing him now, and wonder what the next few months of scrutiny might bring."
"A week ago, I would have said Obama," wrote Nelson, who left as McCain's campaign manager last summer. "Today, I don't know."
Democrats who believe Obama is their best choice cite his message of hope and change, and the energy and enthusiasm it has sparked with a new generation of voters.
They argue that he has more capacity than Clinton to expand the electoral map and to compete in red and purple states more effectively.
They also believe he will provide a more compelling contrast with McCain on issues including age, energy, Iraq and change. "In the end, if this is a big change election, it's just easier for him to claim the mantle of change," Carrick noted.
Those who say Clinton cite her steadiness, her toughness, her resilience and her ability to deliver a strong message on the economy -- a McCain weakness. "She is like a blue-chip company stock price," one strategist said. "Everything is known, and it's all built into the price. So if she's beating McCain now, there's a good degree of certainty she can beat him in the fall."
This debate will continue until the Democratic nominee is known -- and perhaps beyond.
- posted on 03/23/2008
NYT: Obama race speech fuels Easter sermons
Some pastors say they're compelled to address festering issue
updated 7:29 p.m. CT, Sat., March. 22, 2008
WASHINGTON - This Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, many pastors will start their sermons about the Resurrection of Jesus and weave in a pointed message about racism and bigotry, and the need to rise above them.
Some pastors began to rethink their sermons on Tuesday, when Senator Barack Obama gave a speech about race, seeking to calm a furor that had erupted over explosive excerpts of sermons by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
The controversy drove the nation to the unpatrolled intersection of race and religion, and as many pastors prepared for their Easter message they said they felt compelled to talk about it. Their congregants were writing and e-mailing them: some wanted to share their emotional reactions to Mr. Obama¡¯s speech; others asked how Mr. Wright, the minister, could utter such inflammatory things from the pulpit.
Some ministers interviewed over the last several days said they would wait until after Easter to preach on it all, because Easter and headlines do not mix. But others said there was no better moment than Easter, when sanctuaries swelled with their biggest crowds of the year, and redemption was the dominant theme.
'Hopes and dreams'
At Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, the Rev. William H. Curtis said: ¡°At the end of the day, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it possible for even an African-American and a female to articulate the hopes and dreams of America, and do so with the hope of becoming president. Isn¡¯t that wonderful?
¡°It¡¯s possible because we do believe that humanity has redeeming qualities, and the resurrection of Christ gives us that faith,¡± said Mr. Curtis, who is president of the Hampton Ministers Conference, a national association of black ministers.
Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, said he would weave an anecdote into his sermon about a black friend of his who had been stopped by the police, who were suspicious because he was driving an expensive car, which he owned.
¡°The church needs to be a community within which the pain can be shared,¡± said Mr. Blackwell, who is white and leads an urban, racially mixed congregation. ¡°The grievances can be aired, and the power of that can be directed toward the ¡®new creation¡¯ that is portrayed in the Resurrection.¡±
Controversy started with minister
The whole controversy started, after all, with a minister, preaching, in a church.
Television programs showed recorded parts of sermons by Mr. Wright, who is nationally known for his work in creating economic development programs in the inner city, inspiring many other black pastors to do the same, and for his fiery, prophetic preaching style. In the excerpts, Mr. Wright thunders that the government has inflicted AIDS on black people, and that the United States deserved the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
Mr. Obama responded with a major address that examined race relations through the eyes of blacks and whites, and called for Americans to open up an honest dialogue about race.
Many ministers said they would preach without explicitly mentioning Mr. Obama because they wanted to avoid alienating politically diverse congregations. They are also aware that some churches accused of making political endorsements have seen their tax-exempt status investigated by the Internal Revenue Service .
The response to the controversy from the pulpit will vary, of course, depending on a church¡¯s denomination, racial composition and political and theological leanings, as well the predilections of the pastor. The Wright controversy is a natural topic for those in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination that includes Mr. Obama¡¯s and Mr. Wright¡¯s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (the largest church in the denomination).
Separating race from Easter
Clergy members from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and white evangelical churches are, very generally, less likely to incorporate the Wright controversy into their sermons than are those at black and mainline Protestant churches.
The Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and lead pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., said he would not be preaching about the racial issues raised by Mr. Obama¡¯s speech and expected few other evangelical pastors to, either.
¡°Easter is about Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus, and it¡¯s pretty unlikely that any other topic would eclipse that,¡± Mr. Anderson said. ¡°That¡¯s not to say those other topics aren¡¯t important, but this is the most important.¡±
Most evangelical churches, he said, ¡°are Bible-driven, not current-events-driven.¡±
In some churches, the evils of racism have long been common fare. In others, it is barely ever mentioned. But with immigration changing the nation¡¯s ethnic balance, many congregations are struggling with the kinds of resentments that Mr. Obama touched on in his speech.
Monsignor Patrick Bishop, of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Marietta, Ga., said his parish had recently transformed from being almost all white to including blacks, Hispanics and Filipinos.
He said that next week, on the second Sunday of Easter, he would say in his homily: ¡°Christ says in Him there is no east or west, north or south, slave or free, male or female. If a person cannot look beyond the color of their skin then they don¡¯t really understand the Gospel.¡±
The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, said she would preach about when Mary Magdalene and ¡°the other Mary¡± went to Jesus¡¯ tomb and were met by an angel who rolled away the stone before the cave to reveal that Christ had risen from the dead.
¡°I¡¯m going to talk about the stones that need to be rolled away from the tombs of lives, that are holding us in places of death and away from God,¡± Ms. Lind said. ¡°One of the main stones in our churches, synagogues, mosques, communities, countries, world is the pervasive stone of racism. What Obama has done is moved the stone a little bit.
¡°I will ask our congregation to look at the stones in our lives,¡± she said.
Focus on Wright's remarks
Some ministers said their congregants were focused not on white racism, but on Mr. Wright¡¯s remarks. The Rev. Dean Snyder, pastor of Foundry United Methodist church, which was the Clintons¡¯ home church during President Bill Clinton ¡¯s tenure, said some of his congregants were aghast at Mr. Wright¡¯s remarks.
During staff meetings this week at his church, Mr. Snyder said he noticed the rising awareness among some African-Americans of white Americans, he said, ¡°who don¡¯t understand the history of black people in this country and the role of the black church as a prophetic voice, and that in church you can say things that you couldn¡¯t in larger society.¡±
The Rev. Kent Millard of St. Luke¡¯s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis said he felt Mr. Obama had explained the reality of the relationship between a pastor and his congregants.
¡°Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is member of our congregation, and I would hope he would never be held accountable for everything I have said in the last 15 years,¡± said Dr. Millard, who is white. ¡°Why is there any assumption that a person in church is expected to agree with everything a pastor says?¡±
Unfair sound bites?
Some black ministers said that their sermons might address how the reputation of a man many of them revere was reduced to sound bites. They pointed out that sermons in black churches covered a long and circuitous path from crisis to resolution, and it was unfair to judge the entire message on one or two sentences.
¡°I may not use his exact language,¡± said the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, pastor of Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., ¡°but I can tell you that the basic thrust of much of my preaching resonates with Dr. Wright. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m necessarily trying to preach people into anger, but I am trying to help people become conscious, become aware, to realize our power to make change in society.¡±
Mr. Samuel said his Easter sermon would be titled ¡°Dangerous Proclamations,¡± and would focus on the Apostle Paul, ¡°who was also under attack for his faith in Jesus, and for preaching the Resurrection.¡±
The Rev. Floyd Flake, senior pastor of Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral of New York in Queens, said, ¡°The black preacher¡¯s role is to present a prophetic word that represents a challenge, but also to give a priestly response that enables people to resolve the problem.¡± (Mr. Flake, a former member of Congress, has publicly endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton .)
On Easter, one of the nation¡¯s foremost preachers, the Rev. James A. Forbes, senior minister emeritus at the Riverside Church in New York, said he would take Mr. Wright¡¯s place preaching the 6 p.m. service at Trinity in Chicago. Dr. Forbes plans to preach about how the nation is in a ¡°night season,¡± a dark, destabilizing time, given the war, the economy and the vitriol over race and gender in the political primary.
¡°It is nighttime in America,¡± Dr. Forbes said, ¡°and I want to bring a word of encouragement.¡±
- posted on 03/23/2008
Obama Urges U.S. to Grapple With Race Issue
PHILADELPHIA ¡ª Senator Barack Obama delivered a sweeping assessment of race in America on Tuesday, bluntly confronting the divisions between black and white as he sought to dispel the furor over inflammatory statements by his former pastor.
Mr. Obama again condemned the more incendiary remarks of the pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. But, drawing on his experiences as the son of a white mother and a black father, Mr. Obama went on to try to explain to white voters the anger and frustration behind Mr. Wright¡¯s words and to urge blacks to understand the sources of the racial fears and resentments among whites.
While his immediate political goal was to tamp down any doubts that his association with Mr. Wright has caused among voters as he battles for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Obama also sought to link his theme of understanding and reconciliation to more concrete issues at stake in the election as the economy weakens.
¡°The fact is,¡± he said, ¡°that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we¡¯ve never really worked through ¡ª a part of our Union that we have yet to perfect.
¡°And if we walk away now,¡± he continued, ¡°if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.¡±
After running a campaign that in many ways tried not to be defined by race, Mr. Obama placed himself squarely in the middle of the debate over how to address it, a living bridge between whites and blacks still divided by the legacy of slavery and all that came after it.
His language reached at times for the inspiration and idealism of the civil rights movement, but for the most part addressed the politics of race in straightforward terms that seemed intended to keep the discussion grounded in the realities of the moment.
¡°It¡¯s a racial stalemate we¡¯ve been stuck in for years,¡± Mr. Obama said. ¡°Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy ¡ª particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.¡±
For Mr. Obama, who is engaged in an intense fight for his party¡¯s nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 37-minute speech five weeks before the Pennsylvania primary was an attempt to realign his campaign after a turbulent two weeks. Images of Mr. Wright, replayed again and again on television, threatened to damage a coalition of black and white voters that Mr. Obama has been trying to forge.
¡°I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother,¡± he said, ¡°a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.¡±
The speech, delivered before a small audience of local supporters, elected officials and clergy members at the National Constitution Center, was broadcast live on cable. His words were directed at a variety of constituencies, including the superdelegates who, it now seems likely, will decide the nomination, and white voters in states like Pennsylvania that could be vital both in the primary and in the general election.
Mr. Obama stayed up well into the night writing much of the speech himself, aides said. His words carried familiar strains of the biography he wrote more than a decade ago about his search for racial identity.
In recent days, televised images of Mr. Obama have been accompanied by old sermons of Mr. Wright delivering a blistering critique on white America. As the days go on, it remains an open question whether the images of the pastor will fall to the side and Mr. Obama¡¯s campaign message regains its prominence. This speech was a political risk, his advisers said, whose wisdom may not be fully known for months.
¡°It was very dicey at a time when race is misunderstood by some and overplayed by others,¡± L. Douglas Wilder, the mayor of Richmond, Va., who was the nation¡¯s first elected black governor, said in an interview. ¡°It was a very, very difficult subject to bring up. It had to be approached in a way that was really something of substance.¡±
Mr. Obama indicated that he wanted to move quickly to other issues, scheduling two high-profile speeches over the next two days on topics other than race.
¡°I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork,¡± Mr. Obama said. ¡°We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.¡±
He noted that his candidacy had been successful in predominantly white states and in largely black states, but he conceded that the nation¡¯s racial divisions remained firmly ingrained and that black anger and white resentment was rarely interchangeably understood.
¡°For the men and women of Reverend Wright¡¯s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away, nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years,¡± Mr. Obama said. ¡°That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends, but it does find voice in the barbershop or the beauty shop or around the kitchen table.¡±
¡°In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community,¡± he said. Later, he added: ¡°So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town, when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed, when they¡¯re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.¡±
A few hours after the speech, Mrs. Clinton arrived at City Hall here for a campaign stop. She said she had not seen it, but said she was ¡°very glad¡± that Mr. Obama had made it, given that race had been a ¡°complicated¡± issue in America marked by ¡°pitfalls¡± and ¡°detours.¡±
For nearly a week, Mr. Obama has struggled to distance himself from statements by Mr. Wright, who had cast the government as racist, corrupt and murderous among other things. Mr. Obama concluded over the weekend that he had failed to resolve the questions, aides said, and told advisers he wanted to address the firestorm in a speech.
Standing against a backdrop of eight American flags on Tuesday morning, Mr. Obama offered the most thorough explanation to date about his association with the church and his pastor, whom he has known for nearly 20 years.
¡°For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course,¡± he said. ¡°Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely ¡ª just as I¡¯m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.¡±
¡°The profound mistake of Reverend Wright¡¯s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society,¡± he added. ¡°It¡¯s that he spoke as if our society was static, as if no progress has been made.¡±
- posted on 03/23/2008
New Mexico's Richardson endorses Obama
Hispanic governor says presidential hopeful a 'once-in-a-lifetime leader'
PORTLAND, Ore. - Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, threw his support behind Barack Obama for president Friday, delivering one of the most coveted and tightly held endorsements in the race for the Democratic nomination.
The New Mexico governor joined Obama at spirited rally Friday and said the Illinois senator demonstrated his leadership abilities this week with his speech on race. "You are a once-in-a-lifetime leader," the governor said from the stage. "Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together."
Richardson dropped his own bid for the nomination in January. His support for Obama comes during a tough period for the senator, the leader in the delegate chase over Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has seen his lead in national polls wither as he's grappled with the fallout from divisive remarks by his former pastor.
Richardson was relentlessly courted by both candidates and his support for Obama represents a potential counterweight to Clinton's strength among Hispanic voters.
As a Democratic superdelegate, the governor plays a part in the tight race for nominating votes and could bring other superdelegates to Obama's side. He also had been mentioned as a potential running mate for either candidate.
No primaries are scheduled until Pennsylvania's on April 22, a gap Obama hopes to use for such announcements to assert that he is the front-runner for the nomination. Oregon hold its primary May 20.
Ties to Clinton, endorsement for Obama
Richardson backed Obama despite his ties to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Richardson served as ambassador to the U.N. and as secretary of the Energy Department during the Clinton administration. Last month, Richardson and former President Clinton watched the Super Bowl together at the governor's residence in Santa Fe.
Richardson praised Hillary Clinton as a "distinguished leader with vast experience." But the governor said Obama "will be a historic and great president, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad."
The Clinton campaign was publicly dismissive of the endorsement, after the New York senator failed to win it for herself.
Citing Clinton's victory in New Mexico in February, senior strategist Mark Penn said, "Perhaps the time when he could have been most effective has long since past."
Richardson was a roving diplomatic troubleshooter when he was a congressman from New Mexico, negotiating the release of U.S. hostages in several countries and meeting with a rogue's gallery of U.S. adversaries, including Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama has the judgment and courage we need in a commander in chief when our nation's security is on the line," Richardson said. "He showed this judgment by opposing the Iraq war from the start, and he has shown it during this campaign by standing up for a new era in American leadership internationally."
Obama embraced the endorsement of an accomplished figure on the world stage who "understands the importance of restoring diplomacy as a central part of our national security strategy."
Need for negotiation
Both men have proposed negotiating with enemies as well as friends, while Clinton has emphasized the need to press for changes in repressive or hostile regimes before engaging with them at the presidential level.
But there were also personal aspects to Richardson's swing behind Obama. He noted that both are the sons of one foreign-born parent _ Obama's father was from Kenya, Richardson's mother was from Mexico.
And Richardson told of the time, during one of the many Democratic debates, when his attention wandered and he didn't hear the question that came at him. Obama, then his rival, bailed him out by whispering to him that it was about Hurricane Katrina.
"He could have thrown me under the bus," Richardson cracked, "but he stood behind me."
Among veterans of the once-crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut is the only other one who has taken a side so far. Dodd also endorsed Obama.
John Edwards, the strongest performer among the nomination dropouts, has also been wooed by Clinton and Obama but he's not announced an endorsement.
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