Obama wins Wisconsin for ninth straight primary victory

Obama wins Wisconsin for ninth straight primary victory
By CRAIG GILBERT
cgilbert@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 19, 2008

Drawing support from a wide swath of voters in an ultra-competitive Midwestern battleground, Barack Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin Primary Tuesday, giving him nine straight victories and a strong upper hand in their fierce struggle for the Democratic nomination.

The Associated Press called the state for Obama just before 8:30 p.m. Milwaukee time.

Expected to win a majority of the state's 74 pledged delegates, Obama also demonstrated the kind of broad appeal that will be critical in the big showdown states ahead, especially Ohio on March 4.

That coalition included groups that have backed him in past contests: young voters, independents and the college-educated.

But in a brief, sharp-edged campaign here, Obama also made inroads among women and blue-collar voters, who have more typically backed Clinton.

He won half of all voters without a college degree - about 60% of the Democratic electorate. He won half of those with family incomes under $50,000. He dominated among white men -- 59% to 38%. And he battled Clinton to a draw among women.

All of these groups were components of an overwhelmingly white electorate with a very dark view of the economy. It was also an electorate hungry for change, a political current that exit polls showed decisively favored Obama.

As expected, Wisconsin's open primary proved a boon to the Illinois senator. Independents (27%) and Republicans (9%) together made up more than a third of the Democratic Primary electorate - almost the exact same breakdown as in the 2004 primary here.

Obama carried independents by about 30 points, according to the exit polls.

But Obama's victory was emphatic for other reasons that will help him tout his electability to voters in upcoming states, and to the party's powerful bloc of un-pledged "super delegates."

One, his victory was big and broad, exit polls suggested.

Two, it came in a 50/50 battleground - the closest state in the country in 2004 -- that is a virtual must-win for Democrats in November.

Three, it came in the kind of environment that Clinton has said provides added legitimacy - a big-turnout primary, rather than the kind of low-turnout caucuses that Obama has dominated this year by out-organizing his opponent.

With its big independent vote, Wisconsin was a source of worry to the Clinton campaign throughout the run-up to Tuesday's primary. Her aides worked so hard to keep expectations low that at times they seemed to be conceding the state.

As of Monday morning, 24 hours before the voting started, Clinton had not done a single event outside the Milwaukee media market. One reason was a Sunday storm that postponed a planned fly-around. But the main reason was her tardy arrival to the state.

She got here four days later than her opponent, campaigning last week largely via surrogates, TV ads, phone and satellite. She launched the first exchange of "negative" ads between the two in the 2008 campaign. Exit polls suggested she fared poorly in that exchange, with more voters viewing her attacks as "unfair" than his. She also was outspent more than 3-to-1 on TV here.

Her efforts to pressure Obama into a Wisconsin debate, a key message of her ads, weren't helped by the fact she was making her case from Ohio and Texas.

"We've always said we think Wisconsin is challenging," said Clinton strategist Mark Penn Tuesday. "There's a very substantial independent vote that is very favorable to Senator Obama."

But while the state's open primary system favored Obama, its demographics were in some ways good for Clinton: white, relatively Catholic and blue-collar -- all features that had worked to Clinton's favor in many other places.

"Wisconsin, by their own definition, should be a very strong state for the Clinton campaign," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe Monday. "It's a strong blue collar state, a strong rural state. It's a large state. It's a primary state (with) a small African-American population."

Voters here Tuesday turned out in frigid single-digit temperatures, almost one fifth of them voting in their first presidential primary, according to the exit polls.

While about half the voters in the Democratic primary termed themselves liberal, an additional 36% described themselves as moderate and 13% as conservative.

The economy was rated the top concern by the largest number of voters (more than 40%), followed by the war and health care. Nine out of ten voters rated the economy "not so good" (55%) or "poor" (35%).

Those attitudes, and a state that has been unusually dependent on manufacturing, help explain why the campaigns of both Clinton and Obama took a noticeably populist turn here, debating their records on trade and their plans for the economy.

Obama faced a last-minute controversy, drawing keen attention on cable news and the Internet, over rhetoric he borrowed from friend and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Clinton aides charged "plagiarism." But in dozens of interviews with Journal Sentinel reporters at polling places Tuesday, the issue almost never came up.

Asked to say what quality about the candidates mattered most to their choice, about half said it was the ability to bring about "needed change," and they broke heavily for Obama. Far fewer (about a quarter) cited the "right experience," and they voted overwhelmingly f