Obama makes threepeat out of DC, Maryland, Virginia John Byrne

Published: Tuesday February 12, 2008



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Print This Email This A variety of TV news networks have called the Potomac primaries in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), just after polls closed at 7 pm ET and 8 pm ET respectively. At an address at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Obama's victory speech aimed a barb at Washington insiders and played up what he implied was the universal appeal of his campaign around the United States. "And although we won tonight in the District of Columbia, this movement won't stop until there's change in Washington, DC, and tonight we're on our way," he said at the start of his speech. "We know how much further we have to go. We know it takes more than one night to overcome the decades of money and influence and partisanship....let let you down and told you to settle." Obama also took aim at Sen. John McCain, the likely GOP nominee for president. "John McCain has said he would keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years, and that's reason enough not to give him four years in the White House," he argued. Vote counts at the Virginia State Board of Elections showed a commanding lead for Obama in the state. WIth about 75% of the total votes counted, Obama had around 65% of the vote. And just as polls closed at 9:30 pm ET, after inclement weather prompted a judge to extend time for voting, Obama was also projected as the winner in Maryland. Meanwhile, news emerged from the Clinton campaign of another staff shakeup. Mike Henry, the deputy to recently sidelined Patti Solis Doyle left the New York senator's campaign. An excerpt of an e-mail he wrote that was published by Chris Cilizza at the Washington Post hinted that more changes might be coming at the campaign. "Our campaign needs to move quickly to build a new leadership team, support them and their decisions and make the necessary adjustments to achieve the winning outcome for which we have all worked so hard for over a year now," Henry wrote. But in El Paso, Texas where Clinton was speaking Tuesday night, she seemed to be skipping he outcome in the Potomac primaries. "We're going to sweep ahead in Texas over the next three weeks," she declared, before accusing President Bush of being "all hat and no cattle." The results confirmed earlier leaks to RAW STORY at 6:30 pm ET from a network source who saw exit poll data and said Obama won the three states "handily." In Virginia, exit poll data showed that 89% of African-American Democrats voted for Obama while 51% of white Democrats turned out for Clinton. Obama also took 58% of the female vote in the state. And 67% of voters who described themselves as "Conservative" voted for Obama, broadening the candidate's claim that he is able to reach out to both sides. According to exit polls for Maryland, 62% of the state's voters Tuesday were women, and 59% of those women voted for Obama. Among White Democrats, 54% voted for Sen. Clinton, and 88% of black Democrats voted for Obama. Developing...



