Indiana Proof Of Obama's Strength

As I write this article, Indiana is giving Hillary Clinton a 2% win with a margin of a little under 40,000 votes (approximately 588K to Obama's 568K) and with 92% of precincts reporting. MSNBC is also reporting that the areas left to be counted are strongholds for Barack Obama in Indiana. There is speculation that this primary is not over yet and that Obama may still be able to salvage a victory from it as Tuesday night stretches into Wednesday morning. MSNBC's Chuck Todd estimates that the best case scenario for Clinton is a 10,000 vote win in the state.However, that pertains to the math only because it is already a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama won big in Indiana tonight by holding the margin to four points.

On Monday, April 28 this race was irretrievably altered in the eyes of the media by an appearance by Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright. In this appearance, Wright reaffirmed his many controversial beliefs about this country, its government and the state of its race relations. He then went a step further, inferring that Obama actually believes these things and is lying to the American people. The mainstream media, already engorged and excited from the fact that Wright had re-emerged at all, went into an orgiastic frenzy of punditry declaring that this could be the fatal weakness that Clinton had been trying to exploit for months now as her campaign descended from a coronation into a coronary. The media played the new clips of Wright confirming his staunch support of his old clips over and over again and then asked if the Wright controversy would hurt the Obama campaign, blissfully ignorant of the fact that their actions were like a doctor injecting a patient with a nasty strain of influenza and then repeatedly asking "Are you feeling okay? You look a little rough."

This was the Obama campaign's opportunity to fall apart. As the media encroached upon his candidacy, savaging it with news cycle after news cycle of Wright's hateful comments and questions of how it would affect the campaign, They hounded Obama into giving a second speech by Thursday of last week, finally cutting Wright loose for good. Clinton struck not only on the Wright issue but also accusing Obama of being an elitist that was uninterested in helping blue collar voters for declining to put a moratorium on the federal gas tax. Obama was having such a bad week that John McCain finally told reporters he wasn't interested in discussing the Wright issue.

Polls were putting Clinton ahead by 9 points in Indiana and they were saying she had narrowed North Carolina to single digits from double digits in Obama's favor. But Obama stuck it out and tonight is a testament to the strength of his campaigning spirit as well as his organizational structure to have gone through his worst week in the entire campaign season as he was approaching two critical contests in regards to winning the Democratic nomination. There was talk of a possible loss in North Carolina where Obama had been considered bulletproof and much more talk that Indiana could go to Clinton by double digits. Instead, Obama fought back, maintained his confidence and composure and won North Carolina as he was expected to before Wright reappeared and narrowed Indiana so much that he could actually win.

Indiana was the last firebreak for Hillary Clinton. This last week was the time that if Barack Obama was going to collapse, this was it. By surviving this onslaught, Obama has broken the back of the Clinton campaign.

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	CNN Slights Obama: 4 points in the polls is a "clear lead" for Clinton, only a "slight edge" for Obama	CNN	Mon May 5	11
	CBS Calls Indiana for Clinton: [Is this a "Dewey Wins!" Call?]	CBS News	Tue May 6	2
	Clinton narrowly takes Indiana, CNN projects	CNN	Wed May 7	2
	ABC News: Exit polls: Race key in NC, IN but Wright's impact mixed	ABC News	Wed May 7	1
	Clinton: Running on empty	Guardian Unlimited	Wed May 7	11