Why February 5 "Super Tuesday" looks super to Clinton [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: NEWS ANALYSIS
Why Feb. 5 looks super to Clinton
Her core supporters will have a major say on the most important day of the primary season.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 9, 2008

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The big news Tuesday was not merely that Hillary Rodham Clinton scored an unexpected comeback victory. Emerging from that win was something more durable: a road map that could guide the former first lady to the Democratic presidential nomination.

The margin in the New Hampshire primary was razor-thin. But she clearly beat Barack Obama among core Democratic voters, the very bloc that will grow in influence as the nomination fight continues in the coming weeks. Strip away the independents who made up about four in 10 participants in Tuesday's Democratic primary, thanks to the state's open-balloting rules, and Clinton outpaced Obama among registered Democrats 45% to 34%, according to an exit poll conducted for a media consortium. Moreover, she beat the Illinois senator among women -- a crucial group for her and one that she lost in last week's Iowa caucuses -- and among lower-income households and older voters.

"This is an amazing comeback story for her over the course of a relatively few days," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist who advised Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "It would seem to indicate that she has the ability to remobilize her constituents."

If her advantage among Democrats holds true in the flurry of primaries set for Feb. 5 -- when core Democrats are expected to be more dominant -- Clinton could regain the traction that seemed lost when last week's defeat in Iowa ended her yearlong reign as the Democratic front-runner. Only registered Democrats can take part in a number of the Feb. 5 contests that are expected to decide the nomination. Non-Democrats are not welcome, for example, in voting in Connecticut, Arizona and in Clinton's home state of New York, potential strongholds for Clinton that each control more nomination delegates than the relative handful from Iowa, New Hampshire and other earlier states.

Another major prize that day is California, where unaffiliated voters will be permitted to participate in the Democratic primary. But some strategists believe California's Latino voters could boost Clinton, who is more popular in that group than Obama....

All told, more than 2,000 delegates will be decided that day, enough to seal the nomination. And by proving her strength, Clinton on Tuesday probably succeeded in calming skittish donors and supporters who had begun to wonder if she could even last until next month's contests....

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-demassess9jan09,0,7452936.story?coll=la-home-center