Obama Secures Wyoming, Mail-in Primary For Florida Gains Support

March 10, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) IL. Senator Barack Obama secured the Wyoming caucus in dominating fashion to increase his number of delegates by 7 and a slight gain in momentum after rival New York Sen. Hilary Clinton notched several campaign saving wins in heavy delegate-laden states of Texas and Ohio in crucial primaries held last week.

In the over-all delegate count, Sen. Obama holds a marginal lead with 1,578 delegates after gaining seven with his win in Wyoming over Clinton’s 1,468 count which included the five delegates she managed to salvage at Wyoming. Both candidates need 2,025 in order to secure the Democratic Party nomination.

David Plouffe who acts as Obama’s campaign manager said of Obama’s recent win in Wyoming “I think its evidence that Senator Obama is going to be able to put more states in play because of his strength with independent voters.”

Clinton’s campaign manager Maggie Williams said of Clinton’s performance at Wyoming, “We are thrilled with this near-split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support, although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Senator Clintons vision to the caucus-goers and we thank them for turning out today.” Referring to the 7-5 delegate count both candidates shared with Obama taking the upper hand after winning 61 percent to Clinton’s 38 percent in the state of Wyoming.

Meanwhile, Florida which conducted voting across the state earlier this year but was ruled ineligible after Democratic Party bosses determined that the state made their primaries along with Michigan too early, a clear violation to Party rules, gained little support of holding another round of voting through mail-in option. DNC Chairman Howard Dean acknowledged that a “mail-in primary is actually a very good process. Every voter gets a ballot in the mail, It’s comprehensive, you get to vote if you’re in Iraq or in a nursing home. It’s not a bad way to do this.”

Possible problem in conducting a mail-in voting is the financial aspect of the matter. DNC chairman Howard Dean dismissed the possibility of the Party paying for the process. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. gave his approval of the mail-in option which he compared to an absentee ballot process. “Since Governor Dean has said he’s not going to do it in the DNC, the Florida Democratic Party’s going to have to go out and raise the money,” he said. “We’re looking at about $6 million.” Referring to the expenses needed to conduct a mail-in voting for the Democratic Party supporters of Florida.

Posted by News LI Editor · Edited by Brianna - Filed Under Politics