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Obama takes lead in delegates after big wins

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com

11:38 PM EST, February 12, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama addresses the crowd gathered at the Kohl Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. (MCT / February 12, 2008)

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama won huge victories over Hillary Rodham Clinton in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia yesterday -- seizing the overall lead among delegates and staking legitimate claim to the title of Democratic front-runner.

In an ominous sign for the reeling Clinton, Obama reached beyond his electoral base of blacks and educated whites, nearly tying her among white voters and beating her decisively among women, according to exit polls in Virginia and Maryland. He also won seniors and the working-class Democrats Clinton dominated on Super Tuesday -- sending Clinton her eighth straight primary or caucus defeat.

"This is the new American majority, this is what change looks like from the bottom up," Obama told a crowd of 15,000 in Madison, Wis., last night.

Clinton's losses came as another top staffer, deputy campaign manager Mike Henry, stepped aside, part of a shake-up that began with the weekend replacement of campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime adviser Maggie Williams.

Obama has ridiculed the former first lady as a Beltway insider, but Washington, D.C., rejected her by a whopping 76 percent to 24 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting. In Virginia, Obama dominated Clinton, 63 percent to 36 percent, with 95 percent of precincts reporting, and he was on pace to beat her in Maryland by a similar margin, according to early returns.

As of 10 p.m., The Associated Press reported that Obama was leading Clinton 1,186, to 1,181 in the total delegate count, including super delegates. That margin was expected to grow significantly as Obama's gains last night were factored into the totals.

Clinton is now staking her political fate on Texas and Ohio, March 4, states where she enjoys leads.

Clinton wasn't the only one taking shots. In a statement likely to reignite racial rancor between the campaigns, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton surrogate, suggested Obama would have trouble winning over white voters in a general election. "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate," Rendell told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board Monday.

Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife in Maryland, suggested Obama's popularity is the product of "smoke and mirrors." But hours earlier, his wife's former staffer, Mike Henry, hinted at problems. "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," he wrote in an e-mail to the campaign staff.

Staff writer Keith Herbert contributed to this story from El Paso, Texas.