Onwards to battle. That was the message emanating from a tough speech by Barack Obama as he addressed thousands of cheering supporters in his adopted hometown of Chicago.
While the results of Super Tuesday were still being announced, Obama made a naked pitch to the rest of America who have not yet had a chance to vote but whose primaries could now be vital in the Democratic battle with Senator Hillary Clinton.
”We need you,” Obama said ”We need you to stand with us. We need you to work with us.”
Obama’s speech reflected the mood in his campaign. It was an acceptance that the battle for the nomination is every bit as heated after Super Tuesday as it was before. He did not shy from landing verbal blows at Clinton, especially her support for the Iraq war. He sought to portray her as a figure of the past and his supporters as a movement of the future with one eye already on the November general election.
”This fall we owe the American people a real choice. We can choose between change and more of the same. We have to choose between looking backwards and looking forwards. We have to choose between a future and a past,” he said.
Several thousand supporters had packed themselves into the cavernous Riverside Centre, deep in the bowels of the enormous Chicago Hyatt Regency hotel. They waited almost five hours until Obama came on stage to deafening cheers.
Earlier huge screens had live broadcasts of the cable news channels as the first results came in. Shouts and screams greeted the first good news of the night as Georgia was quickly announced as the first Obama win. Then, scarcely, an hour later the hall erupted in applause as Obama was declared as the winner of his adopted home state.
Huge cheers erupted when Delaware, Connecticut and Minnesota went for Obama. Silence greeted news of Clinton wins in New Jersey, Massachusetts and the giant of New York. When images of Clinton giving her victory speech from New York appeared the crowd chanted, ”No she can’t!” at the screen, reversing the Obama campaign slogan of ”Yes, we can!”
Among the cheering crowd was Robert Lewis, a retired high school principal. Wearing an Obama T-shirt he beamed broadly at the prospect of an Obama win. ”I am here to celebrate the victory that Senator Obama has had,” he said and then added with a laugh: ”We are going to win in all 24 of these states.”
Lewis — and, more importantly, Obama and his staffers — know that is not going to happen. Indeed the Obama campaign is rapidly focusing on the days, weeks and perhaps months ahead, as it prepares to move forward. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager said they had done better than their own expectations of being within 100 delegates of Clinton after Super Tuesday. ”This is a day they clearly thought they could put a punctuation mark on this. They are not going to do that,” Plouffe said.
Already at least three more debates have been scheduled through to the beginning of March, including in Ohio and Texas.
Indeed, even as the Super Tuesday results were rolling in, it was a host of future dates that were looming in the minds of campaign staffers. Events like the so-called Potomac Primary of Washington, DC, and Virginia in a week. Or Super Tuesday II on March 4 when four primaries are held including ones in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio.
”We like where we stand right now,” said Plouffe. There was little doubt that Plouffe thought there was everything to play for as the next contests with the Clinton camp already begin to loom. ”Both of us are prepared for a long drawn out affair … We think we’re better organised,” he said.
Some political observers are even talking about what might happen in Pennsylvania in April. That is the last big state in the race and will come after six weeks of no other major primary being held. That raises the prospect that a rerun of the town-to-town battles fought in New Hampshire and Iowa could be held in Pennsylvania.
The rally in Chicago was certainly a strictly choreographed event, indicating the changes that the campaign has undergone as it slowly morphed from upstart to fully-fledged presidential candidacy aimed at ending the Clinton’s dominance of the Democratic party.
That is perhaps in part a reflection of the enormous press interest that now follows Obama wherever he goes. More than 400 journalists from all over the world were packed into the Hyatt.
There is little doubt that the campaign has toughed up. Unlike after Iowa there is no mood of unrealistic optimism. That first balloon of expectations was rudely popped in New Hampshire and since a campaign chastened and also toughened by a rough race in South Carolina is playing a far more canny game. They have been careful to manage expectations, insisting that they believe Clinton will emerge from Super Tuesday ahead on delegates.
One area though where a distinct advantage is starting to emerge for Obama is in cash. Last month Obama raised a stunning $32-million dollars. That compared to just $13,5-million for Clinton. Obama also raised much of his through small online donors — who can thus donate again — where as Clinton tapped mostly big donors who have no reached the federally set legal limit of $2 300 each.
But among the cheering crowd in the Hyatt there was no such thoughts of future races or the details of fund-raising. They cheered and applauded throughout Obama’s lengthy speech as it hit all the familiar notes of social change and helping poor Americans in a spirit of unity.
”We don’t have to be divided by race, religion or gender. The crumbling schools are stealing the future of white children and black children,” he said. Obama repeatedly portrayed his candidacy as a movement sweeping all areas of the country and all demographics. ”What started as a whisper has swelled to a chorus. It is a chorus that cannot be ignored,” he said with his trademark soaring rhetoric.
He ended with a rousing rallying cry to the crowd. ”We can do this this. But it will not be easy. It will require struggle and sacrifice,” he said. Then he concluded by leading the audience in a rousing series of cheers of ”Yes, we can!” and the final exhortation: ”Let’s get to work.”
The crowd roared at the speech’s end. Lewis believed he was seeing the eventual winner of the Democratic race. Perhaps even the next president. ”I am confident. The more people get to hear his message the more people are coming to support him. He says what he means and he means what he says,” Lewis said.
But Obama’s campaign know that a long fight with Clinton still beckons for now. It’s outcome is far from certain. But Obama’s top staff is spoiling for the fight. ”This was their day to get the upper hand in the nomination. They failed in that regard,” Plouffe said. – Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008