CHICAGO - Sen. Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House, The Associated Press reported based on its tally of delegates.
Obama arranged a victory celebration at the site of this summer’s Republican National Convention — an in-your-face gesture to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who would be his opponent in the race to become the nation’s 44th president.
Obama, 46, of Illinois, bested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in a historic campaign that sparked record turnouts in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.
The AP said Obama sealed his victory based on public declarations from delegates as well as from an additional 22 who had confirmed their intentions to the news service. The count also included five delegates Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 15 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day.
NBC News has been maintaining its own tally of delegates, which showed Obama’s being 11 delegates short of the 2,118 needed. NBC News said it would not confirm Obama as the presumptive nominee until all private commitments by delegates were made public.
So the Associated Press is declaring Barack Obama the winner based on both "public declarations" from delegates, and another 22 delegates "who had confirmed their intentions to the news services." These 22 delegates may have privately told the AP that they were throwing their support for Obama, but they may not have publicly confirmed it. Whereas, NBC News is counting only the super delegates that have publicly confirmed their support for Obama. The AP is also adding in the five delegates "Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 15 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day." In other words, the Associated Press is playing the speculation game here in an attempt to scoop the story before we know the final primary election results.
Now let us go to ABC News, and their declaration of Obama being the winner:
Based on the preliminary exit polls and our reporting, ABC News projects Sen. Barack Obama will have enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination after the votes from the final primary contests are counted tonight.
Obama, D-Ill., is within 9 delegates of the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president and is expected to win an additional number of delegates in the final primary contests and further superdelegate endorsements Tuesday.
ABC News is basing their scoop on preliminary exit polls, saying first that Obama will have enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. But then ABC News claims that Obama is within only 9 delegates of the 2,118 to cinch the nomination. Excuse me, ABC News, but you have contradicted yourself in your zeal to scoop the story. Has Obama won either Montana and South Dakota in order to gain enough delegates to secure the nomination? Not yet, although I will admit that Obama is close to securing the nomination. What we are seeing here are mainstream news organizations trying to claim they are the first in breaking the big story of the first African-American to win the Democratic nomination for president, even though we all know that Obama will probably win the nomination later tonight.
Of course, ABC News also provides this little news detail:
Clinton is planning to address supporters in New York tonight but is not expected to drop out of the race, a senior Clinton campaign official who is involved in drafting tonight's speech told ABC News' Kate Snow earlier Tuesday.
"She is spending the coming days making the case to superdelegates and unpledged delegates as to why she is the strongest candidate against John McCain," a Clinton campaign official said.
Clinton will give another speech after tonight where she will withdraw from the race, according to officials.
ABC News probably got suckered into this contradiction. First they claim that Hillary Clinton will address supporters in New York, but will not drop out of the race, and then ABC claims that Clinton will give another speech after tonight, where she will drop out of the race. Looking at this contradiction, I'd say that the Clinton campaign doesn't know what they will do after the results come in from Montana and South Dakota. At this moment, the campaign is desperately trying to gain support from the remaining super delegates. Once Obama gains the 2,118 delegates for the nomination, then Clinton will have to decide when to drop out. So there is a rampant amount of speculation and buzz taking place on this final primary day, but the absolute, final results have yet to be posted.
It is only a matter of time.
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