The Democratic presidential nomination race continues to favor the challenger, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Obama has now won 12 state primaries in a row, and is looking increasingly like the inevitable Democratic candidate for president in 2008.
Although Senator Hillary Clinton has campaigned long and hard, and has certainly been a tough competitor, Barack Obama continues to gain important endorsements from powerful legislators and political figures around the country. Representative Jon Barrow of Georgia is one of the latest to endorse Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee.
Senator Obama has now garnered the official endorsement of all five of Georgia’s Democratic representatives; while Senator Clinton now finds herself without a single endorsement in the state. To add insult to injury, another Georgia Democrat, Representative John Lewis of Atlanta has announced that he will be switching his support from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
Georgia is traditionally a very conservative state, even within Democratic circles. The overwhelming endorsement of Barack Obama by Georgia representatives is a clear indication that his appeal crosses over class, race and even political boundaries.
Georgia may well turn out to be an important state in the 2008 presidential election. In the last several elections, the state has gone overwhelmingly Republican, but there are growing signs now of a renewed Democratic Party in Georgia, and even some Georgia Republicans have expressed a willingness to cross over and vote for Obama.
To the contrary, his opponent Hillary Clinton does not enjoy the same type of bipartisan support in Georgia, or indeed in most of the Southern states. Conservatives throughout the South have been nearly unanimously united in their fight against a second Clinton presidency, a widespread attitude that is improving Senator Obama’s fortunes in the South.
As many political pundits have already observed, if the conservative “Deep South” states are favorable toward a black president, there is absolutely no doubt that the country as a whole is capable of electing a black president. While this is certainly a welcome change of attitude, particularly in the South, the real question is, will Senator Obama be our first black president?
At this point in the race, most experts believe that the Democratic nomination a Senator Obama’s to lose. Barring some extreme and shocking news, or a Herculean effort by Senator Clinton to get her message out, Obama looks unstoppable at this point.
And although recent polls indicate Obama would do well running against Republican John McCain, it is still a long time until November, and in presidential politics anything can happen.
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