Despite NOW's despicable last-minute attacks, Obama wins CT

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Obama Takes Connecticut, Helped by Lamont Voters

By DAVID W. CHEN
Published: February 6, 2008

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With 96 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Obama had 50 percent of the vote, compared with 47 percent for Mrs. Clinton. The exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, showed Mr. Obama doing well among what some in that state might call the “Ned Lamont coalition.”

Mr. Lamont won an upset against Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic Senate primary in 2006, but lost in the general election. Tuesday’s primary suggested that although he lacks a political office, Mr. Lamont, chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign in Connecticut, might yet have a political legacy.

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In a state where Mrs. Clinton consistently held double-digit poll leads until mid-January, Mr. Obama ran strong among voters who made up their minds in the last month, the last week and the last three days, the exit poll showed. Thousands of unaffiliated Connecticut voters joined the Democratic Party in recent weeks in order to cast ballots in the primary, and among the nearly 20 percent of voters surveyed on Tuesday who identified themselves as independents, Mr. Obama won 6 of every 10 votes.

The two Democrats split the votes of those in Connecticut who cited the economy as their most important issue (nearly half of all voters). But those most concerned about Iraq (3 in 10 voters) favored Mr. Obama, 63 percent to 35 percent, a larger difference than among voters in New York and New Jersey. And like Mr. Lamont, Mr. Obama did very well among young and wealthier voters, winning a majority of voters under age 30 and those earning more than $100,000.

Mr. Obama also kept pace with Mrs. Clinton among white voters, who made up more than 80 percent of the Connecticut total.

“It means that Obama has shown that he can do extremely well in mobilizing some key groups that he really needs to mobilize in order to make a claim that he’s the best candidate,” said Scott McLean, chairman of the political science department at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn. “The wider significance would be that Obama has managed to encroach on some of Hillary Clinton’s regional strength.”

Lois Schoenhorn, a 77-year-old campaign volunteer for Mrs. Clinton who has been making calls on behalf of the candidate for months, said college students made a difference. “They are mostly voting for Obama,” she said, lamenting that “young women take for granted what we fought for.”

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NOW Again Attacks Obama's Illinois Voting Record on Abortion Bills

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page A08

The e-mail from Rosemary J. Dempsey, president of the Connecticut National Organization for Women, told members that Obama's record during his time in the Illinois Senate included several instances in which he voted "present" instead of yes or no on abortion-related legislation.

The e-mail quotes Bonnie Grabenhofer, the president of Illinois NOW, as saying that "voting present on those bills was a strategy that Illinois NOW did not support," and adding: "We made it clear at the time that we disagreed with the strategy. . . . Voting present doesn't provide a platform from which to show leadership and say with conviction that we support a woman's right to choose and these bills are unacceptable."

The Clinton campaign has made the same charge repeatedly over the past year.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter, sent out a reply to the NOW e-mail yesterday afternoon, defending his record on abortion and criticizing the e-mail as an effort to "to falsely attack and artificially divide us."

"The facts are clear -- in the Illinois state senate, choice advocates asked strong pro-choice legislators like Senator Obama to vote 'present' on Republican-designed bills like a ban on partial birth abortion to protect a woman's right to choose," she wrote. "Senator Obama has always had a 100 percent pro-choice rating, and he is the only candidate running for President who stood up and spoke out when South Dakota passed an incredibly restrictive ban on abortion."

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