Defeats push Clinton onto back foot

By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

Hillary Clinton has little choice but to focus on Texas and Ohio

What do you do, when you lose a clean sweep of primaries? In Hillary Clinton's case, you change the expanse of water.

As Barack Obama was celebrating victory in the Potomac Primary - named after the river which snakes through Tuesday's primary states of Virginia and Maryland, plus the District of Columbia - she was focusing on the Rio Grande Primary.

The former first lady, who has now lost eight straight primaries and caucuses in a week, chose to speak to her supporters in El Paso, Texas, not far from the border with Mexico.

In what seemed to be a higher vocal pitch than usual, she gave a long, determined speech - filled with policy suggestions, but lacking any reference to Virginia, Maryland or Washington DC. Or to Barack Obama. Or to defeat.

Texas has become her new fallback; the Lone Star state her new protective "firewall". That's the plan, at least.

The New York senator had been focusing on next month's contests there and in Ohio - two big, delegate-rich states - before Tuesday's results were known.

Now, though, she is even more focused. She has no choice.

Troubling patterns?

On stage, Mrs Clinton's smile was big, but so, too, were her defeats in those states, whose names she'd dared not speak. In the one contest, where she might have stood a chance - Virginia - the margin of Mr Obama's victory was a crushing 64% to 36% with almost all votes counted.

NEXT CONTESTS 19 Feb: Wisconsin (bi-party), Hawaii caucuses (R) 2 March: Hawaii caucus (D) 4 March: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont (bi-party) Send us your comments In pictures: Potomac Primary

Even more worrying for the Clinton camp is an analysis of the Virginia exit polls.

Not only did the Illinois senator win 90% of the African American vote - a higher figure than in previous primaries - he also scored well among constituencies which had been reliably supporting the former first lady: white men, Hispanics and lower income voters.

Mr Obama began his day in a Dunkin' Donuts in Washington DC and ended it - as one commentator put it - by adding the votes of the Dunkin' Donuts coffee crowd to those of the Starbucks latte set.

It is a new and troubling development for the Clinton team; a team which - it has been revealed - has lost another member.

Just two days after campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle stepped down, her deputy, Mike Henry is also gone. If this is a pattern, it is a very troubling one. If it's not, it is hardly a cause for celebration.

'Obamacans'

At the moment, all the celebrating is on the Obama side.

The Illinois senator now has a narrow lead in the overall delegate count and, when he spoke, it was also in a forward-looking location: Madison, Wisconsin, the venue for one of next week's primaries.

Barack Obama is making inroads into Mrs Clinton's support base

And this choice of venue said much about the state of the race. For Mrs Clinton, it was the distant firewall; for Mr Obama it was the next domino he's attempting to topple.

And while his victory speech was not quite as passionate as some of his previous ones, it was, perhaps, more playful.

On the night that his electorate seemed to widen, he referred to the Republicans who had voted for him as "Obamacans" and mimicked them whispering their affiliation to him, in conspiratorial tones.

With John McCain even more certain to be the Republican nominee than he was before these primaries, Mr Obama was also careful to refer to the "Bush McCain Republicans".

While his Democratic opponent was giving a focused, Texas-friendly pitch for primary votes, he seemed to be looking ahead to the general election.

If you sound like your party's candidate, he probably reasons, the voters will treat you like one.

Unconvinced party

It is finally beginning to work like that for Mr McCain - but not in a convincing way. He, too, got a clean sweep in Tuesday's primaries, but, in Virginia, his margin of victory over Mike Huckabee was far narrower than opinion polls at the weekend had suggested would be the case.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton
17 states, 1,592 delegates

Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas

Barack Obama
24 states, 1,723 delegates

Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state, Wisconsin
2,025 delegates needed for nomination. Source AP (includes all kinds of delegates)
Q&A: US election delegates

Republicans

Mike Huckabee
8 states, 271 delegates

Campaign ended
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kansas, Louisiana

John McCain
20 states, 1,253 delegates

Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state, Wisconsin

Mitt Romney
11 states, 251 delegates

Campaign suspended
Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah
1,191 delegates needed for nomination. Source: AP (includes all kinds of delegates)

Around half of those voting in the primary described themselves as evangelical Christians.

And - once again - their preference was for the ordained Baptist preacher and former governor of Arkansas, who has vowed to keep battling until the Arizona senator reaches his delegate target of 1,191.

Mr Huckabee has nothing to lose and continued national recognition to gain.

Ultimately, then, Mr McCain has stemmed the flow, after his weekend defeats in Louisiana and Kansas.

His challenge now is to energise a party, large sections of which are uncomfortable with him being their standard bearer in November's election.

As he celebrated in Alexandria, Virginia, the Arizona senator was surrounded by evidence of the battle which he - and his party - face this year.

Mr McCain faces the challenge of energising his party

Among the supporters standing beside him on stage were former Senator George Allen, who lost his seat in the 2006 elections, and two men who will be stepping down in 2008: Virginia's veteran Senator John Warner and one of its most respected House members, Tom Davis.

They are part of a rapidly growing band of Republicans who are leaving Congress this year.

As the presumptive nominee walked off stage, having announced, in an echo of Mr Obama, that he was "fired up and ready to go", Congressman Davis looked particularly gloomy.

The camera caught him, with his hands folded across the McCain sticker on his jacket pocket, seemingly contemplating his future and that of his party.