Surging in popularity on the morning of the iconic New Hampshire primary, Senator Barack Obama soars free on the winds in the lofty altitudes far above his rivals for the Democratic nomination for president.
Since winning the Iowa primary, Obama has become a political phenomenon – the surfer on a gigantic wave arching and sweeping over America propelling her forward into a new Post-Clinton-Bush era.
America’s premiere pollster, John Zogby, reports that Obama leads Clinton in all demographic categories except for women (with that gap narrowing perceptibly) and voters over 65.
In New Hampshire, Obama now leads Clinton among Democrats.
Obama’s striking impact on the electorate has toppled Clinton’s towering political supremacy and frozen Edwards’ dissipating core around a steadily decreasing nucleus of zealots.
The latest surveys indicate that Obama may receive over forty percent of the vote in New Hampshire while Clinton may be reduced to the twenties with Edwards limping home in the teens.
Part of the Obama-phenomenon is the return of ranks of prodigal Independents to the Democratic Party after decades in the wilderness where they drifted away to support third party candidates and flirt with Reaganism and its tragic aftermath in neoconservativism. One week ago in Iowa, Dennis Kucinich’s nod to Obama rather than Edwards helped fuel this fascinating political phenomenon now swirling around the senator from Illinois. This past weekend, Kucinich explained his choice citing Edwards’ suspicious and lucrative ‘affiliation’ with a hedge fund that paid the former Senator over five hundred thousand dollars for one year’s service in a business relationship that soils his studiously crafted reputation for ideological purity.
The next iconic primary will take place in South Carolina on the 26th of January. Obama is already leading the field in SC where Clinton and Edwards both mounted strong and well-funded campaigns. Clinton invested a huge amount into SC, and so has Edwards for he was born in the state and yearned to make a decisive impression there. But, the Clinton and Edwards strategies were both predicated on their presumptions of success in Iowa and New Hampshire and their hopes – now dashed – of shamelessly branding Obama as “unelectable.”
While Clinton has denied a flood of rumors of her imminent withdrawal from the race, Planetary has been informed that there is growing sentiment within the top levels of her staff that her candidacy is now doomed to ultimate failure. The rising tide of opinion in Hillaryland is that even if something miraculous were to happen and she were to prevail over Obama for the nomination, the party would be so riven that she would lose in November.
The support for John Edwards is both smaller and softer than the swiftly dwindling Clinton rump, but he is still hoping that she will drop out allowing him to go one-on-one against Obama in a final showdown. From well-placed sources in North Carolina, Planetary has learned that Edwards is now seriously considering redefining his strategy, and he may now soften his rhetoric to play for the Vice-Presidential nomination with Obama at the top of the ticket – a ploy he rehearsed successfully in 2004.
Spokesmen for both failing campaigns have now stated their intentions to soldier on through Mega-Tuesday when six major states will hold primaries.
Given the dynamics at this point in the campaign and excluding unforeseeable tragedies – it now seems likely that Senator Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008.
