Obama's changing Hillary's odds

I'm sitting in another rally for Obama. This one is in the gymnasium of the Nashua North Titans. When our press bus arrived there were two long, winding lines of folks standing in the cold waiting to get in. They're in now and one of the other journalists guestimated that there are more than 2,500 in the overflow crowd. Hundreds are still waiting outside so they're going to put the overflow crowd in a second gym. I can count the blacks in the house on both hands. No surpise. New Hampshire's black population is a hefty one percent.

From my bird's eye view, it looks like Hillary is in trouble. (A Rasmussen poll released later in the day had Obama with 37 percent of the New Hampshire vote, Hillary with 27 percent.) If Obama wins this white state after winning Iowa, South Carolina should fall easily in his win column. We'll see.

Here's the news story I wrote for the Afro American News yesterday. Sooner or later I get back to being the pundit.

Friday, January 04, 2008

A victorious Obama sweeps into New Hampshire 

By Monroe Anderson

AFRO Staff Writer

PORTSMOUTH, N.H – Just hours after his unprecedented victory in the Iowa caucuses, a hoarse Barack Obama Friday addressed an enthusiastic rally of nearly 500 volunteers here who he hopes will help him make history again in New Hampshire.

"How's it going New Hampshire?" the freshman Illinois senator asked, his voice scratchy and strained. "My throat is still a little sore, but my spirits are high."

Sore throat or not, it was obvious that Obama's quest to become the nation's first African American president was alive and well as he arrived in New Hampshire. In an Iowa contest that virtually all polls and pundits said up until the final hours was too close to call, Obama blew away his rivals with 38 percent of the votes. Challengers former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton received 29 percent each.

A record number of young voters showed up at the Iowa caucuses in response to Obama's battle cry for change. In one caucus, more than 200 voters showed up as compared with only 85 four years earlier.

Obama landed in New Hampshire to campaign for the New England state's January 8 primary election, continuing his call for change as the core for his campaign, with hope as its driving force.

"In four days, New Hampshire, you can have a chance to change America," he told the crowd.

Brushing aside Clinton’s campaign message that stresses the importance of experience, Obama said he was running for president because of what the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the fierce urgency of now."

His campaign message Friday was that change in America is needed now and that he is the one to make it happen.

"There are those who say Obama should not be running for president, because he hasn't been in Washington long enough," he said to the excited throng. "They say I need to be seasoned and stewed, so they can boil all the hope out of me."

As Obama spoke, the enthusiastic crowd applauded and waved signs with “Change” in bold print.

Kwame Boadi, a John Hopkins University graduate student, was in that crowd.

"I'm just up to help through the primaries," Boadi, 25, said.

Boadi said he made the trip to Portsmouth from D.C. to volunteer for the Obama campaign because he relates to the candidate with a Kenyan father and Kansas mother on a personal level. Although he was raised in D.C., Boadi was born in Uganda and is studying international affairs. Boadi said what excites him about Obama that he represents change.

Boadi said that while he holds no ill will towards Hillary, "she's more of a status quo candidate. That's not what I want."