Senator Barack Obama chalked up a victory in another caucus state, beating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Wyoming by a wide margin.
The victory Saturday, while in a state with only 18 delegates, was welcome news for the Obama campaign as it sought to blunt any advantage Clinton might gain from her victories in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday.
Clinton campaigned here Friday, a day after her husband and daughter, signaling the stakes every contest holds in the fierce battle for the Democratic nomination.
Party officials reported extremely high turnout at caucus sites across the state. In Laramie County, more than 1,500 came to cast votes at the caucus site in downtown Cheyenne, quickly filling the auditorium. Hundreds waited outside for hours until they could enter and vote. (In 2004, only 160 people showed up for the Laramie County caucus.)
Wyoming Democrats, usually a lonely bunch in an overwhelmingly Republican state, basked in their moment in the spotlight.
"Wyoming, this is our 15 minutes," Kathy Karpan, a former Wyoming secretary of state who supported Clinton, said on Saturday morning.
Obama beat Clinton 61 percent to 38 percent with all counties reporting, and he won seven delegates to Clinton's five, according to The Associated Press.
While both Clinton and Obama pushed hard to win the state, the Obama campaign's early organizing here appeared to have paid off. The campaign set up shop two weeks before Clinton's did, opening five offices in the state to two for Clinton.
"This is a big win for us," Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said Saturday afternoon. "You saw very furious campaigning by the Clinton campaign here." Coupled with victories in Colorado, Nebraska and Washington state, he said, the result in Wyoming "speaks to Senator Obama's strength in the West."
Clinton's decision to focus on Wyoming was a tactical departure for a campaign that had played down the importance of such caucus states, essentially ceding many of them to Obama, while deriding the caucus process as undemocratic.
But with Obama collecting 11 victories in these contests, and with Clinton determined to cut into his stubborn lead in delegates, the Clinton campaign deployed Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton on Thursday, with a final campaign sprint by Clinton on Friday.
The newfound attention by the candidates and the national news media drew many newly registered Democrats to caucus on Saturday - officials said there were more than 2,000 registrations recently - and lifelong Democrats who had never caucused before.
Wyoming, with its half-million residents, is the least populated state. Besides the 12 delegates awarded based on the results of the caucuses, six others could go to the convention uncommitted.
"We are thrilled with this near-split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support," said Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, The Associated Press reported. "Although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Senator Clinton's vision to the caucusgoers and we thank them for turning out today."
The campaign next moves to Mississippi, which holds its primary Tuesday.
Bill Clinton, campaigning Saturday in Pass Christian, Mississippi, repeated the suggestion that Clinton would take Obama as a running mate if she won the Democratic nomination.
"She said yesterday and she said the day after her big wins in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island that she was very open to that," the former president said. He said a Clinton-Obama ticket would be "an almost unstoppable force."
IHT.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/09/america/wyoming.php
