Aloha!! Obama (Not So Wordless Wednesday) Gets Hawaii Too...Hillary, It's Time To "Cry" Again!

Hawaii handed Sen. Barack Obama his 10th consecutive win Tuesday, CNN projects, while Sen. John McCain inched forward on his march to the Republican nomination, picking up two more states.

(I'd Be Smiling Too, Obama!!)


Earlier on Tuesday, Obama won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin.

"The change we seek is still months and miles away," Obama said Tuesday night in Houston, Texas.

He's emerged as the Democratic front-runner over Sen. Hillary Clinton after a split-decision on Super Tuesday two weeks ago.

"It is going to require more than rousing speeches. ... It is going to require something more, because the problem that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas. It's that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die," he said. Video Watch Obama rally supporters »

Obama and Clinton have turned their attention to Ohio and Texas, which hold contests March 4. Early voting began in Texas on Tuesday.

In the Republican race, Wisconsin gives McCain at least 13 more delegates; 24 more delegates are to be awarded to the winner of each congressional district.

The remaining three GOP delegates are unpledged Republican National Committee members.

McCain also picked up a win in Washington state's primary.

McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were competing for 19 delegates in Washington. Eighteen delegates were awarded earlier in the state's caucuses.

As Obama has edged ahead of Clinton in the Democratic race, McCain has increasingly directed criticism toward the Illinois senator. Video Watch how Obama won Wisconsin »

"I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change," McCain told supporters Tuesday night.

"Our purpose is to keep this blessed country free, safe, prosperous and proud," McCain said. Video Watch McCain thank Wisconsin »

CNN estimates McCain has gathered 909 delegates toward the 1,191 needed for the nomination. Huckabee has 217.


While the Arizona senator leads by a wide margin in the delegate count, Huckabee said he intends to stay in the race.

"Some of you have suggested that the reason I keep going is maybe just there's some ego trip. Let me assure you -- if it were ego, my ego doesn't enjoy getting these kind of evenings where we don't win," Huckabee said Tuesday night.

"So it's got to be something more than that, and it is. It's about convictions and it's about principles that I dearly, dearly believe in." Video Watch Huckabee vow to keep fighting »

Clinton joined McCain in accusing Obama of lacking specifics as she addressed supporters Tuesday. Check out CNN's analysis of the results »

"I want to talk to you about the choice you have in this election and why that choice matters. It is about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work -- on hard work to get America back to work," Clinton said in Youngstown, Ohio. Video Watch Clinton talk about solutions »

"We can't just have speeches. We've got to have solutions and we need those solutions for America. We've got to get America back in the solutions business."

McCain was looking for big wins Tuesday to demonstrate he is starting to unify the Republican Party behind his nomination, including conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.

Clinton and Obama were running a tight race for the Democratic nomination, while on the Republican side, presumptive nominee McCain was hoping voters could help him finally knock his last major rival out of the race. Photo View pictures from the polls and campaign trail »

In Washington, election officials were opening ballots in the largely vote-by-mail state. The results will have no impact on how the state's Democratic delegates will be distributed because the delegate allocation was determined February 9 in the state's caucuses. Obama beat Clinton, 68 percent to 31 percent.

Obama scored a projected win in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, the state where he was born and still has family.

The Clinton campaign dispatched Chelsea Clinton, the New York senator's daughter, to rally support. Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, has stumped for her brother.

McCain and Obama have been targeting each other in campaign speeches recently, but Tuesday morning, their wives got into the fray.

As Cindy McCain introduced her husband at a campaign event, she told the crowd "I am proud of my country. I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier -- I am very proud of my country."

The comment seemed to be a response to a remark from Michelle Obama the day before. On Monday, she told a Wisconsin audience that "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback ... not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."

Obama leads Clinton in the overall delegate count -- 1,294 to 1,234, according to CNN estimates. The estimate includes the support of superdelegates, the party officials and elected officials who are free to vote for any candidate at the party's national convention. Check out a list of the superdelegates »
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Ninety-four Democratic delegates were at stake Tuesday.

Both candidates are short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and it is very likely the roughly 800 superdelegates will ultimately decide who will be chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee









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Peace Out, Guiliani!

Giuliani prepares to exit, back McCain
source

ORLANDO, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani, who bet his presidential hopes on Florida only to come in third, prepared to quit the race Tuesday and endorse his friendliest rival, John McCain.
The former New York mayor stopped short of announcing he was stepping down, but delivered a valedictory speech that was more farewell than fight-on.

Giuliani finished a distant third to winner John McCain and close second-place finisher Mitt Romney. Republican officials said Giuliani would endorse McCain on Wednesday in California. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the public announcement.

"I'm proud that we chose to stay positive and to run a campaign of ideas in an era of personal attacks, negative ads and cynical spin," he said as supporters with tight smiles crowded behind him.

"You don't always win, but you can always try to do it right, and you did."

Asked directly if he was dropping out of the race, Giuliani said only: "I'm going to California."
Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to debate in Simi Valley Wednesday night.
Tuesday's result was a remarkable collapse for Giuliani. Last year, he occupied the top of national polls and seemed destined to turn conventional wisdom on end by running as a moderate Republican who supported abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.
"Elections are about fighting for a cause larger than ourselves," he said at one point, echoing one of McCain's most popular refrains.

The results seriously decimated Giuliani's unconventional strategy, which relied heavily on Florida to launch him into the coast-to-coast Feb. 5 nominating contests.
He largely bypassed the early voting states, figuring that the early states would produce multiple winners and no front-runner.
But Florida proved to be less than hospitable. The state's top two Republicans — Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist — endorsed McCain. And Giuliani, who once led in state polls, saw his support swiftly erode.
Surveys of voters leaving polling places Tuesday showed that Giuliani was getting backing from some Hispanics, abortion rights supporters and people worried about terrorism, but was not dominating in any area.
McCain, addressing his own supporters moments later in Miami, gave Giuliani a warm rhetorical embrace, a possible prologue to accepting Giuliani's expected support.
"I want to thank my dear friend, my dear friend Rudy Giuliani, who invested his heart and soul in this primary and who conducted himself with all the qualities of the exceptional American leaders he truly is," McCain said. "Thank you Rudy for all you have added to this race and being and for being an inspiration to me and millions of Americans."
Giuliani hung his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on his leadership. His stalwart performance as New York mayor in the tense days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks earned him national magazine covers, international accolades and widespread praise.
Yet, Giuliani was always a Republican anomaly — a moderate-to-liberal New Yorker who backed abortion rights, gay rights and gun control in a party dominated by Southern conservatives.
In the end, as he saluted his backers Tuesday night, Giuliani hardly sounded wistful. But his remarks had the air of finality, of a campaign that had run its course.
"The responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign, it goes on and you continue to fight for it," Giuliani said. "We ran a campaign that was uplifting."
Giuliani, 63, first gained prominence as a crime-busting federal prosecutor in Manhattan. During a nearly seven-year stretch ending in 1989, Giuliani steered dozens of high-profile cases to completion, garnering more than 4,000 convictions. He tangled with mob bosses, Wall Street executives and corrupt politicians — and was never afraid to invite the bright lights of TV cameras to accompany his quests.
Giuliani's record as a crime-fighter helped propel his next career as a politician, but it wasn't an immediate success. He lost the first time he ran for mayor in 1989 before winning in 1993.
As mayor, he fostered a take-charge image by rushing to fires and crime scenes to brief the press, but some critics felt he was more concerned about taking credit from others for what became a historic decline in the city's crime rate during his tenure.
And, while the cleanup of New York in the 1990s helped the city take advantage of the nation's economic boom, critics — especially in minority communities — complained that Giuliani's tactics were too aggressive and trampled on civil rights.
A bout with prostate cancer and the very public breakup of his marriage with second wife Donna Hanover — she first learned he was filing for divorce when he made the announcement at a televised news conference — forced Giuliani to withdraw from a race for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000.
By the summer of 2001, public esteem for Giuliani was at a low ebb. On the morning of Sept. 11, Giuliani did what he always did: rushed to the scene.
In the minutes, hours, and days that followed, he presented a calm, determined presence — urging people not to panic, but reminding them of the grim toll of the terrorist attacks. The image of a dusty, sweaty Giuliani walking near Ground Zero, surrounded by firefighters and police, was seared into the national memory.

In December 2001, Time magazine named him "person of the year" and its cover showed Giuliani standing atop a skyscraper in front of the New York City skyline with the label "Rudy Giuliani — tower of strength."

In the years after the attacks, that reputation helped launch a hugely successful consulting business, and got him a major piece of a Washington, D.C.-based law firm with a long list of big corporate clients.
Yet, while Giuliani has long been known as efficient and tough-minded, he also can be brusque, rude and occasionally harsh.
His past associations in business and politics have come under scrutiny. President Bush, at Giuliani's urging, nominated Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner and one-time close associate of Giuliani to head the Homeland Security Department. Kerik withdrew his nomination, and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of accepting a gift from a company suspected of ties to organized crime.
In the final days of his Florida campaign, the former mayor trailed badly in polls but insisted he would win an upset victory. As the actual votes were counted, only about one in six GOP voters chose Giuliani.
With no working strategy, no primary victories, and dwindling resources, the mayor's third-place finish spelled the end of his campaign, even if his crestfallen supporters couldn't believe it.
"They'll be sorry!" a woman with a New York accent called out to the mayor as he spoke. "You sound like my mother," Giuliani joked. source

***
You can only ride the 9/11 train for so long. Ok he was a tower of strength-shoot I've been a tower of strength in the face of adversity many a time, but that doesn't make me a candidate for the presidency...hold that thought-hmmmm---nawwwww.
I mean I want to hang Kwame Kilpatrick-Detroit Mayor-upside down by his toenails, for his trifling, sex-texting at the expense of Detroit residents...
but what about a man who has the audacity to bring his mistress to the home of his wife?!
Last I read, Guiliani's kids weren't speaking to him!
Who in the world would vote for this nonsense?!
If his coming in 3rd place in Fla is what it took for him to step down...I say thank goodness!
Let's not drag it out-just ride out into the sunset, Guiliani-it was nice while it lasted
:p


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