Obama, Huckabee top candidates in Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa (dpa) - Senator Barack Obama topped Democratic presidential contenders, and Mike Huckabee led Republican candidates Thursday night in Iowa, where the first votes were taken in the presidential nominating process.
With 93 per cent of precincts counted, Obama was at 37.2 per cent. Former senator John Edwards was at 30 per cent, and New York Senator Hillary Clinton had 29.6 per cent.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, led centre-right Republicans by 34 per cent, with 72 per cent reporting. Only former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney came close with 25 per cent of the vote.
Obama, who represents Illinois in the US Senate, is bidding to become the country's first African-American president and has positioned himself as a force for change from typical Washington politics. That message seemed to resonate with Iowan caucus goers like 55-year-old Diane Larson, a retired teacher.
"I'm so sick of normal politicians. I think they're all power- hungry people," she said. "To me (Obama) just represents something different. He seems a little more normal and less jaded."
The three top Democrats had been locked in a tight race ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Clinton has led in polling nationally in the centre-left party.
On the Republican side, Huckabee's win marked a serious blow for Romney, who had hoped that an Iowa victory would propel him to dominance in other early voting states.
Romney is locked in a tight battle according to polls with Arizona Senator John McCain in New Hampshire, the second state to vote in the intra-party elections on Tuesday.
In a not-so-subtle jab at Romney, McCain said Thursday night at a New Hampshire campaign stop that Huckabee's victory showed "you can't buy an election ... and negative campaigns don't work."
Romney had spent far more money than any other candidate on television commercials and campaigning in Iowa, with many of his ads in recent weeks directly targeting Huckabee.
Vance Wartick, a 59-year-old sales representative and first-time caucus goer, said he started out in favour of Romney but was turned off by the negative attacks to change his vote to Huckabee.
Huckabee "comes across as a person I could trust to do what he says he's going to do," Wartick said.
In what has become a ritual of grass-roots democracy, Republican and Democratic voters gathered separately Thursday night in thousands of meetings statewide, voicing their preferences for the major-party nominations for the November 4 general elections.
Iowa voter turnout appeared to be far higher than usual in the widest open presidential race in recent memory.
11:13 Jan 04, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment