Well today could have gone better for us, but Camp Obama did a good job in South Carolina today and are to be congratulated. Hillary just released a statement on her website
Statement from Hillary Clinton
"I have called Senator Obama to congratulate him and wish him well.
"Thank you to the people of South Carolina who voted today and welcomed me into their homes over the last year. Your stories will stay with me well beyond this campaign and I am grateful for the support so many of you gave to me.
"We now turn our attention to the millions of Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the twenty-two states as well as American Samoa who will vote on February 5th.
"In the days ahead, I’ll work to give voice to those who are working harder than ever to be heard. For those who have lost their job or their home or their health care, I will focus on the solutions needed to move this country forward. That’s what this election is about. It’s about our country, our hopes and dreams. Our families and our future."
Make the jump – there’s more...
Up next - Florida on Tuesday and then on to Tsunami Tuesday.
Hillary’s Communications Director, Howard Wolfson sent out a campaign memo to "Interested Parties" earlier today, and it says this in part...
Regardless of today’s outcome, the race quickly shifts to Florida, where hundreds of thousands of Democrats will turn out to vote on Tuesday.
Despite efforts by the Obama campaign to ignore Floridians, their voices will be heard loud and clear across the country, as the last state to vote before Super Tuesday on February 5th.
This remains a delegate fight, with 1,681 delegates at stake on February 5th, and 2,025 needed to secure the nomination -- and we are ahead in that fight.
As Senator Clinton has said from the beginning, we have built a national campaign with the resources to compete and win across the country.
Coming off of victories in Nevada, Michigan and New Hampshire, Senator Clinton has demonstrated the importance of focusing on achieving real solutions on the economy, health care and Iraq .
As she campaigns throughout the United States over the coming weeks, Senator Clinton will continue to work hard for every vote, making sure that Americans know she will be a President who focuses on what matters most—making a difference in people’s lives.
In other words, this thing’s not even close to being over, and Hillary’s out there 24/7 meeting with voters and asking us for our vote.
The campaign also had some interesting info up on a few of the upcoming states.
Strength in the States:
In Tennessee, a new poll from NBC affiliate WSMV-TV has Hillary up by 14 points over Sen. Obama (34-20)...
In Missouri, a new Rasmussen poll has Hillary up by 19 points over Sen. Obama (43-24)...
In Arizona, a new Behavior Research Center poll has Hillary up by 10 points over Sen. Obama (37-27)...
In Alabama, a new Rasmussen poll has Hillary up 15 points over Sen. Obama (43-28)...
In California, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll has Hillary up by 15 points over Sen. Obama (43-28).
Meanwhile Hillary’s staying with the issues she knows will resonate with families like mine – and the economy’s right up there at the top of our list. Families like mine worry about how we’ll send our kids to college, help our folks in their old age AND save for our own retirement. Living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t really allow for any of that and if one or both of us loses our job we’re screwed with nothing in our savings account. Rethugs tell us to scale back and give up the luxuries, but we’ve already done all that. When a family’s reduced to thrift stores and the dollar store there’s nothing left to cut from a budget.
Hillary understands all that.
The L A Times has a great article out today about Hillary called Running for the economic empathizer in chief...
She has been railing about the price of gasoline, wondering how working mothers pay doctors' bills, and generally echoing complaints of everyday folks: How can you afford to put kids through college? What about paying that inflated adjustable-rate home loan? Or holding onto a job in a teetering economy?
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made her final push Friday across South Carolina in advance of today's Democratic presidential primary, channeling the central imperative of her husband's first run for president: a focus, "like a laser beam," on the economy.
Though the candidates quibbled Friday over their stimulus packages and longer-term prosperity plans, what mainly divided them was the issue of who was most likely to effect economic change.
Clinton laid out a list of college loan assistance, mortgage relief, heating oil assistance and more. But people who said they would vote for her today focused less on the specifics than on a prospect of a return to the booming economy presided over by her husband in the 1990s.
On Monday at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., she worried aloud about people she had met on the campaign trail: a mother who can't get healthcare for her child and the "worker who has done everything he is supposed to do and then he's laid off. And all of a sudden he is disposable."
Voters who went to see Clinton this week didn't appear to be focused on the details of the candidate's $40-billion tax rebate plan or her proposed a five-year freeze on sub-prime mortgage rate hikes. Instead, they talked about how much they liked the last Clinton era.
"We just have faith and trust that she will bring the country back to its rightful place," said Julius Sneed, a retired school administrator who attended the rally in Columbia.
Sneed said his wife, also an educator, had to go back to work to help make ends meet.
John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said the shift of the election to economics should benefit Clinton. "This is an issue where the Clinton brand has the greatest impact," Pitney said. "It points to the most popular aspects of Bill Clinton's administration -- a booming stock market, low unemployment, low inflation."
I’m still fighting off that cold so I’ll let Hillary close this one out tonight in a recent ad where she talks about our ailing economy, and her plan to jumpstart it ...