Last night Barack Obama captured his first voting win in Ohio as a straw vote took place in Lakewood, Cuyahoga County.
Update: Don't read more into this than the simple point that, this was a surprising result to me. I'm not trying to make any huge, misleading, declarations about the significance of this straw vote. I'm just saying that it cuts against the grain... which I think is great. I do think Dennis is in serious trouble though.
This event was significant for a number of reasons. First, as most of you know, Ted Strickland has endorsed Hillary. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones has also endorsed Hillary, and both have been campaigning and marshaling the troops here since the beginning of the month and before. Tubbs-Jones happens to represent a largely black CD in the most populous, most urban, most Democratic county in Ohio. Needless to say, this puts Obama in a major disadvantage.
Second, as pablano's excellent super Tuesday preview shows, this thing is going to be close either way coming out of February 5th. I believe that Chesapeake Tuesday is going to be a 3-0 victory for Obama as things stand right now. And that means that Texas and Ohio on March 4th are probably going to decide this thing. I'm not aware of any polling on either state, but anecdotally I would have to say that both Texas and Ohio are naturally strong states for Hillary. If Hillary wins both states then we are looking at some trouble.
Which makes the outcome of last night's somewhat meaningless straw poll......umm, not so meaningless. This was an establishment, party, event. It was sponsored primarily by the Lakewood Democratic Club, but was co-sponsored by the Cuyahoga Democratic Women's Caucus, Westside Democrats,Bay Village Democratic Club, Rocky River Democratic club among others. Not only will this resounding victory spread to "regular rank and file party type people" but the enthusiasm of the young and first-time voters will hopefully lay the groundwork for a March 4 victory.
As a side note, Congressman Dennis Kucinich is in serious trouble folks. Most of you probably know that he dropped out of the Presidential race recently to focus on his Congressional primary--and for good reason. Extremely popular Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, who represents Cleveland's downtown and warehouse districts is Crushing Kucinich in fundraising and has some very popular Cleveland business leaders supporting him. Trouble, trouble for Dennis it seems....