Obama Wins Overseas Super Tuesday Primary
Weird as it sounds, expatriate Dems get their own delegation as if they were a state, worth 11 votes, at the convention…
(Reuters ) - US Democratic Party voters in Indonesia, where Barack Obama spent part of his childhood, handed him a win over Hillary Clinton in the first voting abroad on “Super Tuesday,” party officials said.
Seventy-five percent of nearly 100 votes cast by expatriate Americans just past midnight (1700 GMT Monday) went to Obama and 25 percent went to Clinton, Democrats Abroad officials here said.
Results still need formal verification.
Registered Democrats in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta were the first to vote in person on the day of the US mega-primary, which will select more than half the delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.
The convention will in turn choose the party’s presidential candidate in the race for the White House.
Democrats are voting Tuesday in 21 states across the United States as well as American Samoa.
Voting for Democrats living overseas has now also begun and will last until February 12. They will send 22 delegates to the convention at which they will have a combined 11 votes.
Arian Ardie, the chairman of Democrats Abroad’s Indonesia committee, said Democratic officials here tried to create a buzz similar to that surrounding the New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.
The midnight vote in that state’s primary on January 8 was keenly watched by both campaigns and media alike despite its tiny size.
Only 17 people voted this year in Dixville Notch — 10 in the Democratic primary and seven in the Republican primary.
“It was really our idea in order to perhaps differentiate ourselves from the other voting centres,” Ardie said, referring to the decision to open voting at midnight.
Obama moved to Indonesia when he was six after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian foreign student.
“It was very powerful. I had an Indonesian stepfather. I went to an Indonesian-speaking school,” the Illinois senator has said of his time in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
“It gave me an enormous appreciation for the magnificent culture and history of Asia. It gave me a great love for the people of Asia,” he said.
The Republican Party, which will hold Super Tuesday primaries in 21 states, does not elect convention delegates from overseas.
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An Obama Presidency makes the the ex-pats and other foreigners swoon in delight. The idea that we no longer will have a government that will confront our enemies but try to get along with them makes everyone ecstatic. Also the idea that a white male will no longer be in the White House is tremendously appealing to this community as well.
A popular President overseas means he is week in foreign affairs and that America’s interests have taken a back seat to the UN’s and the third world.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:44 amWhere are my posts going to?
February 5th, 2008 at 6:41 pmhhh
February 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm