Obama Wins NC! Indy Still Too Close!

11:03 CST UPDATE: Nothing yet! I’m sleepy and I’m going to bed.  MSNBC “thinks” they have half the vote in for Lake County. Obama has to win over 60% of the vote in this county to overtake Hillary.  I’m going to bed as I hear one commentator say that because of the Democratic proportion system, all of this delay is for 1 delegate.  TSO’s calling Indiana for Obama. If we’re wrong, who cares. Obama will still be the nominee.

10:45 CST UPDATE: The margin of votes between Hillary and Clinton is now at 19,000 and Lake county still has not reported in. It should be due at the top of the hour. Remember that Lake County includes Gary, Indiana, a heavy African-American area. They have about 300,000 outstanding votes according to MSNBC.

9:51 CST UPDATE: Hillary is wrapping up her speech. It wasn’t at victory speech but she framed it as a celebration speech. She begged for more money and pleaded with the audience that she needed their help. She then gave her website address to donate. She’s saying that she is moving on to West Virginia and Montana and that she plans on winning these states in November. However, you can look on her face and tell that she really doesn’t believe it. Why is she still in this? She just called for Michigan and Florida votes to count. Whoop de doo. Her speech is flat. Not inspirational. She’s phoning it in. Thank god this speech is over. Chris Matthews just said that it was a charming speech. I’m going to throw-up.

NYTimes has Clinton 51.9% and Obama 48.1% with about 86% reporting. Online Newshour has it about the same.

9:22 CT UPDATE: Results in Lake County have been pushed back to 11 CST. I’m sure the conspiracy theorists will speculate that Gary’s political machine is delaying the vote on purpose. But Gary had a much higher voter turnout than expected and they even called in extra vote counters. Hillary has traveled to the arena in Indianapolis but what in the world can she say without the results?

9:03 CST UPDATE: Lake County (that’s Gary and where the black people live) will not report until 10 CST. There are about 300,000 votes there. The difference between Clinton and Obama is about 40,000 or so. This is going to be tight.

Even if Clinton wins Indiana, it will be damn close. She has no real chance of winning the nomination. I can’t see a plausible argument for her to stay in it. Don’t be surprised if you see more superdelegates going for Obama and for them to start telling Hillary to concede this race.

8:54 CST UPDATE: They expect to have results in Lake County and Gary, Indiana around 9 PM CST that’s 6 minutes from now. At this moment he’s down about 54,000 votes. In his NC victory speech, Obama talked past Hillary and spoke about McCain specifically. He also talked about the need to end this Democratic campaign. Will Hillary stay in?

8:40 CST UPDATE: I’m (rich) back. Had a reception to attend. Obama just gave his victory speech for NC. He decried the old politics and pandering. There was a line were he criticized using the Republican playbook and someone in the crowd yelled out “Hillary Clinton!”

Meanwhile, Indiana is still too close to call. With 75% reporting Clinton is 52% and Obama is 48%. The talking heads are now talking about the perception of Clinton’s campaign. They speculate that people will begin to think that she has no way to win and that her only reason for staying in is to destroy Obama. According to polls, more people felt that Clinton attacked Obama unfairly and that her gas holiday proposal was pandering. Obama’s position on the latter seemed more presidential.

6:36 CST UPDATE: NBC is calling North Carolina for Obama. In Indiana, Clinton 57%, Obama 43% with 18% reporting. No numbers yet on the upper west side of the state, including Gary. They are in the central time zone.

6:24 CST UPDATE: The Indiana numbers are trickling in. Goodtimepolitics may be right! Another exit polls has Obama with 50.5% and Clinton with 49.5%. Waaay to close to call. In NC, Obama 60%, Clinton 38%. With early returns, the NY Times has Clinton 58.9% and Obama 41.1 with 6% reporting in Indiana. MSNBC has Indiana with 10% reporting, Clinton 58%, Obama 42%. And the Online Newshour has the same as MSNBC.

Early exit polls show that Obama will likely take North Carolina by a large margin. In Indiana on the other hand, it looks like Hillary is up narrowly. However, one poll had Hillary losing Indiana by a close margin. It’s still a toss up. Polls close at 7 EST in Indiana and at 7:30 EST in North Carolina.

Voter turnout is huge in both states. A few issues in Indiana:

1. An Obama campaign headquarters was shut down after a bomb threat was called in.
2. A few nuns were turned away at the poll because they did not have ID. They had been voting for decades but under the new Indiana law (specifically designed to prevent nuns from committing voter fraud), you have to have a government issued ID.
3. And finally, one voter in Indiana did not want to meet Obama because “I can’t stand him,” he said. “He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”

Good ol’ middle-America!