Obama wins Wis. for 9th straight triumph
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama cruised past a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages.
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It was Obama’s ninth straight victory over the past three weeks — with results unknown from the Hawaii caucuses — and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner.
"The change we seek is still months and miles away," Obama told a boisterous crowd in Houston in a speech in which he also pledged to end the war in Iraq in his first year in office.
"I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring our troops home," he declared.
In a race growing increasingly negative, Obama cut deeply into Clinton’s political bedrock in Wisconsin, splitting the support of white women almost evenly with her. According to polling place interviews, he also ran well among working class voters in the blue collar battleground that was prelude to primaries in the larger industrial states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Clinton made no mention of her defeat, and showed no sign of surrender in an appearance in Youngstown, Ohio.
