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  A Titanic Mood in the Clinton Camp: Obama Landslide in Weekend Primaries

A Titanic Mood in the Clinton Camp Obama Landslide in Weekend Primaries

By Marc Pitzke in New York

Part 2: Record Turnout Despite Sleet and Snow

Obama, meanwhile, employed a massive TV advertising campaign in Louisiana, receiving far more exposure than Clinton. Last Thursday, speaking before a crowd of thousands in New Orleans, Obama evoked the memory of the Katrina catastrophe.

Clinton's last hope for the weekend was Maine, though the state elects its delegates through a caucus system, which has not been favorable to her. Even so, she had a good chance there to secure a symbolic victory and thwart Obama's clean sweep of the weekend's contests.

All signs pointed to a Clinton victory in Maine. She was leading Obama in opinion polls by 17 percentage points, the state is 98 percent white, Governor John Baldacci has endorsed Clinton, both Clintons have good connections to the state's Democratic leaders and Maine has an admirable history of electing women to public office.

None of that seemed to help. As caucus results rolled in on Sunday evening, it became clear that Obama's weekend would be perfect. Heavy snowfall had not deterred voters. In the southern coastal town of Portland, voters braved the icy cold to wait in long lines. In Cape Elizabeth, turnout was so large that the caucus lasted an hour longer than planned.

Maine's caucus results are just one facet of the crisis Clinton is facing. Another is fundraising. Obama has hauled in record-breaking campaign donations, while Clinton -- herself a talented fundraiser -- lags far behind.

'I Eat a Lot of Hot Peppers'

Obama raised $32 million in January alone, more than double the amount that Clinton received. She needed to make an emergency loan of $5 million to her own campaign just to avoid an interruption to her schedule. Both candidates have vowed to outdo each other's online donation totals.

The next Democratic contests will be on Tuesday in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Opinion polls in all three places have shown Obama in the lead, not least because of high numbers of African-American voters there. Clinton's advisors have admitted that she might not win another primary until March 4. That's when Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont will elect their delegates -- 444 altogether, almost twice as many as were decided over the weekend.

Between now and then, Clinton faces a rocky road. Her support has waned in opinion polls across the country. Time magazine suggested in a recent story that Obama has a better chance than Clinton of defeating the assumed Republican nominee, John McCain. One poll concluded that in a match-up between Obama and McCain, Obama would win by 48 percent to 41 percent. The same poll showed Clinton and McCain in a deadlock at 46 percent each.

However, that poll also showed that Clinton is still leading among Democrats, with the support of 48 percent of voters, compared to 42 percent for Obama. And 62 percent said that if Clinton were the presidential nominee, they would prefer a specific vice presidential candidate: Barack Obama.

Both campaigns are locked in a fight to the death. Obama has likely considered the possibility that he could lose the next big contests, in Texas and Ohio. In an interview Sunday with CBS, Clinton was asked how she handles the endless stress. "I eat a lot of hot peppers," she said.

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