Clinton, Obama face off in Wyoming

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama face off in the small, western state of Wyoming Saturday as a tight White House race left them battling to the last nominating delegate.

Wyoming has only 12 delegates, a small number compared to the 2,025 needed to secure the party's presidential nomination at its August convention, but with no candidate yet able to lock in the nod, every delegate counts.

Perhaps more important, with only two contests in the next several weeks, every win counts in the battle for momentum.

A national Newsweek poll released Friday showed the two in a virtual tie in their epic battle to represent the party in the November 4 presidential election, with Obama with 45 percent support against Clinton's 44 percent.

The two were also virtually equal in voters' eyes on the issue many see most important: the sagging US economy.

After Wyoming, Obama and Clinton will face voters in the bigger state of Mississippi, where 33 delegates are at stake.

Obama is favored in both, but with his current delegate count at 1,581 to Clinton's 1,460, according to the independent website RealClearPolitics, neither contest will settle the fight.

On Friday, Obama led off with a stump speech before more than 1,300 people here, promising to end the war in Iraq by 2009 while continuing military operations in Afghanistan.

He said the current administration had "fanned the flames of anti-Americanism world wide" and that as president he would seek to repair America's image with its allies.

Clinton spoke to a much smaller audience of fewer than 800 at the local junior college.

She arrived more than an hour late to a restless crowd, but still was greeted with cheers.

Clinton also called for an end to the war in Iraq, saying "the Iraqis need to know that they do not have a blank check."

She also restated her positions that America "should be respected" and should "lead the world again with moral authority."

Turning to the economy, Clinton promised to "change the tax code to deal with companies which move job overseas," and like Obama, she supported alternative energy and clean coal programs, an important issue in Wyoming, the nation's biggest coal producing state.

A Republican stronghold and home to Vice President Dick Cheney, Wyoming has the smallest population of any of the state with just 500,000 people.

Only 25 percent of the electorate are registered as Democrats, and this year marks the first time it will play a significant role in the party's nomination.

Each of the 23 electoral districts will hold a caucus, with the first beginning at 9:00 am (1600 GMT). The last one will close around 6:00 pm (0100 GMT Sunday).

The contest comes after a nasty battle on the campaign trail that cost a key Obama foreign policy aide her position.

Samantha Power quit Friday after calling Clinton a "monster" in a newspaper interview and sparking a new Iraq war policy row.

"She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything," Power told the Scotsman newspaper.

"You just look at her and think 'Ergh.'"

Power afterward issued a statement through the Obama campaign saying she was sorry, but Clinton's backers pounced and her resignation came within two hours.

"I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign," Power said when she resigned.

Power, author of the acclaimed book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," also caused a stir in an interview with the BBC in which she appeared to suggest Obama might water down a vow to get US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of becoming president.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080308/ts_alt_afp/usvote [link]