Clinton Wins Here But Power Revolt Splits New York

Super Duper Tuesday, they said.

The primaries will be wrapped up by the first week in February, they said.

Not quite.

As the first numbers started coming in as polls in the majority of the Feb. 5-voting states closed, it quickly became clear that the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would remain very much alive on the Democratic side, and that John McCain had failed to finish off Mitt Romney on the Republican side.

“I think the one safe prediction you can make right now is, this is going to be an extensive and protracted search for delegates,” said Clinton senior adviser Ann Lewis as the results started to come in.

As of press time, Mrs. Clinton had won, as expected, in New York, as well as in American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Mr. Obama won in his home state of Illinois, as well as in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah.

Each candidate will have done well enough to claim some sort of victory – Mrs. Clinton won the big states, Mr. Obama won the most states, especially in Republican parts of the country, and they each will have won lots of delegates -- and neither will lack for the financial resources to continue to wage a vigorous campaign.

The Republican race split three ways, but cemented Mr. McCain as a clear front-runner for the nomination. He won Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma; Mr. Romney held on to Massachusetts and won in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Utah; and Mike Huckabee took Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia.

One of the noteworthy subplots of the Democratic battle for New York was a split between the local African-American establishment, a majority of which remained loyal to their home-state senator, and black voters, many of whom had showed clear signs of displeasure with their political and religious leaders for opposing Mr. Obama.

Also, a vocal minority of the city’s black elected officials—mostly outside of the longtime center of black political power in Harlem—were with Mr. Obama.

In the end, Mr. Obama appeared to have carried the city’s African-American vote, winning in three of the four majority-black Congressional districts, but losing in Harlem – the bastion of the old political guard.

But even before the voting, the competitive primary had put the established Clinton loyalists in a tight spot.

As he greeted voters outside P.S. 175 in Harlem on Tuesday morning, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson was explaining how he thought Mr. Obama would win the district when an elderly woman approached him and asked who she should vote for.

Mr. Paterson, a prominent Clinton surrogate—he was the guy directly behind her as she gave her concession speech in Iowa—hesitated.

“Uh, Hillary,” he offered sheepishly.

“Uh, O.K. All right,” the woman said, somewhat dismissively, as Mr. Paterson chuckled at his predicament.

Asked afterward why he had hesitated, Mr. Paterson said he had been reluctant to try and sell Mrs. Clinton “because I knew that woman was going to laugh in my face as soon as I did it.”

Mr. Paterson is the son of former State Senator Basil Paterson, one of the founding members of Harlem’s historic “Gang of Four” that also includes former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, former Mayor David Dinkins and Representative Charlie Rangel, who keeps an aged picture of the quartet in his 125th Street office. Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dinkins, still revered by their former and current constituents, have actively supported their home senator. Mrs. Clinton has also received the support of a majority of New York’s other current and former black elected officials.