Obama makes it ten in a row

WASHINGTON: Cementing his front-runner status in the democratic White House race, Barack Obama on Wednesday bagged Wisconsin and Hawaii, his tenth consecutive victory against Hillary Clinton, whose imperilled campaign is now eyeing the delegate-rich Texas and Ohio to turn the tide.

Republican senator John McCain, who has virtually sealed his candidature, maintained his winning streak in Wisconsin too, relegating his only rival former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to an ���also ran���.

���Houston, I think we achieved lift-off here,��� Obama, 46, told a cheering audience in Texas after his success in Wisconsin where he sliced Clinton���s support base of women and working class voters.

���The change we seek is still months and miles away, and we need the good people of Texas to help us get there,��� said the first time senator from Illinois, who also won Hawaii, where he was born, trouncing Clinton by a three to one margin and picking up 14 of the 20 delegates.

There were 74 delegates at stake in Wisconsin where Obama won by a 17 percentage point margin over Clinton, an expected win for the African American lawmaker. Unofficial tallies show that Obama is walking away from Wisconsin with at least 42 delegates and Clinton getting 32. Before the Tuesday���s poll, Obama was leading with 1,281 delegates against Clinton���s 1,218.

Clinton, who had entered the race as the favourite and was a front-runner for weeks, is banking on win on March 4 win in the big ticket states of Ohio and Texas with a combined stake of 370 delegates to revive her fading campaign. On the same day the smaller states of Rhode Island and Vermont will also go to polls.