Sen. Barack Obama poses on a tractor during a visit to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in Texas, March 04, 2008. (Photo: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)
by John McCormick
HOUSTON – Fresh from a morning stop at a livestock show and rodeo, Sen. Barack Obama will soon head to San Antonio, where he will await tonight’s crucial election returns in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont.
During his photo-op stop at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Obama tried on a John Deere baseball cap and confessed at one point that he is “sort of a city slicker.”
A day earlier, the Illinois Democrat had downplayed the notion of his needing to win a big state like Texas, when he spoke to reporters at a news conference dominated by questions about his relationship with an indicted Chicago real estate developer and fundraiser.
He noted other large states he has already won.
“I don’t know what qualifies as a big state,” he said. “I thought Illinois was a pretty big state. I thought Missouri was a big state. I thought Washington was a big state.”
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Obama tried to make the case that he has won states with varied demographics.
“We’ve won two-thirds of the states, approximately, where there’s been contests so far,” he said. “I would think, at this point, the question no longer is [whether] it a big enough state, or is it a state with too many black people, or is it a state that is in the Midwest, or is it a caucus state…We’ve won states and we’ve won delegates… This notion that there are particular kinds of states that you have to win just doesn’t make too much sense.”