North Shore voters go for Romney, Clinton

LYNN – Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s clear victories in Massachusetts did not reflect the scratch and claw, push and pull fights for votes and delegates they found themselves engaged in with their rivals across the country Tuesday night.Even as he celebrated Romney’s wins in Lynn, Revere and surrounding communities, Republican Anthony Zambuto cast an anxious eye on his candidate’s electoral prospects in other parts of the nation.”It’s not a pretty night,” the Revere City Councilor at Large remarked as he watched Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee draw conservative votes in southern states away from Romney.It may not have been pretty, but Tuesday’s super primary was historic. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not the first African American and woman to run for president – Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson broke that ground in 1972 and 1984, respectively – but Tuesday marked the first presidential primary since 1952 in which an incumbent president or vice president was not on either major party’s ballot.Voters in 24 states weighed in with their candidate choices Tuesday. Although he won in states across the country, Huckabee and fellow Republicans Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter grabbed only handfuls of votes in Lynn and neighboring cities and towns.Zambuto plans to stand by Romney but said the former Massachusetts governor’s bid for the presidency against Arizona Sen. John McCain could ultimately be doomed by what he called Huckabee’s spoiler role.Romney stacked up solid wins in Revere and neighboring communities by winning Revere precincts except Ward 2, Precinct 3 and Ward 1, Precinct 3 where McCain won.McCain won precincts in East Lynn and Ward 6, Precincts 1 and 2 but lost the city 1,251-1,496 votes for Romney.The margin of victory for Clinton over Obama was more pronounced locally than the results in local presidential primary balloting.Clinton won Lynn by more than a 2-1 margin – an irony considering that Obama endorser Sen. Edward Kennedy drew on the city’s Democratic party loyalists in 1994 to score a strong win over Romney who was trying to wrest the Senate seat from Kennedy.Kennedy lost Lynnfield in 1994 to Romney but the town Democrats and unenrolled voters went for Clinton over Obama Tuesday by more than a 2 -1 margin.Obama came closest to beating Clinton in Marblehead where he grabbed 2,574 votes to 2,615 for Clinton.Rick Vitali, a Lynn Democrat who campaigned for Gov. Deval Patrick and Democrat Joseph Biden, said Clinton built strong support among the Democrat power base in Lynn.”Obama had momentum here but she was the favorite here for a long time and has the support of a lot of traditional party leaders,” Vitali said.On the national stage, Vitali said Obama showed Tuesday night that he can draw white male voters to his campaign.”Still, there’s no clear winner out there. The race has still got to keep on going, at least for awhile.”Forty-one percent of Lynn’s 39,492 registered voters went to the polls Tuesday.