Senator Barack Obama defeated Senator Hillary Clinton by a razor-thin seven votes in the presidential caucuses in Guam yesterday. It took all night to count the 4,500 ballots in the U.S. territory on the Pacific island. Liane Hansen speaks to Chris Hartig of KPRG Public Radio in Guam.
Liane: Wow, talk about cliffhangers. Tell us what happened?
Chris: You know I had said all along that we had no idea how this was going to fall. It just really shows how Guam, like the rest of the US, is as split as everybody. It was as tight as it possibly could be.
Liane: So what were the big issues there and what were voters looking for?
Chris: Definitely, the two major issues for Guam is the Marine relocation from Okinawa to Guam and how that military build-up is going to affect people on both side of the fences, both on the military base and outside of the bases, and also war reparations for World War II for the indigenous people who were held captive by the Japanese.
Liane: Did the candidates actually court Guam voters? What did they say to woo the electorate?
Chris: Both sides have the same opinion on both issues but they were calling into various shows and appearing on TV shows in Guam and doing Guam-specific advertising, which is pretty unusual here.
Liane: There were reports of a village in Guam that had early voting and there was a festival last weekend with both Obama and Clinton campaign tents... some think the food provided might have tipped the scales?
Chris: What happened is, is that in Inarajan, which is a village, had a fiesta this weekend and so they actually held the caucus early, as not to interfere with the fiesta. And, the two tents had various offerings. Obama, though, had BBQ and beer and one voter was quoted as saying, that was better than what Hillary had, and it was clearly giving him the upper-hand.
Liane: So what do Guamanians think about all this attention over a presidential primary?
Chris: Most people throughout their lives have been told that while we're part of the United States, we don't count for presidential politics, and since we're able to participate in the caucus system, it just has never mattered before this time. It's never been this close this late in the game for the Guam caucus to matter. So, to get all this attention, I think people are both surprised and a little bit confused and really kind of loving the attention.
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