A meeting room on the second floor of Ward House, right next to Democratic headquarters, is serving as the spin room for this evening.

While party officials wrestle with the reality of the avalanche of voters, reporters mill around in the adjacent room waiting for news to break out.

First to spin was senior Sen. Daniel Inouye, an ardent Clinton supporter who said he’ll stick with her to the last minute she is in the race.

But win or lose, Inouye said, this was a big night for the democratic process and the Democratic Party.

“It makes no difference what the outcome is,” said in a backhanded admission that the outcome was looking very Obama, “it shows democracy works.”

In fact, Inouye said he hasn’t seen anything like tonight since the statehood election, where a record 85 percent of eligible folks turned out to vote.

“It made me very proud to see the turnout,” Inouye said.

If Inouye wasn’t quite ready to discuss the outcome as a done deal, that surely wasn’t the case for a jubilant U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a passionate Obama backer.

“This is bigger than anywhere in the country,” Abercrombie said. “It was thrilling.”

“This is not a campaign any more. It is a movement.”

Abercrombie was speaking with numbers from fewer than 10 percent off the precincts in. No matter, he said he was licking his chops over the results from the remaining 90 percent, whenever they come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.