Vermont Obama's sole primary win

MONTPELIER, Vt., March 5 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., crushed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in the Vermont primary, his sole victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary quartet.

Obama defeated Clinton by 60 percent to 38 percent with four-fifths of the state's precincts reporting, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, a Vermont newspaper, reported Wednesday. Clinton won contests in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island.

The hotly contested Obama-Clinton race brought out voters, Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said, noting 13,000 Vermonters registered to vote since the beginning of January.

"Almost 4,000 of them were voters between the ages of 18 and 24," Markowitz said. "The young people in this country are really getting energized by these campaigns and getting out to vote."

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., meanwhile, crossed the 1,191-delegate threshold to become the presumptive Republican nominee for president, sweeping all primaries Tuesday. He took about 72 percent of the Republican primary vote in Vermont to 14 percent taken by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ended his presidential run once McCain secured the delegates necessary for win the GOP presidential nomination.