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Obama wins SC

I expected as much. You have to realize, the democratic party fills up buses full of blacks and takes them to the polls. Due to demographics, blacks are easy to target for "get out the vote" efforts. However, how do you go to Hillary's base with vehicles to round them up to vote? Do you send buses to all the Bed Bath and Beyond stores while there is a clearance sale on?
 
Awesome victory. He needed to have a clear win and he got a landslide.

50% in

Obama: 54%
Hillary: 27%
Edwards: 19%
 
There is no "downside" to having Barack Obama as the US President. On Super Duper Tuesday, (or "Tsunami Tuesday" as it's been dubbed this year) I would venture to say that Mr Obama gains the lion's share of the delegates he needs to be the nominee.

Maybe it's too early to ask this, but who is a likely running-mate for him?
 
webfusion said:
There is no "downside" to having Barack Obama as the US President. On Super Duper Tuesday, (or "Tsunami Tuesday" as it's been dubbed this year) I would venture to say that Mr Obama gains the lion's share of the delegates he needs to be the nominee.

Maybe it's too early to ask this, but who is a likely running-mate for him?
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I suspect that Obama will get somewhat of a boost from this (although it could go the other way too), but either way the outcome from Super Tuesday will probably be pretty evenly split in terms of delegate count. As it currently stands, the ratio between Clinton and Obama support in national polls is 5:4 and I suspect that'll get even closer.
 
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I wouldn't start popping the champagne corks. SC isn't a huge victory. Could just be Obama's last hoorah.
 
The thing that surprises me really is that Obama's win in SC was a Clinton-esque win. Clinton confided once to one of the Arkansas state troopers that all he had to do was solidify the black vote behind them and then all he needed was X amount of the white to win elections.

Once Obama became "the black candidate" in SC this was a done deal.
 
corplinx said:
The thing that surprises me really is that Obama's win in SC was a Clinton-esque win. Clinton confided once to one of the Arkansas state troopers that all he had to do was solidify the black vote behind them and then all he needed was X amount of the white to win elections.

Once Obama became "the black candidate" in SC this was a done deal.
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That's certainly how the Clintons and their surrogates will spin the loss, but there is a stinker in there for them as well. Yeah, Obama lost among whites over 30, but so did Hillary. Edwards actually won those voters.

The big news, the stunning news is that in a very Republican state, way more voters came out again for the Democrat's primary. There were nine percentage points more ballots cast for Donks than Pachyderms, in a state where Bush got 17% more votes than Kerry. I don't see how to characterize this consistent pattern as anything less than disaster pending for the Republicans.
 
Brainster said:
That's certainly how the Clintons and their surrogates will spin the loss, but there is a stinker in there for them as well. Yeah, Obama lost among whites over 30, but so did Hillary. Edwards actually won those voters.

The big news, the stunning news is that in a very Republican state, way more voters came out again for the Democrat's primary. There were nine percentage points more ballots cast for Donks than Pachyderms, in a state where Bush got 17% more votes than Kerry. I don't see how to characterize this consistent pattern as anything less than disaster pending for the Republicans.
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On your first point, I don't have a vested interest in which of Hillary/Edwards got the most of the white vote. But yes, I imagine that would be disappointing for the Clintons.

On your second point, I wouldn't read too much into turnout for the primaries at this point. The democrats have 2.5 energizing candidates with a bunch of also-rans. The GOP has had more viable candidates splitting interest, money, energy, etc.

The worst thing for the GOP would be an Obama win since Obama would most likely have a turnout on election day that is unbeatable. Obama is a phenomenon not unlike Reagan and running against a phenom is hard. People don't turn out in droves for a phenom for logical reasons. If you were capable of beating a phenom, you would be the phenom and not them.
 
corplinx said:
On your first point, I don't have a vested interest in which of Hillary/Edwards got the most of the white vote. But yes, I imagine that would be disappointing for the Clintons.
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Attention has been focused among pundits as to whether the race would break along racial lines. It has. And really I should have noted that Edwards is probably cooked, so it doesn't matter that he took a lot of the vote from her here.

On your second point, I wouldn't read too much into turnout for the primaries at this point. The democrats have 2.5 energizing candidates with a bunch of also-rans. The GOP has had more viable candidates splitting interest, money, energy, etc.
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This is the most wide-open election in decades. The Republicans have (in my mind) compelling candidates who appeal to the various segments of the party--Romney for the businessmen, McCain for the hawks, Huckabee for the soc cons, and Fred for the Southerners. South Carolina offered much more drama on the Republican side than the Democratic, and the Republicans had the advantage of having their primary a week before the Democrats, with independents able to vote in either primary. The stakes were high for the Republicans as was well discussed in the media. A Republican has to win SC, while a Democrat can win without it.

And they got swamped in turnout. I see this as a very, very bad sign.

The worst thing for the GOP would be an Obama win since Obama would most likely have a turnout on election day that is unbeatable. Obama is a phenomenon not unlike Reagan and running against a phenom is hard. People don't turn out in droves for a phenom for logical reasons. If you were capable of beating a phenom, you would be the phenom and not them.
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He's a high risk choice for the Democrats. I remember McGovern's staff telling people that their secret weapon was all the new voters coming out to the polls in 1972, and there they at least had an argument. Because the voting age had changed since 1968 from 21 to 18, there was a large cohort of new voters from age 18-25 (especially given baby boom effects). McGovern won them barely, but nowhere near enough to offset his disadvantages with the older population. And they didn't come out in droves the way he'd hoped; like all new voters they were undependable.
 
BTW, I haven't seen the commentators comment about how wrong the polls were this time. This time, the polls got the order right, but wildly underestimated Obama's support. They averaged 38%for Obama, and he got 55%. Clinton polled at 26% and actually got 26%. Edwards underperformed a smidgen, polling 19% and getting 17%.

Could this be a Reverse Bradley effect? It seems to be the opposite of what happened with Clinton in New Hampshire, except that they got the order right.
 
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