Sunday Roundup

The Clinton campaign has never looked as hard into the future -- or the past -- as it did last night. Hillary had already left South Carolina for Tennessee, and Bill was giving a semi-concession speech from Missouri, looking forward to the millions of people who will be voting on Super Tuesday -- since the hundreds of thousands in South Carolina didn't exactly go the way the Clintons had hoped. And he desperately tried to spin Obama's triumph away by telling reporters that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in 1984 and 1988. But however hard the Clintons are trying to look forward to our Super Tuesday future or drag us into the Jesse Jackson past, there are some stunning numbers in the present they have to deal with: Obama got 295,091 votes to Clinton's 141,128 (more than twice as many). He got more votes than John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined (279,723). He won 78% of the black vote, 25% of the white vote, and 52% of the non-black vote under 30. And he was more than a little responsible for the fact that Democratic turnout was twice that of 2004 (532,000 to 280,000). These numbers are pretty hard to run away from.

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Comments

[opines]

Obama's message is a gift to a deeply divided, heavily armed America. With hard economic times upon us, his words are far better suited to the tasks that confront us than those of the other candidates.

Great glory awaits the American conservative Christian leader who with outstretched hand
first aligns with Obama.

Obama's profoundly Christian message is resonating within the true Christian conservative flock. McLain's dead-end militarist pitch cannot be reconciled with Jesus' preachments.

Evangelicals, fishing for converts, will see that Obama is good bait.

[missionimpossible]

warpspeed9:
While I do not totally agree with head scratcher that blacks vote in blocks, let me do the math for Mr. headscratcher. Mr. Warpspeed9, your math is slightly flawed.

Blacks actually represent more than 13% of the population at this point in time. CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday suggested that nearly 60 percent of black registered Democrats were backing Obama. 80%?

While its feasible in South Carolina,either way, Mr. Headscratcher emphasized Black "potential" to vote as a block. Its quite probable that African Americans will vote for (I hope)is the most qualified individual. Right now, I believe its Obama.

Another fact: Obama won every congressional district,in South Carolina, hardly all black. He won in every demographic category with the exception of senior citizens.

Lets also add Latinos,who are the largest minority in the country with more than 15% of the population.

In addition, over 25% of the general population hold bachelors degrees at this point in time. I will probably correctly assume that most are whites.

Most will probably support Obama come Super Tuesday.

Point: In this election,the math you would care to have requested from headscratcher is useless when determining voter tendencies and overall patterns regardless of race.

There is a "new" Poly-Sci model unfolding,which is blowing everyone's mind. So, just sit back, let the mathematic­ians,pundi­ts, and media rack their brains on how this is happening, and enjoy the show, because "Kansas is going bye-bye."

[linda4JRE]

I am a progressive Democrat. As such, I do not want a corrupt politician as my presidential candidate. I just discovered that both HRC and BHO are on Judicial Watch's Top Ten Most Corrupt Politicans for 2007. JW is non-partisan and their list includes both Repubs and Dems. I've been reading about Obama's 17-year relationship with Tony Rezko in the Chicago newspapers. He funned business to Rezko and Rezko financed his campaigns. Obama bought his house for $950K less than the asking price because Rezko purchased part of the land. Please Dems, don't get so many stars in our eyes about the first woman or the first African-American president that we overlook the candidate's character. Martin Luther King III wrote a moving letter to John Edwards, encouraging him to stay in this campaign to fight for the poor and middle class. I am a progressive Democrat, and Edwards is the candidate I will vote for and would be proud to have as my President.

[Kantinflas]

The race race. According to CNN, Barack Obama got 55% of the South Carolina vote. According to RealClearPolitics HorseRaceBlog (Jay Cost), African-Americans constituted 53% of the voters. In other words, Obama ran just 2 percentage points ahead of the black vote. Is that mostly evidence of an opposition too willing to racialize the election? Or is that mostly evidence of a white electorate (Democrats no less) too willing to be racialized? A one-time anomaly? Or a preview of Super Tuesday? It's the difference between a lone race-baiter and millions of enablers disposed to take the bait.

[Ringding]

How come no one is bringing up the fact that a Black President would help decrease racism and move our country foward?

[jrterrier]

Do we know what percentage of the registered Dems came out to vote? In the 2004 election, Kerry received about 640,000 votes but Bush got around 920,000 so the numbers that came out to vote in the Dem and Repub primaries don't really tell us all that much about what is going to happen in the 2008 elections.

500,000 votes still doesn't get us a win in Nov. My guess is that a lot fewer Repubs came out to vote (bad weather, uninspiring candidates), whereas because of the hot race between Obama and Clinton, many more Dems came out to vote. We also don't know what percentage of those who came out to vote in the Dem primary were Repubs who stayed home last week because of the weather.

http://www.state.sc.us/cgi-bin/scsec/2004/ret041

[Willyboy]

Every citizen must demand - from every candidate for office, from every Congressional Representative and Senator now in office an answer to the question:

What have you done to fulfill your Oath of Office, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, in the face of the many credible allegations of impeachable offence leveled against George W. Bush and Richard Cheney?

How can you, standing for office, ask anyone to vote for you in the face of your failure to demand hearings and investigations? How can you ask us to believe, that once elected, you will honor the oath you have, so far, failed to honor?

And, from every journalist, newscaster, interviewer and media pundit –

How, as journalists, can you justify your failure to demand an answer to this question?

[Alvin4NY]

The strategy of the CORPORATE POWERS that now run the United States, is the only one they have left, now that Republicans have destroyed themselves with Blind Faith: Split the base of the Democrats, and turn them into rabid, blathering, idiots that will leave them disenfranchised and fighting with each other-making us look (and feel) like divided fools. I'd say the bloggers at Huffington Post are making their job pretty fucking easy. We're not even to February yet, and already its uglier than I can ever remember it being. Funny, I thought we were all on the same side, fighting for the same cause. We might as well be Republicans.

[MariaHopeful]

It was nauseating to hear Hillary Clinton brag about how her husband loves her. Huh? The serial womanizer who had a mistress right under her nose? The same man who was molesting a girl in his employ young enough to be his daughter? Give me a break.
And all of this ready from day one crap! She isn't even able to run a campaign without resorting to nasty, underhand, racial, old, tired, discredit tactics. Is that how she is going to govern? By appealing to the baser instincts of the country?
Time for a change. Time for Obama!

[sockman]

This makes it 3 times that a black candidate has won the nod from democrats in South Carolina. Oh yeah..and the 3rd time that blacks came out in large numbers for the black candidate. I guess all those black voters supported Obama because he was all inspiring. No...no...­it could never be because he was black. He transcends color. People...w­hen white people get behind the curtains on super Tuesday they will do as they always do. Support the white candidate. Maybe then Obama will waku up the 2 Americas that he conviently ignores.

[janvoght]

the clinton's seemed very transparent last night, and i would have respected them much more of they had been more gracious.

[karmax]

It seems if you say anything negative about the Obama campaign you cannot have your comments printed, but I will try again. Seems he has been crowned a "saint" by ALL of the media and blogs. So, Ariana and all of you at the Post, why don't you start a Hillary Diary? Start with all the bad things she has for breakfast, how she doesn't smile correctly, all the BAD adjectives and verbs she says and all through EVERY day until we have condemned her to oblivion and we can all stone her after super-duper Tuesday. Then if she wins ONE state, finish her off.....th­is woman has been villified (sp) and demonized beyond ANYONE I have ever seen. When that Spawn of Satan "W" ran for office, he had his "HENCHMEN" do the dirty work (made Bill Clinton look like a saint at that time) and that dummy stood there, looking stupid and smirked and EVERYONE in the media a blogs said NOTHING!!! LET ME TELL YOU FOLKS, HILLARY CLINTON AIN'T BEEN NOTHIN' LIKE DADDY'S BOY BUSH AND NONE OF YOU SAY ANYTHING COMPARATIVELY ABOUT HIM!!! All of you media "saints" you will be sorry about all this praise of Saint Obama, wait and see!!!

[GeorgeKaplan]

Who Can Defeat Hillary?

Governor Mike Huckabee. Conservatives Find Their Candidate.

www.mikehuckabee.com

[GeorgeKaplan]

If JFK were alive to day they would smear him just like they smear Hillary and Bill. And Ted Kennedy would be part of the politics of the "past."
It's hard to get past campaign slogans in any election, but if JFK were alive "his legacy" would be interpreted very differently. Anybody with any record is smear-able.
Please let me know when the election of ISSUES begins...I won't hold my breath. Can we stop talking about POLLS and talk about who will be a better president?
Let's Vote For Free Speech - Vote No to Fascism - and vote for a Democrat in the White House in 08

[democritus]

I like Obama fine, I just think his call to bipartisanship is naive considering the highhanded actions of the Repo party over the years. We need someone to articulate why Bushism is wrong, not try to get as close to it as possible to play it safe in the general election. Let's hear some straight talk from some Dem about the fatal errors of Bushism. That's going to be the only way to beat McCain.