It was certainly a good night for Barack Obama in South Carolina, with a margin of victory so decisive that Wolf Blitzer nearly emptied his bowels attempting to be the first station to declare Obama the winner just milliseconds after the polls closed. Obama's victory speech (above) was easily one of the best speeches he's delivered over the course of this entire campaign season. When you take a look at the demographical breakdown of the vote in favor of Obama, it's pretty amazing: Obama greatly beat Clinton and Edwards in both gender categories (Male-54%, Female-54%), in all age categories (except 65+), in all church attendance categories, in college-educated voters, and in African-American voters of all ages; for non-black voters, Obama managed to garner about 25% of the vote, while it was Edwards that ended up doing best in this category with a slight lead of about 38% over Clinton's 37%. And, once again, voter turnout reached a record high in South Carolina, with Obama receiving more votes in tonight's primary than the entire total of Democratic votes cast in the 2004 South Carolina presidential primary...the Democratic voters have arrived!
I'm glad to see that Edwards finished in a strong enough third to pick up a handful of delegates, and thus continuing to maintain just enough legitimacy to remain a player in the February 5th primaries. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that the Clinton campaign strategy of "What South Carolina primary?" is in full effect, clearly her best option at this point (although, Hillary Clinton's lack of any real semblance of a graceful concession speech is more tacky than Pat Buchanan's comb over).
As far as my success with predicting the candidate percentages, I didn't do too bad, and I'm actually pretty angry because if I had gone with my initial calculations (not posted here on the blog, but available for independent confirmation from my beautiful fiance) I would have been extremely close to the actual results; during my original calculations, I had predicted Obama would get 80% of the African-American vote (rather than 65%, like I posted) and 25% of the white vote, which would have resulted in an estimated 53% of the vote for Obama and, along with my other initial calculations, would have resulted in 27% for Clinton and 20% for Edwards, numbers that are pretty darn close to the actual Obama-55%, Clinton-27%, and Edwards-18% received tonight. However, when I took a look at those original prediction numbers, and saw a 28-point victory of Obama over Clinton, it just seemed like I had to have been overestimating something somewhere, so I lowered the Obama African-American predicted support to 65%. I'm very glad to say that my apprehension was misplaced and, thus, my original calculations were pretty darn good.
And finally, it appears that Caroline Kennedy, the last remaining child of President Kennedy, has written an op-ed in support of Barack Obama that will appear in tomorrow's edition of The New York Times, so with the win tonight I thought it'd be nice to close with an excerpt from that editorial:
I'm glad to see that Edwards finished in a strong enough third to pick up a handful of delegates, and thus continuing to maintain just enough legitimacy to remain a player in the February 5th primaries. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that the Clinton campaign strategy of "What South Carolina primary?" is in full effect, clearly her best option at this point (although, Hillary Clinton's lack of any real semblance of a graceful concession speech is more tacky than Pat Buchanan's comb over).
As far as my success with predicting the candidate percentages, I didn't do too bad, and I'm actually pretty angry because if I had gone with my initial calculations (not posted here on the blog, but available for independent confirmation from my beautiful fiance) I would have been extremely close to the actual results; during my original calculations, I had predicted Obama would get 80% of the African-American vote (rather than 65%, like I posted) and 25% of the white vote, which would have resulted in an estimated 53% of the vote for Obama and, along with my other initial calculations, would have resulted in 27% for Clinton and 20% for Edwards, numbers that are pretty darn close to the actual Obama-55%, Clinton-27%, and Edwards-18% received tonight. However, when I took a look at those original prediction numbers, and saw a 28-point victory of Obama over Clinton, it just seemed like I had to have been overestimating something somewhere, so I lowered the Obama African-American predicted support to 65%. I'm very glad to say that my apprehension was misplaced and, thus, my original calculations were pretty darn good.
And finally, it appears that Caroline Kennedy, the last remaining child of President Kennedy, has written an op-ed in support of Barack Obama that will appear in tomorrow's edition of The New York Times, so with the win tonight I thought it'd be nice to close with an excerpt from that editorial:
"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."
3 comments:
The Clintons really screwed this one -- they're backpedaling now, but they should have been trying to make this primary seem unimportant for the past week. As a result, the press is reporting an Obama victory with a "broad racial coalition" even though he lost the white vote handily. All that said, I do tend to think there really won't be a bounce out of this, but maybe I'm wrong -- either way, I think the Clintons mishandled this.
The Obama speech is good, but I'm not sure it's one of his best -- definitely angry, without the uplift that's done him well so far.
And who cares what Caroline Kennedy thinks? If this influences one voter, I'll eat my hat. Besides, John Edwards has Kevin Bacon -- I think the "Footloose" contingent is far more important.
Oh, and no, Obama can't.
Nor can Edwards. BAH!
Haha, I want Kevin Bacon, Oprah, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone to have a battle royale to determine the presidential nominee!
I'm not really sure I'd call the speech 'angry', just a more forceful tone. It's another one of those 'damned if he does, damned if he doesn't' things with Obama: if he just keeps giving softer speeches after the kind of full-contact politicking that's been going on the past couple of weeks, he gets pegged as naive and weak, and if he puts some power and directness behind his words like he did tonight, he gets pegged (by Pat Buchanan, if I remember correctly from tonight's MSNBC coverage tonight) as being 'angry'.
And you're right about no one voting based on Caroline Kennedy, but it's yet another stimulating element of the 'Obama as this generation's JFK' dialogue, and a pretty intimate one at that.
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