He wins, as expected. Apparently it's a big win, though, which wasn't inevitable and exit polls are incapable of telling whether John Edwards may overtake Hillary Clinton for second place. Obama's likely to wind up with a pretty substantial lead in delegates after this.
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It's Obama
26 Jan 2008 07:00 pm
Comments (22)
I don't think anyone expected him to win by this much. I don't think Edwards will overtake Hillary, but he did Obama a big favor by helping to split the white vote.
I think Obama just made this a race again.
I hope it's a huuuge win. Over Hillary anyway, I hope Edwards comes in a healthy second.
Exactly correct Julian. The abolition position was if they don't count as free men, they shouldn't count as voters. This would have meant more abolitionist in Congress and fewer slaveholders.
But why let facts get in the way of a good metaphor?
I really hope Edwards comes in second, so I don't have to think about 'wasting a vote' on 2/5 (otherwise, no surprise, I'm voting HRC), and perhaps of more general interest, to see the MSM try and justify shutting him out for the next 2 weeks.
wooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a huge margin. and a significant percentage of white votes.
Don't have TV, but supposedly Russert is claiming the win is by 30 points, way higher than any poll.
It's interesting that this will probably be framed as Hillary & Edwards splitting the white vote--even though that's not what seems to be going on here.
Black voters: 81% Obama, 18% Clinton, 1% Edwards
White voters: Edwards 39%, Hillary 36%, Obama 24%
Black men: 80% Obama, 17% Clinton, 3% Edwards
Black women: 82% Obama, 17% Clinton
White men: Edwards 44%, Clinton 28%, Obama 27%
White women: Clinton 42%, Edwards 35%, Obama 22%
I'm not so sure those White Men would have voted for Clinton if Edwards hadn't been in the race.
And Obama ties Clinton among white men. White women is the only group where she has an advantage.
Hooray !
Will Obama really have a substantial lead in delegates after SC? I'm not so sure. SC awards delegates proportionally, so Obama won't get a huge boost. And then when you add in the fact that 40% of the convention delegates are unelected super-delegates, it's not really clear that the primary elections have much of an effect. If Hillary can win 40% of the regular delegates, she's a shoo-in for the nomination because she will get more of the super- delegates. Obama will need more like 60% of the regular delegates to win the nomination.
Try to spin THIS ONE, Billary!
Try to spin THIS ONE, Billary!
What's up with Edwards' splits? Assuming the numbers posted above are correct, he got 39% of white voters and only 1% of black voters. That's astounding.
Two things:
1) I think framing the this "as splitting the white vote" is clearly playing into attempts to marginalize Obama's victory and insert the issue of race to his detriment: this is a three way race, and in Iowa and NH, the percentage distributions don't look that different. It's only stark because Edwards gets almost no black votes. Otherwise, you might as well say, "Edwards and Obama split the male vote." Saying that Edwards/Clinton split the white vote implies that if it were a two-person race, Obama would have been decimated because all of Edwards/Clinton supporters would have gone to the other. There is no way we could boldly assert that, given the evidence of the other contests.
2) As to the historical reality of the 3/5ths Compromise, the south wanted to count slaves as whole when it suited them (for voting representation) and not count them when it hurt (taxation). The north wanted the reverse. That was the compromise. The point, however, was that both sides were comfortable with a position that blacks were less human. (And it wasn't primarily abolitionists trying to mute the South's power, but just northerners wanting to preserve their own balance of power.)
beth, see fostert above.
Apparently, the argument that Hillary is going to win by super-delegate fiat is supposed to make us all feel better about the Democratic party.
The spin is obvious -- highest percentage of black voters of any state, Jesse Jackson won here in 84, etc.
But why let facts get in the way of a good metaphor?
While I see what you guys are saying, and understand the point, I also think you need to acknowledge that considering black people to be 3/5 of a human being is pretty atrocious.
That spin only works if you ignore gender. Besides, if the Clintons keep pulling this "it's just blacks supporting Obama" stuff, it'll add to the 60% of South Carolignians who thought the attacks on Obama were inappropriate.
They're talking up the speech already -- 9 p.m. Who needs tv writers, when you got Obama oratory.
Woot.
Nice to see Obama finally win a clear majority.
"Apparently, the argument that Hillary is going to win by super-delegate fiat is supposed to make us all feel better about the Democratic party."
That's not really what I meant. I'm an Obama supporter, and I really don't like what the Democratic Party has been doing recently. They took away my Colorado primary and gave me a caucus instead. And this super- delegate thing really pisses me off. The changes that the Democratic Party have made in recent years have served to increase the influence of party officials and decrease the influence of the party members. It's kind of scary to think that the Republican Party is more capable of running fair elections. But it's actually true now. I've never felt worse about the Democratic Party leadership.
I've mentioned this before, but for some reason people are still confused about it. There are 4,049 total delegates to the Democratic convention. 796 of those are superdelegates. I'll do the math for you: it's a little less than 20% of the total votes, not 40%.
20%, not 40%. Please make a note of it.
Not that it matters or anything, but Obama won at a 2:1 ratio, so even at 3:5, it's still a blowout....
Comments closed February 09, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
To me, the irony of the 3/5ths compromise -- or rather, how it's treated now -- is that today, mentioning it is intended to conjure indignation that they could be considered anything other than 5/5ths human. Yet the real outrage from the perspective of someone who finds slavery reprehnsible is that they were counted at all. Counting them as 100% human for congressional district purposes is exactly what the slavery proponents of the south wanted -- it was those who opposed slavery, or simply those who didn't care about slavery but sought to advance the parochial interests of the North, who wanted slaves not to count at all.
Posted by Julian Elson | January 26, 2008 7:13 PM