Letters to the Editor
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Here's the bad news
From the CNN site:
"[Mississippi's] state's Democratic voters were sharply divided among racial lines, exit polls indicate.
As has been the case in many primary states, Obama won overwhelming support from African-American voters. They went for him over Clinton 91-9 percent.
The state has a larger proportion of African-Americans (36 percent, according to the 2000 census) than any other state in the country. And black voters make up nearly 70 percent of registered Democrats.
But Mississippi white voters overwhelmingly backed the New York senator, supporting her over Obama 72 percent to 21 percent.
According to The Associated Press, only two other primary states were as racially polarized -- neighboring Alabama, and Clinton's former home state of Arkansas.
The exit polls also indicated roughly 40 percent of Mississippi Democratic voters said race was an important factor in their vote, and 90 percent of those voters supported Obama...."
How can this possibly bode well for November?
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@Asher
Washington caucuses are closed. You can only participate if you are a declared Democrat. I know this because I participated in mine.
Both candidates have won open primaries, both candidates have won caucuses, and both candidates have won closed primaries.
More importantly, every candidate had the ability to know the whole system going into this. There was no reason not to know that caucuses require organization, there was no reason not to know that Michigan and Florida would not get to seat delegates based on the results of the January contests, there was no reason not to understand the Texas two-step, and there was no reason to not have a full slate of delegates in Pennsylvania when your good chum the governor gives you an extension. Both candidates stepped onto the same playing field.
Now that Hillary is losing we are getting all sorts of parsing: This state is too red, this state has caucuses, this state has open primaries, this state is too rich, this state is too liberal, this state is too black, blah, blah, blah.
I don't see Hillary dismissing her Ohio win and her Texas split decision because they are open primaries or her Nevada win because it is a caucus.
The caucus complaints are just sour grapes. Don't believe that caucusing is easy? Well don't take my word for it, ask Hillary Clinton circa 2007:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=racTAiemEQU
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Here's the message:
I've read several news outlets now on the Mississippi primary, and here's the short form:
-Obama wins Mississippi
-bummer, six weeks until an important primary, like Pennsylvania
-Mississippians are generally bigots
Maybe this is just my built-in inferiority complex, being a native of MS (I now live in Washington, another state that went heavily for Obama), but this is a little crappy.
Anyone notice Clinton is only winning in states she's sure are large and important? Sounds like the 51% doctrine redux to me.
Anyway, back to the Spitzer story, I guess... moo...
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@ Micki
Are you really trying to paint Hillary as the one with the hard knock life?
Kind of a stretch considering that your candidate views the U.S. Senate as an entry level position for elected officials.
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Also, about the Washington Primary results
There were no delegates at stake with the Washington Democratic primary so it is a very thin argument to use against caucus results. When there is something tangible at stake people behave differently. Personally, I didn't even vote in the primary because I, being an informed voter, knew it was a waste of paper.
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@MICKI Biden beats Hillary?
If Obama was NOT black, but all other things were equal, he would NOT be where he is today. My guess is, if Obama the black man, had not been in the race, John Edwards or even Joe Biden would be slugging it out with Hillary and would have knocked her off by now.
This is crazy on several levels. I was a Biden fan. He and Dodd were the two foreign policy choices. Richardson was a close second, but he had the charisma of a stone and performed poorly in the first few debates. Looks better now with the beard, though. I thought Biden was good, but I knew he was never going anywhere. The press wrote him off as last season's loser before he started. He was the guy that couldn't keep his mouth shut and always stepped in doo (and he lived up to that). He always lagged severely in the polls. He came off as the angry finger-wagging lost Dutchman at a few of the debates. His campaign only raised 11M total over many months. That's a week or two for Hillary or Obama.
Meanwhile Hillary had the cash, the big establishment donors and endorsements, the polls, the mighty Clinton brand mystique and the national name recognition that goes with that. She had eight years as First Lady and six years in the Senate. She also had the backing of a movement. The media was fauning over her. I can remember back to last fall. It was Hillary's to lose.
I think you are totally dissing Obama's non-skin color qualities. He got into Harvard Law and did really well. He may have gotten a break getting into Harvard Law, but he had to have something going on to thrive in that environment. It's not like getting a gentleman's C at Yale. Obama also taught constitutional law at U. Chicago for years. So he learned how to speak, how to argue, how to write and how to keep an audience engaged and interested. When he got into politics, he learned how to campaign and organize. He has been in politics for over 12 years. To say that being black is more important than all of the above is insane. In this cycle, any brillant speaker (male, female, black, white, etc.) with a cool personality, an outsider change mandate, and a killer organization that can live off the land (the internet) is going to be highly viable.
He's ahead because he had a better strategy and better execution of same. He followed the Art of War and campaigned where his competitors weren't: he enlisted large number of young voters and went after all 50 states. Do you think it was an accident that Obama is pulling in so many young voters? Or was it part of his strategy all along?
Bindens (non) Funding: http://opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp?cycle=2008