Bad News From South Carolina
POWERLINE BLOG
Barack Obama got a big win tonight, but what is most striking is how many votes were cast in today's Democratic primary. South Carolina has been a reliably red state, but compare the vote totals in the two parties' primaries. Obama almost exactly doubled John McCain's total in the Republican primary last week, and Hillary Clinton nearly equalled it. Overall, around 90,000 more votes were cast in the Democratic primary than the Republican. So the tide continues to flow strongly in the Democrats' direction.
Barack Obama gave a victory speech tonight; the text is here. No doubt some will characterize it as eloquent, but I think a better term is vapid. If you strip away the vaguely high-minded generalities, only two policy positions are (more or less) clearly stated. Obama wants to fail in Iraq, and he wants government-run medicine here at home. It's hard to see anything either high-minded or unifying in these goals.
Tonight, Obama indulged, as he often does, in a ritual denunciation of lobbyists. Since there is no pro-Iraq war lobby, one can only assume that he blames lobbyists for his party's failure, so far, to follow most European countries down the path of socialized medicine. Actually, though, the barrier to total government control of health care in the United States has been that a great many Americans understand that it is a terrible idea. Whether that is still the case, we likely will find out in November.
Just Another Race Hustler?
The crowd at Obama's victory party tonight chanted, "Race doesn't matter!" That's a bit disingenuous, since Obama won over 80% of the African-American vote in South Carolina, and only around a quarter of the white vote. So race was obviously a decisive factor. No doubt that's what CNN meant when it headlined, "Exit polls: Obama won across demographic lines".
Still, the sentiment is a good one, even if it doesn't reflect current reality in the Democratic Party. Less noble was Bill Clinton's effort, as reported by Jake Tapper, to type-cast Obama as a latter-day Jesse Jackson:
Said Bill Clinton today in Columbia, SC: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."
This was in response to a question about Obama saying it "took two people to beat him." Jackson had not been mentioned.
Tapper suggests that this is race-baiting, which I think is fair. I'm no fan of Obama, but it is ridiculous to equate him with Jesse Jackson.
With hindsight, it seems clear that Bill did his wife no favors by playing the heavy in South Carolina. It will be interesting to see whether he backs off between now and mega-Tuesday. |
