We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!
It's a big night in South Carolina. After a particularly nasty couple of weeks of campaigning on the Democratic side, some questions will be asked: 1) Has the Clinton's race-baiting eroded the Obama support among whites? 2) Has Bill Clinton's behavior damaged his wife's campaign? 3) Is this the end of the line for native son John Edwards? Join me for the answers.
posted by gatorbob @ 6:14 PM
We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!
15 Comments:
Early speculation on the blogs is that the voters' distaste for the Clinton tactics may push Edwards above her tonight. That would certainly be interesting.
Polls close in about half an hour.
Hillary Clinton is apparently already out of South Carolina and heading for Tennessee, where she'll watch the returns tonight. That's a good early indication that she expects to be tonked. The Clinton campaign has been downplaying her chances all week by pointing out that more than 50% of SC's primary voters are Black and that...erm, Obama is Black.
Blimey, that didn't take long. The 7 o'clock witching hour strikes and MSNBC are already projecting Obama as the winner tonight just as the polls close. I know this wasn't much of a surprise, but you'd think that after NH, the media would be more cautious about using exit polling.
From ABC News:
" Preliminary exit poll results indicate that just over half are blacks this year; if that holds in final data later tonight, it would be the highest turnout among African-Americans in any Democratic presidential primary at least since 1984.
Turnout among women is high as well -- they account for six in 10 voters, similar to their 57 percent share in 2004 and higher than their 52 percent in the 1992 exit poll. (There were no South Carolina Democratic primaries in 1996 or 2000.)
The primary electorate also may be more liberal than in the past: In preliminary results more than four in 10 describe themselves as liberals, compared with 39 percent in 2004 and just 27 percent in 1992."
According to CNN, second place is "too close to call." People must have been really sickened by Bill's shenanigans.
Just today, he apparently tried to downplay the defeat tonight by saying "Jesse Jackson won here too." Wow!
Obama got got 81% of Black vote, 24% of white vote. Both Clinton and Edwards did better among white voters but not that much better - 36% for Clinton and 29% for Edwards. Obama also won nearly 50% of those under 40.
The big news down here in the Sunshine State today is that governor Charlie Crist is endorsing John McCain ahead of the Tuesday primary.
MSNBC is now calling the second place for Hillary Clinton at 34%. That's certainly got to be curtains for John Edwards.
2% percent of precincts reporting
Obama 6,010 (51%)
Clinton 4,014 (34%)
Edwards 1,720 (15%)
Kucinich 22 (0%)
7% percent of precincts reporting
Obama 18,571 (51%)
Clinton 10,618 (30%)
Edwards 6,901 (18%)
Kucinich 47 (0%)
Looks like the rural votes from the western part of the state around Greenville/Spartanburg are starting to come in for Edwards. Still, it's not going to be enough for him tonight. If he could've taken second place, he might have rationalized staying in the race, but he should really drop out now and pitch to one of the big two.
13% of precincts reporting
Barack Obama 35,342 51%
Hillary Clinton 19,381 28%
John Edwards 13,595 20%
Dennis Kucinich 75 0%
Bubba's on now trying to lick some major wounds. Again, he's downplaying the extent of the vote tonight. Nice try, Bill.
21% of precincts reporting
Barack Obama 57,741 52%
Hillary Clinton 30,249 27%
John Edwards 21,735 20%
Dennis Kucinich 114 0%
Mike Gravel 27 0%
Last post for tonight:
86% of precincts reporting
Barack Obama 229,352 54%
Hillary Clinton 114,351 27%
John Edwards 79,329 19%
Dennis Kucinich 460 0%
Total Turnout:
Democrats 423,512
Republicans 442,918
The big story is that in a pretty Republican state, the Dems have pulled out an almost equal number of primary voters. It means that the GOP is in big trouble in November.
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