SOUTH CAROLINA ANALYSIS

With 99% reporting, Obama wins the South Carolina Democratic primary by a huge margin, truly a rout. Here are the results:

Obama 295,091 55%
Clinton 141,128 27%
Edwards 93,552 18%

Jay Cost has some reaction to the results, specifically concerning the one big question that arises from them...can Obama win enough white voters to remain competitive with Clinton when the race moves into states with small African-American populations? It isn't good enough, it seems to me, to say that Obama won in Iowa, therefore, he can win white votes. Hillary changed her campaign tactics after Iowa, holding town hall meetings and taking question after question (which she was doing last night in Nashville even as commentators were debating that very question). By showing emotion just before the New Hampshire primary, she was able to increase her appeal to women voters. Even in her loss last night, she still did very well with white women. I am not at all convinced that Obama can win this thing when faced with her ability to attract white females to her cause. As a Republican, though, I am quite satisfied with my analysis, as I believe Obama would be a much more difficult opponent to defeat in November. Frank Rich also sees a path to a GOP victory if Billary wins the Democratic nomination.

Caroline Kennedy sees echoes of her father's inspirational candidacy in Obama, and endorses his campaign.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that Bill and Hillary's knife-fighting political style will, in the end, win her the nomination, thus dispiriting all of those hopeful young Democrats (and not a few African-Americans), depressing their turnout in November, and keeping the White House in GOP hands. (BTW, I feel terrible even writing those words, but I think keeping our troops in the fight, as the GOP President would do, rather than pulling them from the field, as the Democratic President would do, is more important than anything else).