Democrats drew about 280,000 voters, a 29% increase over 2004's 217,000. It looks like Republicans will hit about 240,000, about the same as 2000's 236,000. This continues to be a positive trend for Democrats in general; Democrats are energized by their candidates, Republicans are not, except maybe for
Independents constituted 37% of the vote in the Republican primary, of course helping McCain to win; they were actually a bigger force in the Democratic primary, constituting 44% of the vote (with 54% identifying as Democrats), and voting more for Obama but obviously not by a large enough margin.
This result hurts Edwards more than anyone; he'll surely hang in until South Carolina, but the longer Obama and Clinton drag this out, the more he looks like a third wheel. This result probably kills any chance of him moving past Clinton into a fight with Obama.
McCain is up, but given the Democratic result, it would be crazy to call him the winner. Romney will push hard to turn things around in Michigan, and he certainly has the resources to do it.
Fred Thompson received a hilarious 1%. Why did he do this again?
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And now it seems like someone in the Democratic race is "playing the race card" - and I don't think it's Obama.
Pretty sleazy, if you ask me. There's seems to be a subtle but calculated effort by Clinton and company to make comments that might offend some blacks, and then accuse Obama of bringing up race when people complain.
Is that a good strategy (not morally, obviously, but politically)? Hard to say. It seems to be causing a backlash amongst black voters, which could hurt her in S.C., but I wonder if it won't be effective long-term. See, I don't think people are racist enough to vote against Obama because he's black, per se, but I do think that a lot of whites are bothered (sometimes with reason) by the notion that black pols play the victim too much. And obviously, in the long run, there are a lot more white voters than black. Could the Clintons be willing to sacrifice S.C. to somehow turn off whites to Obama in later states? I think it's possible, and in fact, even if he wins both Nevada and S.C. at this point, she may have enough national support to still beat him on Super Tuesday.
Still, I hope voters will see through all this chicanery. But, the negative stuff always seems to work pretty well, so it's hard to say.
None of which is to say that the Obama folks are completely pristine in their tactics -- I'm sure they're not -- but I think it's obvious which side is limboing lower at this point...
Happy belated Nixon's birthday, by the way.
-BBPO
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