How does a South Carolina win SPECIFICALLY help Obama going into Feb. 5th?

[Unsane]

Polls show Clinton up (at least marginally) in most of the Super Tuesday states. Georgia, however, has Obama up slightly. I can't find a Tennessee poll. One would think a Jan. 26th SC victory would give Obama some some sort of boost. The question is how much of one? Edwards, for example, won SC in '04, but this did little to help him on Super Tuesday vs. Kerry. Is Obama resigned to this same fate, or will he receive larger momentum? Did Bush's '00 SC victory give him a substantial bump? (I am unsure of the '00 Bush analogy, as he was the establishment candidate, much like Hillary is here, whereas McCain's insurgent candidacy was closer to Obama's)

[Quixote1818]

1. Edwards didn't win Iowa either. Obama and Clinton are both considered front runners. nt

[Unsane]

6. Good point on the Iowa issue.

[loveangelc]

2. by SC it was pretty much assumed that Kerry would be the nominee regardless

the media can say clinton won 2 and obama won 2 going into super tuesday (since they don't seem to be counting michigan or even talking about florida for the democrats at all). and sc will be the last TRUE primary state before super tuesday.

[ccpup]

3. Obama would need to get a 10 to 15% boost in most States

and, with Hillary's recent wins plus the fact that it's widely know that at least half of SC's voting public are African-Americans (thereby giving Obama what some might consider an instant advantage), I don't see him making up that kind of ground, state-by-state on Feb 5th.

I'm still calling it for Hillary.

[Unsane]

8. This is how I see it.

There is so little time between Jan 26th (SC) and Feb. 5th (Super Tuesday). Time works against him.

[Lucinda]

4. Honestly?

IMO it would reinforce the idea across the country, especially in the black electorate who want to vote for him, that Obama CAN win, and that his supporters should make the effort to GOTV.

[sunonmars]

5. but if this gets seens as a black vs white race, he's toast

[Lucinda]

7. I don't think so. I think people are smarter than that.

Unless the demeanor of the campaigns change, I think that people will vote for whichever candidate they prefer as long as they are both seen as viable. Both Obama and Hillary have great endorsements from both black and white supporters.

Anyone spinning a good black voter turnout for Obama negatively will be called on it. Women showed up for Hillary in NH. It was pointed out, an everyone moved on. Same will happen if he does well in SC.

[Unsane]

9. Agreed

[comradebillyboy]

30. that's likely to be the case in SC nt

[ccpup]

12. but if he is to rely solely on the black vote

he would need every single African-American state after state to vote for him and, with the support Hillary has in delegate huge States like CA, NY, NJ and PA, I don't see the black community deserting Hillary en masse and voting for Obama.

In addition, even if Obama has a strong GOTV effort, Hillary will probably -- with the strong backing of the Democrat Community as well as her endorsements state by state -- have just AS strong a GOTV effort.

As another Poster offered, time does work against Obama as far as making up what are -- in some cases -- sizable deficits in the Polls.

[Lucinda]

16. He isn't relying just on black votes though.

Right now, Hillary and Obama are sort of cancelling each other out precentage-wise if you look at the voting breakdown with white and black voters. He's doing better with black voters and she has been doing about the same proportions with white voters. They both get support from the others strength areas.

So IMO it becomes a matter of GOTV, latino voters, how women break and if either campaign does something to cause a change in the status quo.

Where Hillary is strongest right now is with Dems. Obamas strength is still in Indy voters and younger voters...so he has the hardest ground to work. Several of the super Tuesday states are dems only.

[ccpup]

17. you're right

the strength he saw in NV was from his 80% black vote while she basically swept everyone else -- women, white, latino, hispanic, older. He has a lot of ground to cover with other groups that aren't black or independent. I just don't see how -- with the NH and NV win under her belt -- a SC win will nudge Democrats who are strongly supporting her over to his camp in time for Super Tuesday.

[Lucinda]

34. I agree with you about Super Tuesday. Time is a factor. Plus,

regardless what the delegates are, the general public has seen NH, Michigan and Nevada lining up on Hillary's side. Picking up SC won't change a lot. I'm really curious to see how the vote goes.

[BenDavid]

10. this south carolina vote will be seen by many across this

country as a (hate to even say it) :cry: black v white.

Now this begs the question. Knowing the clintons are both political geniuses, why would they alienate the very group of people (as some are convinced they played the race card) they would need not only in the nomination process but most D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y in the general election?

[angie_love]

11. .

Just stop saying its a black v white thing. If it is, then it is, but just stop repeating it over and over again. Its as if you WANT it to be a black v white thing so Hillary can have it in the bag. Spare me the "hate to even say it", you loved saying it. Why can't we just move past this race thing? Its so completely annoying.

[Lucinda]

35. We don't shy away from issues here.

Hillary's gender is also relevant. Both are factors in the election and it isn't a bad thing to dicuss it.

[Dems Will Win]

13. GA, MS, LA, AL, IN, PA, TX, VA, MD, DE, IL, MO, WS, HI

Those all look like future Obama states now, between the switch or impending switch in black support and home state advantage. Obama will also split CA with Hil, (only 5 behind there and getting BIG Latino support).

Once they split Feb 5, all the Obama states are up. Hil will get 800 something delegates on Feb. 5, and Obama 700-something.

Hillary has lost the nomination. It looks deceptively good for her right now because all the states so far have been low minority populations.

With Latinos swinging to Obama in CA and TX, she is finished in my view. Obama may not get a big share of the white vote in the South but he doesn't need to. And he's shown he can win the white vote everywhere else.

Hillary is toast, too many states out of reach, just as MD and SC suddenly are now because of the shift in the black vote.

Her only hope was to racialize the contest - it didn't work. He still has the NE, MW and Western Whites, and now he has the blacks. IT was a bet to turn off white voters in the whole nation and the gamble failed miserably.

It was a stupid strategy from Penn to try and turn into a national black-whote race, because Obama was never going to get a lot of white Southerners, and he's too talented to lose the white vote outside the South. That's why Rasmussen now shows a 4-point nationally race instead of a 9 point lead for Hillary. Even the day after Nevada. It's now 38-34.

Penn might have won if he had just made Hil human in the beginning and had her talk her economic plan all the time. Too late now, the black voter has switched and is not coming back and is 25% of the Democratic Primary vote!

[sunonmars]

15. you've posted this how many times today

The latinos have swung behind Clinton by massive margins.

[ccpup]

18. how are Latinos swinging to Obama?

they certainly didn't swing his way in Nevada? And the 5 point poll you list in CA is an outlier with the other polls mentioning leads of 15 to 20 points.

[paulk]

20. an absurd analysis

and posting it over and over again isn't going to improve it...

[Joe the Revelator]

27. Why is it absurd....If you can't refute it, you really shouldn't post about how absurd it is

nt

[sandnsea]

32. It's pretty spot on

Obama is winning rural America. That's the real story. If he can get that message out there, that'll move even more voters, black and white. The Latino vote looks problematic, but otherwise Obama is in good shape for Feb 5th, superb shape if he wins SC.

I don't see how you can continue supporting the Clintons after all that they've done. Starting with the lies about student voters in IA, it's been the lie of the day with that campaign. We're going to end up right back where we were in 2000 if we elect them. 3/4 of the country doesn't even want her. It's so stupid.

[Unsane]

21. Interesting as hell; thanks for posting it.

Hadn't seen this. You bring up some good points.

[Little Star]

26. So your saying it really is a black/white thing?

[MadBadger]

14. Helps slow down Hill's momentum.

[incapsulated]

19. Pretty much

If she wins, that is 3 in a row and only one for Obama going into Super Tuesday. She has the mojo now and only a win for him can put the brakes on it. Otherwise people may start to view Iowa as a fluke.

[ccpup]

22. and his upcoming win in SC will be seen as the black vote

rallying behind him in a heavily black State. It will do nothing for him as far as the Super Tuesday States are concerned.

[Unsane]

23. Depends on how the media plays it I guess.

[ccpup]

24. in every article I've seen so far

it's mentioned BEFORE the Primary that SC has a strong black community which is expected to overwhelming vote for Obama. So, it's already being played that way.

[cobalt1999]

25. South Carolina is a tough one for Obama

1) He is expected to win
2) It's not for a reason he wants to tout (large black population)
3) If it is closer than expected, he will look like the loser.
4) Unless he absolutely has a huge win, it'll have little to no impact on Super Tuesday.

[AGirl]

28. I agree and i think it will be close.

[Unsane]

31. We'll see about #4

[sandnsea]

33. No, he just needs to win

And put the delegate number up. That's all.

[comradebillyboy]

29. wins are always better than losses

Obama has an up hill fight. He has a pretty good chance to win SC. if he loses SC its real bad news going into super Tuesday. He has the resources to keep going for quite a while no matter what happens in the next 2 weeks.

That's my objective opinion. I can make some snarky observations as a Clinton supporter if anybody in this thread would like me to.

[cindyw]

36. CALIFORNIA

Trust me, Cali people will vote for the person who looks like they are going to win. They go with he popular candidate. Case closed. There is no room for insurgencies and underdogs in Cali. Very liberal people will vote Republican of that is the name of the person their friends like and they saw in a commercial they liked.