CBS: Could Obama Win S.C., But Get No Bounce?

[gulliver]

Heading into Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, Barack Obama is under pressure to win. After a historic victory in Iowa, he was upset by Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and then went on to lose in Nevada - making the Palmetto State contest Obama's last chance to gain some momentum headed into 21 contests on Feb. 5.

Yet the peculiarities of the South Carolina campaign - one marked by furious sparring between Obama and both Bill and Hillary Clinton - and the nature of the expectations game may have combined to put a unique burden on the Illinois senator, one that requires him to not only exceed expectations but also exceed them in a certain way.

Polls leading up to Saturday's vote show Obama leading Clinton by about 10 percentage points. But those same polls also show a significant "race gap" in Obama's support. While he holds a commanding lead among the state's African American voters, who are expected to make up about half of Saturday's electorate, his support among white voters is much lower, sometimes as low as 10 percent.

...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/politics/main3754078.shtml

[robbedvoter]

1. The million dollar question !

[rodeodance]

14. yes--and only the Future will know for sure.

[sunonmars]

2. Yup as i suspected

All the channels are going to bang the race thing tonight. Guaranteed.

CNN's headlines - Obama legitimacy on the line

Yup they are hoping he does bad with whites tonight, it will give them the excuse to go for the jugular.

[KennedyGuy]

7. Ummmm..maybe because the Obama camp has been playing the race thing...

ya think maybe?

[sandnsea]

3. The unspoken truth

The rest of the country will roll their eyes and figure the south hasn't changed that much. The Obama folks are doing a horrible job at getting the real story out, support of the Latino community in SC. If Obama wins, he has solidly one two, at worst he's won delegates in 3, and tied the 4th. If he needs to pay for the ads to tell the country that, then he needs to do it. There should be a huge bounce from this if he gets the right message out.

[forsberg]

4. He'll get crushed on Super Tuesday

[Windy]

5. Based upon the latest Rassmussen, he's already got a bounce w/o a vote tally!

The media wants a horserace now and a clinton in the general as its a ratings and profit boast. I kind of liken it to the popularitiy of reality tv with the brain dead who live in front of the TV set... and they don't typically vote people!

[sunonmars]

8. Thats nothing, wait until they see Florida's results on Tuesday

and the public will see even if theres no delegates. The perception of Hillary winning up to 60% will be lethal.

[Windy]

15. Florida is no benchmark! Wow. Good luck getting many dems to rally for hrc

in the general after this primary. Without strong support, even with dirty bill out there, she will have a hard time winning overall. You need the support of your party to mount a successful campaign. She won't have it.

Florida does not count for delegates. Many won't even go and vote. The ones that will, for the most part, are the ones that have not been paying attention and who don't realize that their vote means nothing.

Florida is not a benchmark for any candidate on the dem side.

[sunonmars]

17. you keep thinking that,

[Frances]

12. Good point

One other point: I don't think there is any chance at all that South Carolina will vote Democratic in the general election.

[MethuenProgressive]

6. I expect the MSM will spin it as "yeah, but it was the black vote, and he should've got that"

I think Obama's in a 'damned if he does, damned if he doesn't' situation in SC.

[suston96]

9. ".... African American voters, who are expected to make up about half of Saturday's electorate.."

That's pathetic.

Total registered voters in SC: 2,246,242

Total voted in Repub primary: 442,789
That leaves: 1,803,453

Of that # non-white voters: 629,000

That leaves total white voters 1,174,353

Whites are almost 2-1 and the article states that half the turnout will be non-white? Pathetic indeed.

[sunonmars]

13. looks to me like the MSM are going to use this to kill him tonight.

They have been waiting all along so as not to appear rascist.

[suston96]

18. What does "win" really mean?

Raw vote? By race? By gender? By delegates? By a DU poll? What?

[sunonmars]

19. by whatever the msm term it as i think

and it looks like they have it in for Obama tonight.

[suston96]

20. Ah, yes...Let's ask Dick Morris....Hey Dick Morris....Who won?

[spooky3]

21. your logic does not work

You are counting all people who did not vote in the Republican primary as if they were likely Democratic primary voters. That is not true in any state. That 1.8 million, less the likely Dem. voters as determined by historical patterns and any "motivating factor" such as blacks coming out in greater numbers because of Obama or women because of Clinton, for example, should be broken down into:

1) Republicans who did not vote in the primary; they are by law not allowed to vote in the Dem. primary
2) Independents who don't plan to vote in either primary; they are by law not allowed to vote in the Dem. primary

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/2008elections/tp/south_carolina_primary.htm
All voters in the primary and all participants in the precinct meetings and caucuses must swear or affirm that they are registered voters of this precinct, that they consider themselves to be a Democrat, and that have not participated in the 2008 Presidential nominating process of any other political party.

3) Democrats who don't plan to vote in their primary

as well as non-voters who don't fall neatly into those categories.

There are a lot of these citizens and a disproportionately large number of them are white, especially in categories 1 & 2.

[suston96]

23. I didn't use logic - never do around here....

You are counting all people who did not vote in the Republican primary as if they were likely Democratic primary voters.

No I did not. I just used numbers.......Numbers are from the SC SOS: http://www.state.sc.us/cgi-bin/scsec/96vr?countykey=ALL&D1=RACE And other tables.

Total registered voters in SC: 2,246,242

Total voted in Repub primary: 442,789

That leaves: 1,803,453 registered voters.

Of that # non-white voters: 629,000

That leaves total white voters 1,174,353

I did not indicate Democrats or Republicans or Independents because they are not registered as such in South Carolina.

You also said:

1) Republicans who did not vote in the primary; they are by law not allowed to vote in the Dem. primary
2) Independents who don't plan to vote in either primary; they are by law not allowed to vote in the Dem. primary

Where did you get that from? The SOS SC does not register voters by political party designation. So how can you make those statements?

Edited for this: I know a voter has to be registered 30 days before the primary. Is that with both the state and the political party? If that is true then you are correct. But I did not find that there is a political party registration requirement.

Double edit: You can pick your party at the polling place. http://www.socastee.com/politics/voter_registration.html

[spooky3]

27. You're completely missing the points.

If you would actually read and think about what I posted, instead of just the subject line, you would see that you did in fact do exactly what I described. You made incorrect inferences about the numbers you "just used." Omitting consideration of other relevant numbers led you to draw the wrong conclusion.

Your logic was that because the non-voters in the Republican primary are predominantly white, that the voters in the Dem. primary would be predominantly white. And that was not a justified inference for the reasons that I identified--for example, that many Republicans did not vote in their primary, but they were not going to vote in the Dem. primary. Since they are disproportionately white, and SC has gone strongly Republican for many years, taking them alone out of your remaining total white voters and registered voters total, would leave a a higher proportion of black registered voters.

And consistent with the article you didn't like, and with what I was trying to explain to you, as the exit polls showed, blacks WERE about 54% of those who voted in the SC Dem. primary.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#SCDEM

I GAVE you the source of the info about who is allowed to vote in which primary, so why are you asking me for it? Here it is ONCE AGAIN: "All voters in the primary and all participants in the precinct meetings and caucuses must swear or affirm that they are registered voters of this precinct, that they consider themselves to be a Democrat, and that have not participated in the 2008 Presidential nominating process of any other political party."

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/2008elections/tp/south_carolina_primary.htm

There was another article on the web that claimed that this "oath" was rescinded in 2004 but it didn't indicate whether that was permanent.

[book_worm]

10. Of course they will take a win by Obama and make it a win for Hillary

because the corporate media wants her to be the nominee. So that will be the spin. Despite proving he can win white votes in Iowa and NH they will make it about race, but will they turn the tables and ask "Can Hillary win black votes" or "male votes"??

[zanne]

11. They're already underestimating a win by Obama?

This just smacks of racism. It's all too much and I'm disgusted that, in 2008, we see racism raise its' ugly head.

[Clintonite]

24. Quit fucking crying about racism!

I mean come on, Obama isn't een black, he is BI-RACIAL. Even raised by his white mother!! He is as much white as he is black. Talk about racism? It's funny how the Cintons have been fighting for over 30 years for the africam american causes and now that all the clintons support they have had in S.C. have left them just because a half white candidate has a chance!!!! Thats racism.

[zanne]

26. You know the kind of people who say "Shut up about racism", don't you? nt

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. I think we want all candidates to remain viable after SC

and here's why: the MSM wants to anoint a candidate now, so that the GOP will have plenty of time to vilify and lie about them. This is what happened in 2004 when almost everyone dropped out after Kerry won in IA. We can't have that happen again.

[killbotfactory]

22. And this is how you spin a win into a loss

Good job, CBS!

[SOS]

25. Sumner Redstone's contributions:

Hillary Clinton $4,600
Barack Obama $0
John Edwards $0

CBS News is bought and paid for.