Obama Gains Momentum vs. Clinton&Clinton

Barack Obama clobbered Hillary Clinton in South Carolina partly by assiduous grass roots organizing—getting out his base and expanding it—and by pushing back against the dual team of Clinton&Clinton.

He beat Clinton by 55-27, with former Senator John Edwards taking 18 percent. Obama got more than 78 percent of black votes but also took nearly a quarter of the votes of whites, propelling him into the Tsunami Tuesday primaries with far more clout than expected by analysts. Few of them had predicted the margin of his victory and some had said he might not get more than 10 percent of the vote of whites. No one forecast such a huge turnout either: about 500,000 voters, 75 percent higher than in 2004 and 50,000 higher than in the Republican primary a week earlier.

As he savored his larger-than-expected win, Obama stepped up his efforts to peg the Clintons as politicians of the past. In his victory speech he condemned “the bitter partisanship that causes politicians to demonize their opponents,” and in a barb at Clinton involving one of her charges, said “it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican has an idea, even if it’s one you never agreed with.”

Sunday brought another bombshell: an endorsement of Obama by Caroline Kennedy, and news of a pending endorsement by the veteran liberal, Senator Edward Kennedy. Obama, then appearing on the morning talk shows, said he didn’t think Bill and Hillary Clinton “were trying to demonize me.” But he said, “there is a certain brand of politics that we’ve become accustomed to, and that the Republican Party had perfected and was often directed against the Clintons, but that all of us have become complicit in—where we basically think anything is fair game.”

He said he was “best equipped to move us in a new direction.”

The exit polls showed that South Carolina voters thought that, too: 54 percent of voters said what mattered most was whether a candidate “can bring about needed change” with 75 percent of them voting for Obama, 15 percent for Clinton.

The exit polls also showed that 75 percent of the voters thought the country was ready to elect a woman as president—and then half of them backed Obama. As to whether the country was ready to elect a black, 77 percent said yes and 63 percent of those voters opted for Obama, 21 percent for Clinton.

In South Carolina, Clinton prevailed only with white women and voters 65 and older, while Obama got two-thirds of voters 30 and under. Less than 20 percent of the primary voters were white men—and Edwards got the bulk of those.

Obama now has to translate the Kennedy endorsements and the South Carolina surprise into a surge in the coming states, where Clinton retains a sizable lead. He is unlikely to fade, as apparently Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has done, but it isn’t clear if he can keep the victories coming. It isn’t clear if his message of hope will trump Clinton’s superior organization in most of the 22 states that vote for Democrats Feb. 5.

Clinton also puts some stake in what Florida voters will do Tuesday. The Florida primaries are huge for Republicans but only a beauty contest for Democrats, with no delegates at stake because the national party said the state had unlawfully moved up the primary date. In Florida as in Michigan where no Democratic delegates were chosen, Clinton kept her name on the ballot. She is keeping to the letter of the Democratic agreement by not campaigning in Florida but will show up as the polls close, hoping to celebrate votes for her which her campaign hopes will blunt Obama’s momentum before the February 5 primaries.

South Carolina continues the trend for record turnouts for Democrats, compared to Republicans. The gender breakdown between parties is startling. In last week’s GOP South Carolina vote, voters were 51 percent male, 49 percent female. The Democratic primary breakdown was 61 percent female, 39 percent male. Republican women are fairly close to the men in primary votes for Senator John McCain, Huckabee, Governor Romney and former Senator Fred Thompson.

What lies ahead is far from traditional politicking.

Front and center is the role of former president Bill Clinton. Much of what he has done so far has created headlines, and a backlash that has hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign on occasion. This could have been one factor that toppled late-deciders into Obama’s camp.

More than half of South Carolina voters had made up their minds a month or more ago, and Clinton held onto a chunk of those votes. Obama took the votes of those who had decided in recent weeks, as racial politics became a tricky factor and Bill Clinton’s defense of Hillary became a controversy unto itself.

Exit polls showed that 51 percent of voters blamed both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for launching unfair attacks on each other. But another question shed addition light on the Clinton campaign’s dilemma: Bill Clinton’s campaigning was seen as “important” by 58 percent, and those voters chose Obama 48-37 percent. There isn’t a road map for a former president helping his wife run for the top office, of course. But some Clinton supporters are queasy, worried that Clinton’s huge footprint is energizing investigative reporters poised to attack the Clinton&Clinton record, past and present.

Some want to find out names of donors to the ex-president’s library and his charitable foundation—and to see how many of the same people have donated to Hillary’s campaign—and others are trying to get records from the Clinton presidency to see what role Hillary had on issues such as health care.

Bill’s larger footprint in the campaign gives them legitimacy to escalate their activities.

In addition, there already is flourishing blog traffic on how to label all of this: Hillbilly? Billary?

That’s more than a distraction from the issues Hillary has raised.