...if Hillary's win tonight, and the way it slammed the breaks on the euphoria over Obama's big win in Iowa, could be the thing that starts to break the spell the Clintons have over Black voters. Which way will they lean in South Carolina, particularly given some of the more caustic comments that have come from Camp Hillary (not to mention that drug dealing bomblet...) and Hillary's enduring hold over much of the Congressional Black Caucus?
Internal polling within both the Clinton and Obama camps showed Obama winning by 10 plus margins (as did my predictions), and it's causing some analysts to wonder whether the polls were wrong because white respondents weren't being quite honest about the way they would vote (commonly called the "Bradley effect"...) If that perception begins to take hold, will Black voters take their frustrations out on Hillary ... or on the Democratic Party writ large, particularly in November if Hillary is the nominee? I will confess to a feeling of disappointment over Barack's second place finish tonight -- I had begun to imagine him as the nominee, and had begun to shed a bit of my cynicism about the utility of the politics of bi-partisanship (my husband can tell you I generally don't believe it can be done. Barack damned near convinced me...) I imagine that many other Black voters are feeling the same way tonight, even if we rather like the Clintons... How that plays out in the next two primaries is anyone's guess...
And given Hillary's wide victory margin with New Hampshire women (read, white women) ... could we soon see the beginnings of a fracture of the Democratic coalition along the lines of Black voters, young voters and Democratic leaning independents versus white women voters?
And there's yet another variable, with the Nevada primary coming up next Tuesday: Latino voters. Where, oh where, do THEY wind up?
It gets even more interesting from here...
Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Bradley effect, elections, Hillary Clinton, politics, race in America |
