In The Cold Kentucky Rain

Hillary searches for delegates in the cold Kentucky rain.  She manages a big win, but it was never going to be big enough.  The AllahPundit has more.

THE EXIT POLL:  Among the many questions, one caught my eye - was the race of the candidate important to you?  The breakdown:

Whites who say yes:  18% of total voters - 88% Hillary, 9% Obama

Whites who say no:    67% of voters; 68% Hillary, 28% Obama

Blacks who say yes:    2% of voters; N/A on breakdown

Blacks who say no:   7% of voters; N/A on breakdown.

Although the breakdown was not meaningful for black voters, black Democrats went for Obama by 91% to 8%.  Unless someone can remind me of the major issues differentiating Obama from Hillary, I suspect that Obama's race was important to black voters, their denials notwithstanding.

However, only whites will be accused of racism.

Comments

[Danube of Thought]

As all of us sports freaks would say, "Mr. Obama absorbed another savage drubbing tonight."

(We would say this only because we couldn't figure a way to drag in either of our two other favorite sports cliches, "aided by their diminutive sparkplug," or "tormented by his former mates." But I'll be watching all future electoral goings-on for any opportunity to use either or both of these hardy perennials.)

[clarice]

I think it is remarkable. I don't recall a single other nomination period where the front runner was consistently drubbed like this in states that matter in the general.

I think Brazile and Dean engineered O's early wins and miscalculated..Hillary will not cave in . This will go to the convention, and no matter how it comes out, I expect the party will be seriously fractured.

[ben]

Some of the county results are remarkable.
Pike County RW 12,915 Obama 936
Floyd County RW 11,714 Obama 693
those are well populated counties,
then there are smaller ones...
Magoffin County RW 2,714 Obama 146
I guess these folks havent gotten the "message".

[PaulL]

Hillary's win is simply a distraction, the politics of division and the past. Don't you be hoodwinked now!

Thus spake Obama.

[Sue]

I am in shock. She kicked his butt in KY. He better kick hers in OR.

[bgates]

DOT - since it's a Democratic electoral event, I bet you could work somebody "giving 110%" in there.

Though there may be less of that kind of thing going on now that the SC has upheld voter ID laws.

[Pagar]

"I think Brazile and Dean engineered O's early wins and miscalculated."

I think some of the caucus wins came from intimidation of voters by very aggressive Obama supporters plus caucuses tend to eliminate older and working voters who might not be able to attend. I believe some of the stories out of the Democrat Texas caucus point to caucus problems in elections.

[bgates]

Headlines that will Never See the Light of Day:

Rough Night for Obama; No KY

Kentucky to Obama Campaign: No, Y'all Cain't

Many Kentuckians Spend Lives In Deep, Dark, Cramped Holes With Constant Danger of Crushing Death and Suffocation; Think Obama Presidency Would Make Things Worse

[RichatUF]

Pagar-

It seems like a long time ago but the Nevada caucus goes towards your point too. BHO organized the casinos better, muscled out Clinton, and took more delegates.

[Porchlight]

I agree, Pagar. Caucuses are the ideal voting environment for young, energized, tech-savvy, socially-networked Obama fans who are unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. I'm not complaining, though - it's a major blindspot of the Obama campaign that will hurt him in November.

[Gmax]

Obama has the hard left in his camp. Communists and their various front groups are very adept at organizing and meetings. When turn out is small due to the way caucuses work, then the most committed will win if they have any organizing skills at all. That Clinton did not see this and get her own organizers in early is a mystery to be pondered.

[PaulL]

I remember well that McGovern was going to win with the Youth Vote. The hated Nixon ended up with a majority of it; go figure.

[Rick Ballard]

Please don't leave out Andy Stern and the SEIU (plus the ACORN weasels) - Dean and Brazile couldn't have propped up that empty suit without them.

I still say that the "big picture" strategy was to drive Clinton from the stage.

They just don't know the right spells. She and Bubba have a rock solid deal signed with Mephistopheles and they're keeping up their side of the bargain.

[Pagar]

Gmax, I totally agree that it is hard to figure how Clinton could not have understood the mechanics of a caucus better than her campaign seemed to demonstrate.

[Pofarmer]

I think it is remarkable. I don't recall a single other nomination period where the front runner was consistently drubbed like this in states that matter in the general.

That's kinda what I've been thinking, too. Which Red States has Obama won that he might put in play?

[Rick Ballard]

Oregon exit poll is up. Looks like 58/42 Obama.

[Danube of Thought]

Toast. 110% toast.

[clarice]

Niters.. If you start seeing banners with O's Soviet propaganda poster style picture and "One people, one country, one leader" on them, don't tell me. It's already my nightmare scenario.

[ParseThis]

However, only whites will be accused of racism.

I would bet that blacks voting for Obama based on race have a better record of voting for whites than whites who won't vote for Obama based on race have of voting for blacks.

[glenda waggoner]

Clarice-Obambi did say tonight he was"going to make the oil companies use their profits to fund new energy resources for all".In other words if you're successful, the government will decide what happens to your money and if you're a failure, the government will take care of you from others' profit,but my wife Michele and I are off limits because it's expensive to send our
girls to the after school activities recommended by my neighbors, the Ayers.

[Sue]

I want to know how Hillary winning by 35% points in KY helps Michelle's children?

[Sue]

Dear Gussie, Martha McCallum needs to ditch the yellow.

[Gmax]

WHOA

When you drill down to the county level, you find multiple counties in KY got 90% or more of the vote. Given that unaffiliated and Edwards was also on the ballot, that gives Obama a handful of votes in multiple counties.

I do think if this was a prize fight, the referee would be forced to halt to contest. Too bloody to go on.

[Mepeles]

Mephistopheles, 'Everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came.'

Cylons with fission laser beam eyes are more fun.

[Chris]

Pagar,
"Gmax, I totally agree that it is hard to figure how Clinton could not have understood the mechanics of a caucus better than her campaign seemed to demonstrate."

It is also hard to figure how HRC had a guy running her campaign (and presumably earning millions), Penn, who didn't know that the state of CA allocated delegates proportionally and not in a winner-take-all fashion. But that was reported recently.

[JM Hanes]

I think the Clinton camp just didn't take Obama seriously till it was too late and they didn't have the strategic genius on board that they needed to fix it.

[bgates]

I would bet that blacks voting for Obama based on race have a better record of voting for whites than whites who won't vote for Obama based on race have of voting for blacks.
I bet that "better record" you're claiming is a result of a lack of blacks on the ballot rather than a lack of racism among black voters. I bet "they only vote based on race when it's possible" is not a terrific defense.

[Elliott]

JM Hanes,

I agree. The Clintons failed to define Obama and instead let him define himself as the candidate with the best judgment. Fortunately, I don't think McCain is making the same mistake and is instead quick to argue that Obama's judgment is lacking.

[ParseThis]

I don't know. If America were to ever elect a black person president, I think it would kinda suck for blacks to have voted against that person.

[bgates]

Why?

[kim]

It only makes sense, bg, from a fundamentally racist perspective.
====================================

[kim]

Jonah Goldberg's next book could be called 'Liberal Racists'.
=================================

[Pagar]

"Obama's judgment is lacking." That seems obvious. What really scares me is the total lack of judgment of his supporters.

[Rick Ballard]

Off Topic,

Gmax,

You asked about "others" involved in the manufacture of the A component of AGW. Here is a good piece tracing the process.

James Hansen, Phil Jones and Lonnie Thompson were center ring with Mann performing as juggling clown to an appreciative IPCC audience.

[John Oh]

ParseThis -- In a previous primary, NC I think, blacks voted for Obama at a 95% rate while whites voted for Obama at a 40% rate. Would this not suggest that the white voters polled were more likely to vote candidate or issues than race? Can it be that only 5% of black voters agreed with Clinton on issues? Or are there other forces that an old conservative like me would not notice.

[kim]

So is Maurice Strong bad?
================

[jimmyk]

I remember well that McGovern was going to win with the Youth Vote.

According to this, Nixon and McGovern were tied in the polls in April 1972.

I've always thought the anti-Vietnam sentiment was exaggerated by the press, who were enthralled with Woodstock generation, just as the anti-Iraq war sentiment is exaggerated today. Bush's unpopularity is as much due to his domestic failures as anything, and to the extent it's attributable to Iraq it's due to the strategic errors before the success of the last six months.

[cathyf]

Caucuses are the ideal voting environment for young, energized, tech-savvy, socially-networked Obama fans who are unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole.

There is another, more subtle effect, which I think may have had a significant effect, especially in Iowa.

In rural/small town Iowa, blacks are pretty rare. In places where blacks are not rare, the vast majority of people with one black parent have two black parents. In places where blacks are rare, the ratio between blacks and bi-racial people is much different -- of people with one black grandparent, the odds are much higher that at least one of the other 3 grandparents is white as opposed to places where the percentage of blacks is high enough to support an African-American community.

What I think that meant, especially in Iowa, was that lots of people saw a vote against Obama as a vote against their bi-racial neighbors. And a national race is one thing, but your neighbors are the people that you have to see every day. And the main difference with caucuses is that your vote is public. So, imagine that you live in a small town where everybody knows everybody else. And your kid's baseball coach's sister is white married to a black man (and their bi-racial son plays on your kid's team.) And the 4th grade teacher (note -- the 4th grade teacher -- there's only one class in each grade in your town) is half black and half white and her family and her parents go to your church. Etc., etc. So you are at the caucus, and it is really important to you to prove to your neighbors that you are not bigoted against them, but not so important to distinguish between one left-wing politician and another. So you cast your vote for appearing publicly supportive of inter-racial marriage and being publicly supportive of your bi-racial neighbors. The neighbors that you have to live with after the political campaigns have departed.

Well, in November, the voting is by secret ballot...

[clarice]

That may be true,cathy. I remember the Midwest and people are like that, BUT I think the caucus system favors the young, the unemployed and those on union payrolls, and IIRC there is no real residency requirement other than a statement one intends to vote in the general in Iowa to vote in the caucus.

I think the caucus system is designed to hurt the more conservative candidates whose supporters tend to be older, married, having jobs and children to tend to and real lives to lead.

[Anon1]

Only whites will be accused of racism because only whites can be racist, or some nonsense like that, I can never keep all the PC thinking straight.

Oh, by the way, as a person of color, do you know what makes me so sad? That in all my life I never found a way to make that diversity racket work for me personally.

I just thought I'd work hard and see what happens. What a chump....

[ParseThis]

I hadn't really thought of it like that before, John Oh, but you're quite right.

The fact that 90% + of blacks vote for the black candidate is certainly a much stronger sign of racism than the fact that 50-60% of the whites vote for the white candidate. Seeing it like that makes me realize that only someone who's incredibly stupid, or a paid shill, would try to argue otherwise.

Thanks!