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Politics

Obama grabs big win in S.C.

His victory over Clinton and Edwards is both decisive and historic for the state.

By WES ALLISON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 27, 2008

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama of Illinois and his wife, Michelle, wave as they take the stage during a South Carolina primary victory party in Columbia on Saturday.
	[AP photo]

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York campaigns at Tennessee State University in Nashville on Saturday.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the strongest black candidate for president in the nation's history, rode his mantra of hope and change to a crushing victory in the nation's first Southern primary on Saturday, besting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in a bruising battle that for the first time dragged race into the campaign for the Democratic nomination.

After consecutive losses in Nevada and New Hampshire, Obama's resounding victory in South Carolina over Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards gave him a crucial boost as the candidates careen toward Feb. 5, when 22 states choose a nominee.

The 2-to-1 margin, too, marked a stunning rebuke for Clinton, who led in polls here as recently as the fall and who had secured the backing of much of the state's Democratic establishment. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also spent the last week stumping vigorously across the state, in hopes that his residual popularity with Democrats in general and black voters in particular might turn the tide.

But the man from Hope couldn't stop the man of hope.

"After four great contests, in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans than we've seen in a long, long time," Obama told a cheering crowd in his victory speech.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama had 55 percent of the vote, compared with 27 percent for Clinton and 18 percent for Edwards, who was born in the state and won the Democratic primary here in 2004.

According to exit polls, Obama was the choice of four of every five black voters, a major force in a state where African-Americans account for about half of Democratic primary voters. He was far less successful, however, among whites, winning only about 24 percent, according to an exit poll by the Associated Press. Clinton and Edwards split the rest.

For his fans, Obama's victory was a landmark in South Carolina, which hasn't elected a black politician to statewide office since Reconstruction. At his victory celebration in Columbia, jubilant supporters, some wearing T-shirts with "Got Hope?" emblazoned across their chests, hugged and whooped long after Obama finished his speech.

"It is a big deal," said Candice Dawson, 25, an insurance agent from Columbia. "It means change, it shows we have progressed as a country, that we are more diverse."

But in one way, at least, Obama leaves South Carolina in a more precarious position than he arrived. After taking great pains to avoid being cast as the black candidate for president, rather than a candidate who happens to be black, a running skirmish last week between the Obama and the Clinton campaigns added an element of racial conflict to the contest that hadn't surfaced before.

President Clinton, especially, adopted the traditional vice presidential role of attack dog, telling crowds across the state - many of them mostly black - that Obama was neither ready for the White House nor as likely to be elected as Hillary Clinton.

Many black voters and politicians said they took Clinton's disparaging comments about the nation's leading black politician somewhat personally, and believed he was implying that Obama couldn't win because he is African-American.

In his victory speech, Obama was conciliatory to his opponents, calling them worthy of respect, but he made clear he had not appreciated the contretemps.

"We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election," he said.

"This election is about the past vs. the future. It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics ... of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity."

With CNN and the Associated Press calling the election for Obama just as the polls closed, David Axelrod, a senior adviser, told reporters that Obama's resounding victory was "a very, very strong repudiation of the tactics used here."

Former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a key Obama backer, also addressed the notion that a black man can't win the White House. "Barack Obama has answered his critics as to whether he can build a broad coalition, and he did it in a Deep South state," he said.

In reality, however, the sharp split between black voters, who were so heavily for Obama, and white voters, who were so heavily for someone else, offers its own repudiation of the Obama camp's spin.

The coalition of voters who carried the day for Obama was the same sort of coalition that brought the era of black mayors to big cities, and it may work in other Southern states with large black populations.

"The only problem is, that won't work nationwide," said Bruce Ransom, a political scientist and expert in African-American and Southern politics at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. "So he still has work to do in terms of getting votes from whites, Hispanics and others. Clearly, winning 25 percent of whites works in South Carolina, but in other state, he's got problems.

"It doesn't portray him as being able to run a multiracial campaign."

When the campaign for South Carolina first began early last year, Obama was no means the favorite.

By late November, Obama was challenging Clinton's lead in the polls. African-Americans began flocking to him when he won Iowa, where less than 3 percent of residents are black. To many here, it proved Obama was a viable national candidate.

Obama also placed a close second to Clinton in New Hampshire, which is 95 percent white. Ransom said it's possible that those states are more indicative of the kind of support from white voters that Obama can expect nationally, and that his last-place finish among whites in South Carolina marks a distinctly Southern pattern, some spinoff of simmering resentment or misunderstanding.

George Kenny, 75, was also thinking ahead to the national election as he tried to pick between Obama and Edwards, "who seems more mainstream." Kenny, a retired high school band director who is African-American, stood outside his polling place in downtown Charleston on Saturday and acknowledged he was among those with doubts about a black man's chances.

"I wonder. I really wonder. In South Carolina he looks pretty popular, but I don't know about the nation," he said, shaking his head. "I really think that is the hope, and I'm trying to think young here. As a nation, we're so polarized, that we're just not getting anywhere."

Then he walked inside, and voted for Obama.

South Carolina voting

Barack Obama

55%

Hillary Clinton

27%

John Edwards

18%
99% of precincts reporting

[Last modified January 26, 2008, 23:53:20]