Day: January 27, 2008

An exultant Barack Obama said his overwhelming win in South Carolina disproved notions that Democratic voters are deeply divided along racial lines.

“We have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time,” the Illinois senator told joyful supporters at a rally. “They are young and old; rich and poor. They are black and white; Latino and Asian.”

As if anticipating his remarks, his supporters chanted “Race doesn’t matter” before Obama took the stage in Columbia, and again as he spoke for 20 minutes.

The daughter of President John F. Kennedy endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying he could inspire Americans in the same way her father once did.

“I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them,” Caroline Kennedy wrote in an op-ed posted Saturday on the Web site of The New York Times. “But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”

The questions surrounding Barack Obama’s victory in South Carolina: Was the split between white and black voters an anomaly in a state were the Confederate flag still flies on the statehouse grounds? Or has the Clinton campaign successfully marginalized him as the “black candidate?”

What’s clear is that for Obama to win the nomination, he will have to improve his performance among white voters over South Carolina. Being the clear favorite among blacks won’t be enough as the candidates turn to 22 states that hold contests on Feb. 5.

Barack Obama didn’t settle for a mere rout in South Carolina. After a landslide victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Illinois senator took a brash, brutal victory lap that he hopes will define her, her husband, and their his-and-hers candidacy in the days ahead.

Old.

Dishonest.

Divisive.

Ruthless

And he was just getting started.

“The cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina,” Obama said to a huge crowd’s first cheers.

Question of the day: What, if anything, did Hillary and Bill Clinton learn from the drubbing they received Saturday in the South Carolina Democratic primary?

Yes, we know, Bill is not on the ballot but this primary election has become as much a referendum on the former President and his campaign tactics as it is on his wife’s race for the White House. His rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners style has rankled rank and file Democrats and led to calls that he either tone down the campaign rhetoric or just shut up and go away.

Clinton’s enormous ego, however, will never allow him to do either and — for now at least — his wife appears content to let him play bad cop in their quest to return to the White House as a roles-reversed power couple.

But South Carolina voters sent the Clintons a message of repudiation Saturday, a stern warning that the politics of divisiveness doesn’t play along with a clear message that they want a candidate that unites, not divides, a nation.