On NC and IN Primaries

A few thoughts on election day:

1. Stuka got worried for no reason. The way IN results came in is not different from the norm. Urban areas have a much higher turnout per precinct and the votes take longer to count. So the candidates doing well with rednecks and hillybillies always get an early lead. For example, the networks had called the MO primary for Clinton and Obama came back to beat her by 10,000 votes. More famously, FL in 2000 followed a similar pattern.

2. The networks and pundits keep harping on the White Working class vote, and how the Democrats cannot win the White House without it. How do they feel about a candidate who's getting less than 10 percent of the Black vote? Which Democrat won the White House without Blacks? And this brings me to a very disturbing trend in Democratic politics. Blacks are taken for granted. They can be derided, ridiculed, betrayed, and the strategists and the punditry assumes that they'll come home in the end. Although at this point, if Obama is denied the nomination (which can only be done through some sleazy tactical manoeuvre)African Americans will sit out the general. Of course Obama or his surrogates cannot make this point without painting themselves in a corner.

3. Obama's speech sounded a lot like the Iowa one. That's a good thing. Irrespective of all this hoopla about his lack of patriotism, an Obama convention will be an historic affair, and a moving one except for the most intransigent racists. They are not going to vote Democratic anyways.

4. Clinton made a tactical blunder doubling down on the gas tax pander. Obama was more than happy to talk about something other than J Wright in the closing days of the campaign. And it's quite clear that Clinton lost that war.

5. Regardless of whether Clinton stays in the race or not, it's over. The tone and tenor of Clinton surrogates changed remarkably tonight. Even the shameless Lanny Davis sounded a bit resigned, and lacked the biting smugness and chutzpah when spouting his talking points.

6. And finally, the punditocracy is facing up to the ugly fact that a significant portion of the "lunch bucket democrats" are intransigent racists. No amount of convincing by Obama is going to change that. What he has demonstrated however, is that he can build a coalition (in the Democratic primary and the General Election) that can win inspite of the racists in the electorate.

7.The conventional wisdom was that Rev Wright hurt Obama. He probably did, but not as much as people thought. The attacks invoking Wright took such racist undertones, that it substantially increased Obama's share of the Black vote, which was thought to be saturated already. Obama now polls in the mid 90s among Blacks, up 10 points from South Carolina.