Stayed up here in South Africa until 3 pm last night and only Georgia was in. Woke this morning to a thin but significant win for Hillary (and spouse). Appears to be true for both popular vote and delegate count--NM is still out. Funny to watch the commentators: fearful of discussing the politics of race and gender--this is incredibly interesting: Blacks support Obama, Women support Hillary, Seniors--support Hillary (2 to 1) and Hispanics partially reacting to race and ethnicity also support Hillary in strong margins. Despite taking the white vote and sizable margins among black voters in California, Clinto won by wide margins by putting together an amazing coalition of Latinos, Asians, women and the elderly (over 60!). See this in a terrific article by Mary Ann Ostrom, San Jose Mercury News,
"In Clinton's larger-than-predicted win, California women came out strongly for Clinton, Associated Press exit polls showed. Obama won an overwhelming support from the state's black voters and took the white vote by a 6 percentage-point margin over Clinton. Men also sided with him. But the surprise was the number of Latinos who voted: a record 29 percent, the exit poll found.
Underscoring the state-by-state differences in Tuesday's races, Obama won California's whites, while Clinton had leads of nearly 20 percentage points among whites in more conservative Georgia and Missouri.
Cain said the California results showed the emergence of a coalition of Latino and Asian voters, who made up an estimated 37 percent of the California electorate, and backed Clinton overwhelmingly. Obama had most of the African-American vote, and even won the white vote, but that was not enough to win.
"It's ironic because Barack Obama comes from an immigrant background," said Cain, noting that the Kennedy endorsement and the Obama campaign's high-profile Los Angeles events did not win over Latinos." By Mary Anne Ostrom
San Jose Mercury News:
Race and gender have been with us for every election since Harry Truman but not since 1948 and probably never before have we seen this sort of dynamic--not to mention the race and gender of the two demo candidates. Augers well for a Hillary/Obama ticket in the fall; if Gore could accept the bottom of the ticket maybe Obama will also (especially after the pressure grows on him to "united" the demo party)--assuming he loses in the end at the convention. And, wow, the convention--seems certain to be the first one not settled in years--not sure last real contested one perhaps 1960--can't remember if JFK had it sewed up when he arrived at the convention? Anyone awake out there?
I was quite surprised by Massachusetts as well. I'm interested to try to figure the dynamics of this race: can't be liberal vs. conservative doesn't fit but neither is it all race and gender (age) but that seems more relevant than any other interpretation ? So far the best journalist and press article I've read is By Mary Anne Ostrom
San Jose Mercury News:
