It seemed suspicious that the exit polls, in such a small state, were so far off, lending at least some support to the theory that people will sometimes fail to pull the lever for a African-American candidate but then tell pollsters that they did. Remember that Obama had just swept the Iowa caucuses -- where voters have to take a very public stand.
Actually, in that earlier column, I did not fully endorse the notion that this had happened in New Hampshire. I merely took exception to all the pundits who were claiming that surely racism was dead among all those good Democrats of New Hampshire and played little or no role in his defeat.
End of discussion. In all the feel-good stories about Obama in the weeks since, race was mainly discussed in the context of Bill Clinton's alleged attacks, with very little analysis or probing of actual voter attitudes -- and why, if racism is almost dead, anyone would be worried about anyone playing the "race card."
Anyway: The results of Super Tuesday make me revisit this subject, again very tentatively.
Without going into all the results, just note Obama that inspired unexpected landslides in nearly all of the caucus states (see tallies below) while barely eaking out wins -- or getting trounced -- in nearly all of the voting booth states.
He did win Georgia easily, but like in South Carolina, he had a huge black base there, and of course he rumbled in home state Illinois. But once again there is the haunting evidence that most exit polls yesterday suggested very tight fights, or even Obama wins, in California, New Jersey and several other places -- where he ended up losing badly. How did that happen?
Exit polls indicated that he got about 43% of the white vote around the U.S. -- but does this even come close to lining up to the likely votes cast? If someone could crunch those numbers it would be interesting to know if there is any way Obama could have performed so middling in nearly all of the non-caucus states, unless white voters were not being straight with pollsters. That 43% figure just doesn't seem to fit.
The latest news is that Gallup on Tuesday released its latest poll, revealing a sudden and smashing 13% edge for Clinton over Obama -- they had been very close in all of the recent Gallup surveys. Make of that what you will.
I put this forth not with tremendous confidence but just as a way of sparking some discussion and investigation, which has been notably lacking beyond the "Bill Clinton on the loose" headlines of the past month.
Here are Obama's wins in caucus states only so far this year. Check out those margins: Iowa 38-29, Minnesota 67-32, Colorado 67-32, Kansas 74-26, Idaho 81-17, North Dakota 61-37, Alaska 72-27, and he leads New Mexico 49-48. He lost Nevada 51-45 but won the most delegates there.
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UPDATE Thursday:
As some may know, Gallup has been doing daily national racking polls recently which charted the remarkable Obama comeback after New Hampshire to a near-tie. Suddenly, this past Tuesday (before results from the votes that day were known), Clinton surged to a whopping and shocking 13% lead. Gallup has just reported today that this a shrunk a little bit, but only to 11%, at 51% to 40%.
How is this possible since the two candidates ended in a dead heat on Tuesday? Gallup points out that turnout nationally this week was only (despite the ballyhoo over enthusiasm) about 30%. The pollsters, of course, sample all possible voters. Gallup found that, indeed, the most likely voters before Super Tuesday did split 50/50.
But here's the question: If Obama barely splits with Hillary in a primary setup, is his standing actually much weaker today when you judge the entire Democratic (as shown by these polls) -- and U.S. -- voting age populace? And is that a reason for concern in a general election?
That's a lot to ponder, but I would also add that this may, again, line up with my minority opinion (as it were) that there is a racial element to all this: That there is a much higher number of people still unwilling to vote for a black man than the pundits will admit. Yes, Obama has won the hearts and minds of a great number of whites, but is there a ceiling there? I could well be wrong, but it's worth considering.
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