In South Carolina, It's Obama in a Rout -- What's Next?

By: Greg Mitchell Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in South Carolina by a whopping and surprising 2-1 margin, sending the pollsters and pundits also down to defeat. John Edwards took third.

Contrary to predictions he took about 1 in 4 votes of whites, and majority from those under 30. Exit polls were unclear on how much, if any, Bill Clinton's very active campaigning helped push the Obama surge.

Chris Cillizza at his The Fix blog at The Washington Post later noted, "Obama's dominance of the black vote in South Carolina is a remarkable accomplishment. But looking ahead to the Super Tuesday states, black voters will not be as dominant. Of the ten Feb. 5 states in which exit polling was conducted in the 2004 Democratic presidential race, only one -- Georgia -- has a similar percentage of black voters (47 percent). In 2004, 23 percent of the Tennessee Democratic electorate and 20 percent of the New York electorate was black.

"Obama will need to make gains among white voters to win as convincingly a week from Tuesday."

The New York Times tonight, meanwhile, reveals, "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton?s campaign team, seeking to readjust after her lopsided defeat in South Carolina and amid a sense among many Democrats that Mr. Clinton had injected himself clumsily into the race, will try to shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role that he played before Mrs. Clinton?s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton advisers said....Yet some advisers expressed concern that Mr. Clinton might prove difficult to rein in."

Below is how we blogged it as the returns and reaction arrived.

To comment or read more, go to blog.
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9:45 PM : Obama gives another well-received (by pundits) speech, with Joe Scarborough practically levitating. Joe keeps saying his blackberry is getting clogged with positive reviews by conservatives. The speech had a bit of a harder edge to it, as well, clearly promising to keep fighting back against the Clintons.

9:00 PM: Obama leads by whopping 28%. Another major embarrassment for the pollsters -- unless backlash to Bill Clinton only set in today.

Headline of Caroline Kennedy op-ed in New York Times comes out: A startling "A president like my father."

8:45 PM: MSNBC says it has learned that Caroline Kennedy will be endorsing Obama in the pages of The New York Times.

Magnitude of Clinton's defeat big issue: Now leads by 54-27 with 83% of vote in -- staggering. Also, that her husband essentially gave her concession speech -- how does that look?

8:00: NBC now declares Hillary taking 2nd place over Edwards, which must be a relief to her.

Clinton releases statement congratulating Obama, adds, "we now turn our attention to millions who will make voices heard" in days ahead. She refers to Florida -- even though it is not supposed to count -- and American Samoa.

Obama scheduled to speak at 9 p.m.

7:15 : NBC's exit polls show that Obama got 24% of white vote, more than twice what was predicted. Young white voters really broke for him. Pat Buchanan argues that he still lost 3/4 of white vote so is doomed. Joe Scarborough and others claim big move to Obama and that Bill Clinton campaigning hurt. Latest from Bill was some sort of statement about Jesse Jackson winning a caucus there too years ago.

7:05: NBC calls it for Obama and by a wide margin.

6:10 PM: The vote, according to TV reports, may not be all that heavy, which is a surprise. What that means, or who it helps, is unknown.

Polls show Obama with a nice lead but Hillary could still catch him -- while worrying that Edwards has moved up on her. But even if Obama wins big, it's still just South Carolina -- where Democrats never win in the fall, so how much does it really mean?

Meanwhile, Colbert King in his op-ed at The Washington Post today alays into the couple he calls "Billary," and wonders if they would have his and hers desks in the Oval Office. One sample: "To elect Obama would be to 'roll the dice,' sniffed the former president. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he was governor of a small state, had no foreign policy experience and didn't know how to salute. He got his on-the-job experience in the White House."