Obama Wins SC In a Blow Out -- Clinton Finishes Way Back in Second, and She's Lucky to Have That

Published Jan 26 2008, 08:38 PM by webteam

    Barack Obama has won a huge victory tonight over Hillary Clinton -- so much so that he apparently will go over 50% and Clinton will finish far closer to Edwards than the winner.
    Assuming Clinton holds second, no matter how far back she is, tonight's victory for Obama will likely not hurt her momentum much heading into Florida on Tuesday -- a primary the media should actually not report both because it's only a "beauty contest" and no Democratic candidates campaigned there (see our post from yesterday). But the networks will likely report those results on Tuesday (after all, they're there covering the GOP), and Clinton is likely to win that one big. So, she will likely get a corresponding bump heading into Super Tuesday, making these two results together something of a wash.
    If Edwards had passed her tonight, however, she would have had some explaining to do -- and the same goes for Bill.
    By the way, Obama did far better with whites in SC (about 25%) than Hillary did with blacks (about 18%).
    At least for tonight, the Clinton campaign hardly looks like a juggernaut. But to be fair, an outspoken northern woman was never going to do well in this state. Of all 50, this is her weakest and thus it is Obama's strongest.