| What's the story out of the Democratic primary in Alabama -- besides Obama 56%, Clinton 42%? 
Turnout among Alabama Democrats was HUGE. With a few boxes still out, 521,088 votes had been cast in the Democratic primary. That compares with 218,574 cast in 2004 and 278,527 in the 2000 Democratic primary -- more than twice as many Democratic voters as 4 years ago. Winners and Losers I just came from a post election party and one of the Obama foot soldiers (all winners) there told me he felt extremely gratified that the voters turned out for them. He also said he was incredibly tired. The Obama supporters (mostly volunteers) worked their tails off in Alabama and it sounds like a lot of the credit goes to the New South Coalition. That's the predominately black Democratic organization that endorsed Barack Obama in December. The older and more powerful (still?) Alabama Democratic Conference under the leadership of Joe Reed endorsed Hillary Clinton back in October when Reed said "America is readier to elect a white woman than it is a black man." This is a big loss for Joe Reed and the establishment wing of the Democratic party in Alabama, from the top down. They pulled out all the stops, used all their influence and weren't able to deliver the votes for Hillary Clinton.
And once again, the polls didn't predict this. No recent poll had Obama leading Clinton by more than 2%, yet it looks like he will carry the state by double digits. Last week Rep. Artur Davis pointed out that the pollsters' likely voter screens were excluding people who had not voted in a primary recently, but that those people were going to come out and vote for Barack Obama. Valid point. You can add Artur Davis to the list of Super Tuesday winners -- he had the courage to back Obama early, he worked hard for him and Alabama Democrats validated his judgement at the ballot box. Delegates, not % determine the winner How does the delegates race shape up? Using Congressional district results from al.com, I've made a good faith attempt at calculating the delegate breakdown. - CD1: 4 delegates, Obama 59%, Clinton 37% - 2 delegates each
- CD2: 4 delegates, Obama 57%, Clinton 41% - 2 delegates each
- CD3: 5 delegates, Obama 56%, Clinton 42% - 3 delegates
Clinton Obama, 2 Obama Clinton
- CD4: 5 delegates, Clinton 73%, Obama 22% - 4 delegates Clinton, 1 Obama
- CD5: 5 delegates, Clinton 51%, Obama 46% - 3 delegates Clinton, 2 Obama
- CD6: 4 delegates, Clinton 49%, Obama 49%. 2 delegates each
- CD7: 7 delegates, Obama 72%, Clinton 26% - 5 delegates Obama, 2 Clinton
Total pledged district level delegates: 18 17 Clinton, 16 17 Obama - Of the 11 at-large pledged delegates awarded based on primary vote, I think Obama will get 7 and Clinton 4.
- Of the 7 pledged Party Leader and Elected Official delegates, I think Obama will get 4 and Clinton 3.
Which leaves Clinton with 25 24 delegates and Obama with 27 28. All assuming that I understand the rules, my math is correct and the late returns don't change the numbers too much. Of course, there are 8 unpledged "superdelegates" who can vote for anyone they please at the convention, being totally free to ignore the wishes of Alabama voters. Think about how that would make voters feel. Can you say "disenfranchised?" This race thing The media narrative is already focusing on the racial disparity, and Alabama Democrats shouldn't ignore that. In the Democratic race, about half of the voters were black, and Obama won more than 80 percent of their votes. The Illinois senator also took nearly two-thirds of the votes from people under 30, who made up more than one in 10 voters. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York won more than 70 percent of the white vote, versus about 20 percent for Obama — continuing a racial divide that appeared recently in South Carolina and Florida. She fared particularly well among people 60 and older.
Racism is an open wound in Alabama and we'd better deal with it. It isn't Barack Obama's problem or Hillary Clinton's problem, it's our problem. When only 20% of white Democrats in Alabama are willing to vote for a black candidate on the same night that 43% of white voters across the line in Georgia do so, it tells me we still have some issues with race. Barack Obama carried Alaska, Kansas, Utah, North Dakota and Idaho tonight. There aren't a lot of people of color living in those states. White people there supported Obama. We need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves why those folks are willing to back a black man for president, but 80% of us aren't. |
