Electoral revenge is sweet

By Edward Copeland

***UPDATED***
To those who doubted that the Clintons were trying to marginalize Barack Obama as the "black candidate," Bill made it clear today. A couple of days after he told the press, "Shame on you," wagging that famous finger and accusing the media of injecting race as an issue. Today, in South Carolina, when asked the straight-forward question of what he thought that it has taken two people (him and Hillary) to take on Obama, Bill laid his race-baiting cards on the table by replying:

That’s just bait, too. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88.

Yes, South Carolina always votes for African-American candidates, so its results don't really count in Bill's mind. (I bet Al Sharpton must really want to know how it is that John Edwards won over him there in 2004.) However, the voters have won over the Clintons' despicable tactics, giving Obama a win of nearly 30 points.

Alas, Edwards couldn't top Hillary, but at least he continued to display his class in his concession speech. Hillary barely acknowledged that there was a vote in South Carolina, preferring to look ahead to the Super Tuesday states (even American Samoa) and, most tellingly, continuing to mention Florida. Does she know something we don't? That the delegations from Michigan and Florida will be counted come the convention after all. If this will truly be the case, let's hope Florida voters don't let themselves be used as electoral pawns yet again and come out in droves for Obama, something Michigan voters didn't get to do since his name wasn't on the ballot there.

The South Carolina exit polls also show that as far as racial polarization goes, while Obama overwhelmingly won the African-American vote, the three candidates pretty much evenly split the white vote.

The exit polls also had something to say about the turn the campaign has taken in the last couple of weeks, with 70% saying that Hillary had unfairly attacked Obama, 56% saying Obama had unfairly attacked Hillary and 50% saying they both had unfairly attacked each other.