What a Night!

This is what I "hoped" for. The dimensions of Barack Obama's victory in South Carolina are astonishing. The numbers are mind-boggling. He got more than twice the votes as the second place finisher, Hillary Clinton. He was the first candidate in a contested primary to win over half the total votes--55%.

The sheer number of votes also reflects the number of voters he inspired to the polls. The turnout was huge, and in a state with a much higher number of registered Republicans than Democrats, Obama alone got more than the combined votes that John McCain and Mike Huckabee got in their S.C. primary last week. Obama's vote total alone was greater than the total of all votes in the 2004 Democratic SC primary.

He got 4/5 of African American voters, and he was even with the others among white men, winning about a quarter of the total white vote. He won most age groups and income groups, and he won young voters overwhelmingly, including more than half of the white voters under 30.

The exit polling was replete with revelations. Voters essentially repudiated the Billary attack strategy. They found Obama the most electable in November, and they wanted change more than anything else. But they also rated him first on how to handle the economy and foreign policy.

Once again Obama rose to the occasion in his victory speech.:

The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.It's about the past versus the future.

It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

With a vision like that, is it any wonder that Caroline Kennedy is endorsing Barack Obama in a Sunday New York Times op ed (obviously written before the South Carolina results) entitled A President Like My Father:

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama."

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Also published Sunday, though written earlier, the San Francisco Chronicle endorses Obama.:

America deserves better than these cycles of vengeance and retribution. Its possibilities are too great, its challenges too daunting, for partisan pettiness.

In a Jan. 17 meeting with our editorial board, Obama demonstrated an impressive command of a wide variety of issues. He listened intently to the questions. He responded with substance. He did not control a format without a stopwatch on answers or constraints on follow-up questions, yet he flourished in it.He radiated the sense of possibility that has attracted the votes of independents and tapped into the idealism of young people during this campaign. He exuded the aura of a 46-year-old leader who could once again persuade the best and the brightest to forestall or pause their grand professional goals to serve in his administration.

Of all the candidates who talk about change, Barack Obama has made the case most forcefully and most convincingly. He gets our endorsement for the Democratic nomination.

Obama is also being endorsed today by the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and St. Louis Post Dispatch.

But response is also coming in already to Obama's South Carolina victory--to the tune of half a million dollars an hour in online donations.

The response to Obama on television was weird--because not only the liberal commentators but the conservative ones--Bill Bennett, Pat Buchanan--were praising him, and Joe Scarborough couldn't get over the text messages supporting Obama he was getting from conservative Republicans as well as liberal Democrats.

As for where the campaing goes and how Obama positioned himself in his politically brilliant as well as transformationally inspiring victory speech, I thought this comment by blogger Todd Beeton on MYdd was incisive: "Obama's speech is making clear how the Clintons' tactics this week really may have backfired on them: they played into the need for what Barack Obama offers, this sort of "new kind of politics" that until this week, was an amorphous concept. Obama doesn't even have to say "see what I mean, this is what I've been talking about" but it's the subtext of this speech. Hillary Clinton managed to seal the image of herself as the poster child for business as usual politics and played perfectly into Obama's hand. The question is will this fall-out spread throughout the country? Certainly the media, if MSNBC is any indication, is pitted against the Clintons on this score right now."

In fact it is hard to see what the Clintons do now. Bill has already tried to spin South Carolina as a racial victory, but that's not going down well. Their post-Iowa strategy of distortions has seemingly backfired, and at least has been exposed. Apparently Billary expected to lose, since neither remained in South Carolina, but the dimensions of this victory must have stunned them. Hillary gave a graceless concession of two seconds, and went into her stump speech, her voice noticeably tense. John Edwards, who got just under 20% of the vote, was his usual graceless self on election night, but this time he at least congratulated Obama in a sentence before launching into stories he's told before. Neither mentioned the victory for the Democratic party in this incredible turnout in a southern state. That so many African Americans voted is historic in itself.

All that's left for the Clintons is political infighting, back room stuff, strong-arming local party structures and unions. Obama warned his supporters that there is struggle ahead, at least for delegates. Mark J at MYdd makes the case for Clinton still having an advantage, because of her national lead.

But this victory could signal the flood of response I had hoped would come after New Hampshire, if Obama had won there. Now it might even be bigger, because Obama has weathered the worst the Clintons could throw at him (well, I'm sure they can be worse, and will be) and people have come out admiring him all the more. Remember, those endorsements came before these results were known. If this truly becomes a flood reflected in endorsements and poll numbers over the next ten days, then Obama has a great chance to be nominated. In fact, the nightmare for the Democratic Party is for Billary to win narrowly through political machinations, and stuff like counting her delegates in Michigan and Florida when Obama honored the party's de-certification and didn't have his name on the ballot. Then we're back in Bush v. Goreland.

I'm liking Obama's chances on February 5, and I am especially looking forward to the prospect of winning California. It's within reach. No, it won't be easy. But yes, we can.