SC Presidential Primary 2008

[Spartan]

Charleston had comparably worse weather. It was cold and rainy all day. Rain in the Upstate was probably more helpful, since they saw they could go vote before the snow started (well, if it had actually snowed any significant amount).

[distortedlogic]

I think we make a mistake when we label counties as "Huckabee counties" or "McCain counties". Many of the counties is the lower part of the state that went for McCain (Barnwell, Allendale, etc) Had only 1 or 2 thousand votes, (Allendale had less than 500!). These are sparsely populated counties of course, but that doesn't change my point. Far more people voted for McCain in Gville cty that in these counties combined, and the voting in Gville cty was pretty even. I think you way over generalize if you label the upstate or even it's individual counties a certain way.

[monsoon]

.....

Horry had a weak 11%. .....

[GvilleSC]

Horry was in the national news for lots of problems with the electronic voting machines used there. According to my mom, most of the people she knows there are waiting to vote in the Democratic primary.

[monsoon]

Sure. But 11%? Maybe it's the general age of the population?

[CorgiMatt]

The turnout percentages are also interesting. The places that got the wintry weather, generally had higher turnout. Pickens County led the state with 27%, followed by Greenville and Lexington Counties with 26%, and Anderson and Oconee Counties with 24%. Spartanburg and Beaufort counties had 23% turnout.

Horry had a weak 11%. Charleston had 19%, which Richland had only 15%

[Greenville]

The geographic results of Huckabee vs McCain are interesting. You could almost draw a diagonal across the state with Columbia and the Coastal areas on one side and GSP and the upstate on the other side, and that divide shows that Huckabee won all of the upstate counties while McCain won all of the coastal counties and the SE portion of the state including Columbia.

The media has been characterizing SC as a result as the upstate being very conservative whilst the other half was a lot more progressive. It's almost like there is two different South Carolinas.

[CorgiMatt]

How is voting for McCain any more "progressive" than voting for Huckabee? McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, made racist comments about Iranians "only wanting to trade burkas" and "only traveling with one-way tickets." He also wanted to give amnesty to a ton of illegal aliens (along with SC's very own Lindsey Graham). That's not progressive in my book. Neither is Huckabee, with his reliance upon his Southern Baptist roots. But let's please not try to spin the upstate as some backwards unprogressive place because it voted for Huckabee while Columbia and the lowcountry are somehow more evolved by voting for McCain.

[monsoon]

How is voting for McCain any more "progressive" than voting for Huckabee? .

[monsoon]

The South Carolina primary got coverage in the Middle East, in this case from Al Jazerra. The article is here. It's interesting in how they frame the South Carolinian voter in terms of being Christian Zionists or not. Zionism is a term not used here that much.

[Spartan]

Thats an interesting perspective. Its clearly written to be relevant to their main audience. I don't know any people who would vote for someone based on their position on Israel. Its also interesting that they were able to find the one crazy preacher who would say something that can get the Arabic population riled up.

[monsoon]

^The lesson to be learnt from that is that our media does the same thing so maybe it would always be good to try and understand the perspective of the other side. I recommend to everyone to try and read the foreign media on a daily basis. It's really easy now that we have the Internet.

[breed]

"The State" newspaper is endorsing Obama, contrasting his promise to reach out to independents and Republicans to her promise to withstand their attacks.

[sonofaque86]

CONGRATULATIONS OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[monsoon]

Gosh. The Obama victory speech showed the entire world, who was watching, that SC is much more progressive than it is often given credit for. Gratz to SC for proving so many people wrong!

[teshadoh]

I'm especially excited - when you consider 55% went to Obama - that a large amount of White voters went with Obama. Assuming that Clinton managed to share a large percent of Black voters. I'll be very interested in the full coverage that the NYT had for the republican primary.

As for Edwards, that is completely embarrassing, but even he is trying to put a spin on it (he didn't win his birth state - but at least he won his birth county!).

[sonofaque86]

Obama can get white votes too. Lexington and Greenville Counties which are OVER 75% white still voted for Obama. This will be interesting Feb. 5!!

[monsoon]

One of the more interesting statistics to come out of this, is that 532,227 people voted in the SC Democratic Primary whilst the GOP only got 366,226 people to come out for their primary last week. At face value this could mean that SC is headed to becoming a blue state. If SC becomes blue, this can't mean good things for the Republican party.

[Florida]

Obama can get white votes too. Lexington and Greenville Counties which are OVER 75% white still voted for Obama. This will be interesting Feb. 5!!

[monsoon]

......

The fact that the voter totals almost exactly match the racial demographic should be the Story-line here.

[krazeeboi]

55% of the voters last night were Black. 45% Non-Black.

Obama recieved 55% of the total vote. Hillary and Edwards recieved 45% of the Vote.

[teshadoh]

I wouldn't though make the assumption that because more people voted in the democrat primary than the republican primary, that the state is leaning towards the democrats. I think it's safe that nationally, the democrat primaries are just simply gaining more interest from the democrats as the republicans are highly indecisive over who they will vote for. The real test will obviously be in November when the republicans have a candidate to fall behind.

Nonetheless, as an Obama supporter, I'm very pleased that SC didn't buy into the 'inevitability' line that Billary has been spewing. Also, I'm proud that SC went with McCain - in my view the only electable republican.

[Florida]

Except that isn't the case. Obama got 25% of the White vote and amongst white males, he matched Clinton and almost matched what Edwards got.

[monsoon]

...Yes he did get a small portion of white votes.,,,

[Florida]

Monsoon provided the figures (additional ones can be found here), but I will say that it would be a logical fallacy to assume that this automatically means that Obama got 100% of the Black vote, as he did not. Of course he got overwhelming support from the Black electorate, but I also think that it's notable that he snagged 52% of the non-Black vote from individuals aged 18-29. He performed best among Blacks, youth, and women.

You must understand that Obama really had to prove himself here in SC, particularly to Black voters who, a year ago, heavily favored Clinton. If it were the fact that he was just a Black man, he would have seen overwhelming support from Black voters then, so that shows that his win here centered around more than his race. I'd vote for Obama if he were 100% White, but the fact that he is Black is just icing on the cake for a Black man such as myself--and I think a lot of other Blacks here in SC feel the same way.