Obama's South Carolina Victory

[From 1/27/08, about Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory]

To the editor:

The Enquirer’s January 27 headline regarding Barack Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary (“Black vote key in primary win”) was a bit misleading. In fact, about the same percentage of white voters cast their ballots for Obama as for Clinton and Edwards. Clinton and Obama received an equal number of votes from white men, and more than half of non-black voters under age 30 went for him.

I don’t recall a similar headline (“Middle-aged white women in sensible shoes push Hillary over the top,” maybe?) when Clinton won in New Hampshire.

This was not a “black” victory for Obama. Americans from all demographic groups are responding to him. The candidate with the more limited demographic appeal is clearly Hillary Clinton, who admittedly seems to have the aging female boomer vote sewn up.