Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

Looking at the exit polls Posted: Saturday, January 26, 2008 7:03 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: 2008, Primaries
From MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell and Adam Verdugo

The South Carolina Democratic primary has been a bitter, hard-fought contest with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama taking jabs at each other in Monday's televised debate. In the exit polls, we asked voters in this primary if the candidates were attacking each other unfairly. Fifty-six percent of those voting so far think Obama attacked Clinton unfairly, and while that is a high number, more people thought Clinton unfairly attacked Obama -- 70%.

The Clintons have been accused of playing the race card in this contest. We do see some potential fallout for the Clintons in the African-American community: 74% of African-American voters think that Clinton unfairly attacked Obama. But when we look at the same question among white voters, a comparable number thought Clinton unfairly attacked Obama -- 68%.

Also worth mentioning, a majority of the voters -- 56% -- said that Bill Clinton's campaigning was important to their vote today.

Bill Clinton gave Hillary's concession speech tonight.

He really is making an ass of himself and hurting her. It's as if he is running for prez all over again; his speech was nearly entirely in the first person.

Cycloptichorn

I hope they keep doing it!

Clinton robocalls hit Edwards


Guess he's still relevant enough to merit a robocall from Hillary that hits him on policy and character.

Here's the call (.mp3), and here's the transcript, from The Page:

Hello, This is the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign.

Before you vote on Saturday, you should know that John Edwards voted for permanent trade relations with China. That's right, John Edwards voted for the bill that cost thousands of jobs. Like the ones in the textile mills he talks about so much down here.

You should also know that John Edwards made nearly a half a million dollars working for a Wall Street investment fund. A fund that's been profiting on foreclosing on the homes of families; including 100 homes right here in South Carolina. That's according to The State newspaper. Here in South Carolina, Edwards says he's one of us, but up on Wall Street he was just another one of them.

Can you trust John Edwards?

John, you shouldn't of turned your back on Hillary to double-team Obama at the last debate. Hope you're able to remove that knife from your back soon.

01.29.08 -- 11:46PM // link

Spinning Florida

For the Democrats, the big question tonight was how the press would play Hillary Clinton's 'win' in Florida, or how successfully she could spin the result to count as a landslide victory on a par with Obama's big win in South Carolina. The final number seems to be Hillary 50%, Obama 33%, Edwards 14% which, in numerical terms, is a trouncing, even it doesn't match the spread in South Carolina.

Just judging from the cable news we watched this evening and how the major newspapers are playing it on their websites, it doesn't look like they get much of a pop. Most of the website front pages of the newspapers I'm looking at either don't mention the Democratic result out of Florida or put it under the fold with some conspicuous notation that the 'win' had not delegates. Nor, at least in the headlines I'm seeing, does there seem to be any real mention of the margin of her win, which was substantial. For the record I'm looking at the Boston Globe, New York Times, WaPo, USAToday, Dallas Morning News, LATimes, Stl. Post-Dispatch and others. The standard seems to be some form of the Post-Dispatch's small related item "Clinton wins primary but no delegates." In the Post, there's a snarky piece by Dana Milbank: "Much Ado About No Delegates: The only piece missing from Sen. Hillary Clinton's Florida victory party Tuesday night was a victory." Ouch. CNN has a small related headline: "Clinton trumpets win with no delegates at stake."

Just in terms of managing the news cycle I think what the Clinton folks would have been looking for are two things -- big pictures of Hillary smiling, preferably above the fold, thus suggesting victory and some mention of her margin. But I don't see either anywhere.

Perhaps the print front pages will play this differently. But on balance I suspect they didn't get as much juice out of this as they wanted or expected.

--Josh Marshall

I'm so sad. John and Elizabeth Edwards are good people. ---BBB

Oh and thanks for that overview, Cycloptichorn, that was something I was very curious about. What kind of response the Hillary "win" was getting.

It is significant, I think, that Hill, in a somewhat meaningless election, got more votes that did McCain. It shows that the Dems are really mobilized this time.