Barack Obama's first victory in Iowa was a political shocker because he won in a state where blacks are only 1% of the vote. Obviously white voters were not only comfortable voting for a black man, they thought he was the best person to be our next President. Obama's win was driven by a remarkably strong turnout of idealistic young voters who want to create a more progressive America.
Obama's victory in South Carolina is a political shocker not because Obama got 80% of black votes, but because he inspired 155,000 more blacks to vote in this year's primary than in 2004 - especially young blacks who rarely vote. In so doing, Obama increased Democratic turnout to over 500,000 - which is 55,000 more than voted in South Carolina's Republican primary!
Everyone who follows American politics assumes "The Math" of racial politics means racist white southern votersÂ*will deliver South Carolina and the rest of Dixie to the Republican Party. (Dixie is in dark orange in the map above; the border states of DE, WV, KY, and MO are in yellow; the disputed territories of OK, NM, and AZ are in pink.)
Of course racist white southerners used to deliver Dixie to the Democrats until LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1964, which drove racists like South Carolina's Strom Thurmond into the Republican Party. Richard Nixon won in 1968 withÂ*his famousÂ*"Southern Strategy" of appealing to white racists and Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia MS, where civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered in 1964.
But what if Barack Obama can change "The Math" by inspiring record numbers of black voters to vote - not just in Dixie, but also in battleground border and northern states?
The South has been working hard to overcome its racist history since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won by appealing to the "new South." Bill Clinton won twice by trying to reconcile whites and blacks. That's exactly why Jeb Bush's appointees quietly purged 100,000 black voters in Florida from 1998-2000, and engaged in many other criminal tactics to suppress just enough black votes so Bush could steal Florida - and the White House - by 537 votes.
If there had been a record turnout of young black voters in Florida in 2000, Jeb's voter suppression strategy would have failed and Al Gore would be in the White House. I don't have time to crunch the numbers in other red and purple states, but the core concept is simple: if Barack Obama can turn out a record number of black votes while keeping the current Democratic share of white votes, "The Math" of American politics will change in a way that no one in their wildest dreams now expects.
 


(Source Link)