Also CNN and the Networks according to the NY Times Election Blog

Live From South Carolina, the Democratic Primary
By Katharine Q. Seelye

7 p.m. | The polls just closed and CNN, the networks and the Associated Press call it instantly for Barack Obama.

Here’s what the Wash Post is reporting:

Obama Wins in South Carolina

By Chris Cillizza
washingtonpost.com staff writer

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) scored an overwhelming victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary with strong support from black voters, according to network projection and the National Election Pool. The win sets up a full-scale clash between the two candidates on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Obama, the first black candidate regarded as a legitimate contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, appeared to win African American voters by a four to one margin - numbers that nearly replicated his performance among blacks in Iowa and Nevada. But unlike in those states, where blacks make up a small percentage of the overall electorate, more than 50 percent of Democratic voters in today’s South Carolina primary are black.

Among white voters, the candidates ran far closer with Clinton and former senator John Edwards running neck and neck while Obama lagged slightly behind.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/

WOW!  This was a blow out.  I expected him to win.  But not in a landslide.

It looks like a fracturing Democrat Party.

I am so happy to be an Independent.

I have to wonder how much Bill’s aggressive campaigning hurt Hillary.  The double-teaming against Obama may have backfired on them, giving Obama a certain “gravitas” (i.e. it takes two of the Clintons, one a former President!) to try to beat him.

Bill’s campaigning has done Hillary a world of damage, if you ask me.  I’m guessing it perhaps has reminded Democrats of how divisive the Clintons are, made them fear Hillary’s electability against someone like McCain, and also caused folks to recognize the built in resistance of so many to continuing the Bush & Clinton “dynasties.”

what a wonderful day today has been for south carolina

thanks to one & all in the Palmetto State

An African-American wins SC, praise God, if Obama wins AL & MS then I’ll dance a little jig, for maybe the curse of racism that has entrapped the south maybe lifting.

I may have serious issue with Obama’s platform and can more celebrate Secretary Powell’s & Rice’s accomplishments, more on political identity, I’ve experienced the evils of racism and even challenged of the sin in my own heart, so an African-American winning in the South is a joy for me. Maybe MLK’s dream is a little closer.

Hallelujah!!!!!

Another African American, Jesse Jackson, also won in SC (as well as DC and MS) in the 1984 & 88 Democratic primaries/ caucuses.  He also won in VA in 1984 and AL, GA, LA, PR, DE, MI, VA & VT in 1988.

A reminder: An oldtimer told me when I was first able to vote, “Never say who you are for, until you see who is running against him/her.”

One exit poll analysis reported that 51% of young white voters (18-29) voted for Obama. I think this is a significant result, especially if it holds up across the primaries. It suggests that for the younger generation, race is less and less an issue, and that a dynamic candidate can do well across ethnic and gender lines.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sen. Clinton asks her husband to cool it. She ought to, and he needs to.

#9 Thank you, I’m not sure if it’s my youth or old age, I vaguely remember that but I’ve forgotten that.

As I recall in ‘84 it was a complete shock, oddly ‘88 I didn’t follow much (the year I could vote).  I guess the difference is part my basis in my thinking, he actually has a shot of winning both the nomination and election (I never thought Jackson could do either).

Also, I actually respect Obama, I do not agree with him, but there is a respect I have more than for either Clinton. I think if Clinton won both, I’d have the same reaction my Dem friends have had with bumper stickers counting the days.

This is Obama’s high point. Those suggesting that Bill Clinton has hurt Hillary have missed the brilliance of his strategy. He has successfully polarized the Democratic electorate racially. Not long ago Hillary was leading among blacks while there was little difference between Hillary and Obama among whites. Now Obama is winning overwhelmingly among blacks, which is great in South Carolina where the Democratic primary electorate is about half of the total. Meanwhile white women over 30 have swung overwhelmingly to Hillary: Obama won 22% of white women today.  There are many more whites than blacks in the Democratic electorate as a whole so the net benefit is overwhelmingly Hillary’s. As a result of the race/gender polarization, Hillary now leads the polls in every major Super Tuesday state except Illinois. Obama has no way to fight this Clinton strategy; any strong and direct rebuttal only highlights the racial divide.
Bill Clinton has already spun this victory as inevitable because of the size of the black population in S.C. Today he has lumped Jesse Jackson and Obama together as similar candidates.
The only danger to Hillary from this strategy is the possibility of diminished black turnout in the general election, but the Clintons are counting on any resentment among blacks diminishing before election day.

Obama’s victory speech tonight was stirring.  I hope that he does better on Super Tuesday than projected.  I will do my part in Alabama.

13- Senator Thomas Watson’s statue is still standing outside the Georgia capitol today. I guess, based on your analysis, Arkansas will erect a similar one for Bill Clinton in the future. Maybe they both will have the same type of commemorating plaque on how their statues’ subjects championed the rights of the poor, white majorities in their states. (Watson’s does, explicitly, today, if anybody cares to read it.) How the pendulum swings, and it swings particularly hard in the South.

#14 Toral,

Yeah, Dick Morris floated the notion of Bill’s Machiavellian machinations. It sounds plausible, but I doubt Bill consciously decided on that sort of game plan. Is it possible white women shifted to Hillary because of a black movement towards Obama as a result of Bill’s “fairy tale” et cetera comments? Perhaps, but I think it’s more likely that Hillary would have gradually received such support automatically, since she is white and a woman herself (!). On the other hand, one can never tell what Ol’ Bubba has up his sleeve. I tend to think his political genius is more instinctual, though, rather than predominately cost/benefit calculative.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that the Clintons consciously and deliberately injected race as an issue into the primaries.  Hillary has been playing the “gender” card effectively.  Time will tell, however, whether an overwhelming victory like this will help Obama more than the Clintons expected.  I won’t be voting for a Democrat in the general election; however, I think the end of the Clintons would be good for the nation.

Heh.  When even Jake Tapper at ABC News is calling Bill “Bubba” and saying they’re deliberately playing the race card, you have to believe the Clintons have gone too far.

Re # 5
Elves,
I think that was a very insightful observation you made.  That may be worth expanding beyond a com box blurb.

17., you said it before I got up the courage to.  It would be good for America to be looking at the Clintons in the rear-view mirror.

American Democrats will continue to flirt with the idea of a Black candidate and a female candidate.  That is because the Democratic party knows, at some level, that it must “be the party of all the people,” and so it builds this facade. 
But then will come the general election, and we will elect a white male candidate.  It may well be a Republican, if the Democrats persist in this comedy of errors through the general election.  But, in any case, the nation as a whole will not elect either a woman or a black to the Presidency.  We aren’t nearly ready to do that yet.  This is not necessarily anything for us to be proud of, but I strongly believe it is the way it is.

jkc1945, I am ready to vote for a woman or a black man with whose policies I agree, or mostly agree.  I would have no qualms at all.  The “identity” candidates (female, black) this time around are left-wing, except for Huckabee, who is a “moderate” identity candidate (evangelical identity).  A vote for a conservative or “moderate” candidate instead should not be interpreted as a vote “against” the identity candidate.  It’s true that a fair number of people might vote “against” Hillary, but that would be personal, not because they’re against women leaders in general.

The thing that strikes me about all this is how little Democrats (at least Democratic politicians) have advanced over the days of Theodore Bilbo. They are still treating people as members of voting blocs rather than as people, still consider irrelevant characteristics such as skin color, ancestry, or gender to be more important than the “content of their characters.” Regardless of whether the Clintons have meant to drag the campaign into the gutter or not, I think that’s precisely where they’ve taken it, and done for purely for personal advantage. I don’t agree with Obama about much, but I admire the way he has sought to run a campaign that wasn’t about race or gender, but about ideas and policies. For my money, the sooner the Clintons get sent back to wherever they came from, the better for the body politic.