I'm a native South Carolinian and a big Obama supporter. So naturally I've been wondering whether or not he could win my home state. South Carolina has not been won by a Democrat in the general election since 1976, when Jimmy Carter was able to win his neighboring state over a "northerner", sitting President Gerald Ford.
So would it be possible for Barack Obama to win this solidly red state in November? The answer is yes...it's quite possible.
The reason for this possibility is hidden in the numbers from the South Carolina primaries back in January. Remember that these primaries took place back when the Republican nomination was STILL being hotly contested, so GOP voters in SC had a compelling reason to get to the polls, unlike now where McCain is most certainly the nominee.
Here are the SC numbers:
McCain = 147,283
Huckabee = 132,440
Thompson = 69,467
Romney = 67,132
Paul = 16,054
Giuliani = 9,494
Hunter = 1,048
==================
Total Republican Votes = 442,918
VS.
Obama = 295,091
Clinton = 141,128
Edwards = 93,552
==================
Total Democratic Votes = 529,771
Note two key facts: First, Obama beat the top two GOP finishers COMBINED. Second, thanks to Obama's huge 295,000 tally, the top three Democrats together beat ALL seven of the Republicans BY 8 PERCENTAGE POINTS (54-46). It's these two numbers that have the SC Republican party extremely nervous about November.
A very important additional statistic which is one of the key reasons why Obama puts SC in play is the state's population is 30% African-American. They came out in droves for the primaries. It is safe to say that they will be even more highly motivated in November should Obama be on the ballot. Their vote will break 90-95% for Obama. If 30% of the electorate turns out big for Obama, he just needs 30% of the white vote to win. In other words, African-Americans could do for Obama what evangelicals did for Dubya in his two victories.
That said, I'm NOT saying that Obama WILL win South Carolina in the fall. However, this look at the numbers of South Carolinians who actually went to the polls last month does show some extremely solid support for Obama (and the Democrats) in a very red state.
One of the big positives for a Democratic candidate in being able to put a red state "in play" is it FORCES the GOP candidate to spend time, money and resources in that state that could have been used in the "real" swing states like MO, OH, and FL. In this case, it will also force McCain to pander a bit to South Carolina-style Republicanism, which I can assure you is NOT what he would like to be doing in the fall.
So, my recommendation is to help Obama win the Democratic nomination, and then let Howard Dean's brilliant 50-State strategy begin. We will obviously not win all of the red states, but the ability to finally put many of them in play means putting President Barack Obama in the White House in January 2008.
For a closer look at the SC numbers visit:
http://www.cnn.com/...