Democrats' Votes Display a Racial Divide

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: LATINOS FOR CLINTON, BLACKS FOR OBAMA
Democrats' Votes Display a Racial Divide
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 6, 2008; Page A21

Yesterday's primary voting laid bare a profound racial and ethnic divide among Democratic voters, with African Americans overwhelmingly preferring Sen. Barack Obama and Latinos largely favoring Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The results of preliminary exit polls in nine key states indicate that Obama attracted the support of two-thirds to nine-tenths of black voters, except in Clinton's home state of New York. That pattern suggests that the first-term Illinois senator's strong appeal among African Americans -- first on display in the South Carolina primary last month -- is more widespread. It also means that Clinton is not the automatic heir to the wide popularity her husband enjoyed among black voters as president. Yesterday's contests, however, featured several states, including California, with large Hispanic populations, and they selected Clinton by smaller but consistent margins.

The divergent choices by minority voters reflect broad issues of loyalty and identity, observers said, rather than specific differences in the candidates' stances on issues. "There is so little distance between the policies, it comes down to personality, style and name recognition," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, based in Los Angeles. "No one has said, 'This is the black Democratic agenda, the Latino Democratic agenda,' " Vargas said. "This is just, who do people know, who do they identify with, who are they comfortable with?"

Obama's popularity among black voters surfaced less than two weeks ago in South Carolina, where exit polls indicated that he had defeated Clinton by a margin of 4 to 1 among that segment of the electorate. "The South Carolina primary was decisive," said David A. Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. "It sealed the deal for African Americans on Obama."...

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...except in Obama's home state of Illinois, Clinton was the clear favorite among Hispanics, many of whom have felt an allegiance to the Clintons since her husband was in the White House. "There is a real affection for the Clinton administration and a real familiarity with Senator Clinton," said Cecilia Muñoz, senior vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza. In addition, she said, Clinton "got support of the big figures in the Latino political establishment quite early," some of whom worked for her husband. The legacy of Bill Clinton's administration was evident in yesterday's exit polls from California, where Clinton beat Obama among Hispanics by 2 to 1. "There is a lot of name support," Vargas said....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/06/AR2008020600044.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I noticed that in Arkansas

Obama got about 16% of the vote, which is the % of African-American voters in the state, according to Yahoo. Don't for a second do I believe that all who voted for Obama were black; did find it significant that in Arkansas, which could be argued to be a Clinton "home state" he still won 6 delegates.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. There have always been racial divides on display in America

The only real story is that they are slowly being drained of their more hateful aspects.