South Carolina and Beyond

Obama had a blowout win that surprised all but his most loyal supporters. He more than doubled Hillary Clinton's support, capturing over 55% of the vote in South Carolina. The single most impressive statistic of the night as far as I was concerned was the turnout of 532,468 Democratic voters in the South Carolina Primary. Just for some perspective, this is close to double the 290,000 turnout in 2004, about 100,000 votes more than the Republican turnout the week previously in a state that voted 58-42 for Bush in 2004, and represents 81% of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 general election for John Kerry.

Going forward, we will see what momentum this brings him. I suspect it will be a fairly decent boost, though likely not decisive. I think potentially helpful is the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy this morning in the New York Times.

Florida is not particularly relevant as there is almost no campaign time between now and then and all the focus will probably be on the Republican side where the race is very tight between John McCain and Mitt Romney. That's right, Giuliani is nowhere to be seen and will be going home soon.

February 5th is the big cheese and here's how I see the states lining up as of now:

Safe Clinton:
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Oklahoma

Likely Clinton:
New Jersey
Tennessee
New Mexico
Arkansas
Delaware

Safe Obama:
Illinois

Likely Obama:
Georgia
Alabama(I know the polling doesn't reflect it yet, but given the demographics if they vote anything like South Carolina it's going to be his)
Minnesota

Toss Ups:
California
Idaho
Utah
Kansas
Missouri
Arizona
Alaska
Colorado
North Dakota

Yes, the task for Obama is a little daunting. He has a slight delegate lead at the moment and it won't matter much on February 5th, but he can win some big delegate totals. One thing both Hillary and Obama have going for them is that it is all proportional.