Why Won't Blacks Vote for Hillary?

So far in Election 2008, race has been a major factor in the Democrat primary race.

That didn't change yesterday in North Carolina and Indiana.

Those Big Tent Dems are hung up on race.

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama won a convincing victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday in North Carolina and nearly toppled her in Indiana, twin results that could ramp up pressure on the New York senator to reconsider her candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

Clinton claimed a 51 percent to 49 percent victory in Indiana, a margin of just 22,000 votes statewide out of 1.2 million votes cast. The result was badly delayed due to extremely slow counting of votes in Lake County, a northwestern area seen as strong Obama country.

...The North Carolina electorate divided sharply along racial lines. As has been the case in nearly every state to vote so far in the nomination fight, African American voters went overwhelmingly for Obama -- 91 percent for the Illinois senator to just six percent for Clinton, according to exit polling. Clinton carried white voters in the Tarheel State convincingly, taking 60 percent to Obama's 38 percent.

Whites are significantly more likely to vote for Obama than blacks are likely to vote for Hillary.

Regarding the black vote, this Dem primary is playing out like a general election, with Obama being the Dem and Hillary being the Republican.

Blacks are completely abandoning Hillary.

Over 90 percent of blacks vote for Obama even though Hillary and Obama aren't essentially different in terms of the issues.

The difference is skin. It's race.

Although Hillary carries white voters, the margins are nowhere near the overwhelming number of black voters that Obama carries.

It's about race. When given a choice between a comparable white Dem and a black Dem, blacks go with the black candidate.

That's racist.

It's the elephant in the room.

Blacks used to support Hillary. Then Obama came along.

From the New York Times:

In North Carolina, Mr. Obama’s performance was bolstered by a strong black vote. He captured more than 90 percent of those voters in that state, where blacks accounted for one in three voters.

Exit polls in North Carolina and Indiana show that race is key.

Race again played a pivotal role in Tuesday's Democratic presidential clashes, as whites in Indiana and North Carolina leaned solidly toward Hillary Rodham Clinton and blacks voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, exit polls showed. Almost half said they were influenced by the focus on Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama, the Illinois senator battling to become the first black president, again failed to gain ground with a crucial voting bloc that has consistently eluded him — working-class whites. But he pieced together coalitions that besides blacks included the young, first-time primary voters, the very liberal and college graduates, plus sizable minorities of whites.

According to exit polls of voters, about two-thirds of whites in both states who have not completed college were supporting Clinton. The New York senator could use that to fortify her argument that she would be the stronger Democratic candidate in the November general election. Of 28 states that held primaries in which she and Obama competed before Tuesday, Clinton had prevailed with working-class white voters in 25.

...The six in 10 whites in both states supporting Clinton were similar to her margin over Obama among whites nationally so far, showing he continues to have trouble cutting into her support from those voters. Even so, his lopsided backing from blacks meant he didn't need white majorities Tuesday to be competitive.

...Nine in 10 blacks in both states were backing Obama — an even stronger margin than usual for a group he has dominated. That proved decisive in North Carolina, where they comprised about a third of voters — nearly double their proportion in Indiana.

All the talking heads keep stressing that Obama hasn't managed to win the Archie Bunker vote. Those blue-collar, uneducated bigots won't vote for the "exotic" Obama.

Jeremiah Wright had an impact on the way these bigots voted.

Actually, the pundits and columnists sound like bigots to me.

They completely ignore why blacks aren't voting for the white candidate.