Obama Wins Mississippi, and It's All About Race

MSNBC has projected two things: (1) Obama has won tonight's Mississippi primary and (2) Obama's pledged delegate lead will be 160 at the end of the night. Hillary Clinton will have to win 64% of all remaining pledged delegates in order to finish with the pledged delegate lead. That is, shall we say, highly unlikely.

The Clinton campaign plan, best I can see it, is to downplay Mississippi, play up Pennsylvania and win it, and then take the remainder of the states (potentially including do-overs in Michigan and Florida) by severely tarnishing Obama's luster. Narrow the popular vote to almost nothing, then convince superdelegates that are undecided or that support Obama to choose Clinton because she has won the second half of the primary race. Is that a strategy that is likely to win? No, but it's the best they got.

Exit polling from Mississippi says race was a huge factor.

Clinton won white women by 75 percent and white men by 70. Obama took black men by 93 percent and black women by 88. Whites and blacks were both exactly 49 percent of the electorate.

The only age group Clinton won tonight was 60 and older. Obama won economy voters, war voters, and health care voters.

Oddly enough, Republicans were 13 percent of the vote tonight and they weren't Republicans caught up in Obama's unity magic. They went 77-23 for Clinton. Draw your own conclusions as to why they voted the way they did. More