Well, I have to say that the following analysis is gleaned somewhat anecdotally, from watching last night's coverage, reading a lot of polls over the past two weeks, and especially from some of the county-by-county breakdown of the vote (particularly in Missouri).
Basically, it's this: older voters and rural voters (especially rural souther voters) are for Clinton in a huge way. As are Southern whites.
Men are much more likely to vote for Obama.
While it would be much much better to put these candidate choices into their more positive aspects (young and urban voters for Obama, women for Clinton), the sad fact remains that the opposites remain. And that it's hard not to think older Americans might not be carrying around some lingering racist attitudes, the same with, unfortunately, rural southern Whites. And that men's sexist attitudes will, in the end, decide their preference between a male and female candidate. In short, this primary is showing us something about America we all knew, but didn't see pushed into our face every time there is an exit poll.
Missouri is a classic case. There are like 60 counties, and three major urban areas. Clinton won every rural (more white) county in the state and Obama won the 5 urban counties (more African-American). This phenomena overall explains Clinton wins in Tenn. and Oklahoma, while Obama wins Georgia (thanks to Atlanta and the black vote), SC, AL...
I haven't yet seen anyone really start to call out this racism and sexism in the Democratic electorate yet. Will anyone?
Also, I'm not yet prepared, nor am I sure I will ever be, addressing the issues around why Hispanics overwhelmingly prefer Clinton to Obama, or why Asian voters in CA really overwhelmingly (like 80% I think or more) went for Clinton....
Anyone want to touch that one?
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