Obama Win in South Carolina May Be Critical

In a rousing, pitch-perfect victory speech tonight, Barack Obama appeared every bit the transformative, promising new candidate for president that has been the message of his campaign since its inception.

Contrasting with an increasingly negative tone from the Clinton campaign, Obama said of his opponents that they are “fierce competitors who are worthy of our respect and admiration …”

Obama's overwhelming win in South Carolina may prove pivotal, not because of the voters' apparent rejection of weeks of snide comments from the Clinton campaign in an apparent effort to brand Obama as an unreliable and untested stranger in America, or even the embrace of Obama's message, but because of Bill Clinton's shocking dismissal of the significance of South Carolina's black vote propelling Obama to victory.

Said Clinton of Obama's win in response to a question that Obama faces two Clintons as Democratic primary opponents: “That’s just bait, too. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign. Senator Obama's run a good campaign here, he’s run a good campaign everywhere.”

The significance of Clinton's remark is that Clinton diminished Obama's win by pointing out that another black man, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, won South Carolina twice, suggestive that it's no big deal another black man would win there.

This explicit attitude of failing to acknowledge Obama's character and positive qualities will feed into an existing political matrix of the Clinton campaign as ungracious and disrespectful, a dynamic that has already seen Hillary Clinton's lead over Obama among blacks evaporate.

In other developments, Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama today in a New York Times op-ed entitled, "A President Like My Father".

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U.S. Senate Looks to Turn Dark Blue

Update:

The Politcio: Coming Dem Dominance in Senate

Novak: GOP Could Lose 5-8 Senate Seats
From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report: "The decision not to run by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) now raises to five the possible losses of Senate seats by Republicans. Democrats also are targeting Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) for a sixth seat. If 2008 turns into a Democratic landslide, Senators Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and even Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could be in danger."

The most undemocratic body of American representative government looks to turn dark blue in 2008 with Republicans' most optimistic scenarios pointing to at least four pickups for Democrats.

As the Iraq occupation lingers on with the effect of grinding up young American troops, democratic candidates for the Senate in 2008 across the country are hitting the war hard.

Jeff Merkley, Speaker of the House and the leading contender for the 2008 Senate Democratic nomination in Oregon, sends out a fundraising e-mailing stating:

Unfortunately, General Petraeus is a good man being forced to justify a disastrous war. How many more American and Iraqi lives, and how many billions of dollars will it take before President Bush admits it? ...

Despite all evidence to the contrary, President Bush and his top advisers continue to insist the escalation of the Iraq war is a prescription for success. It is mind boggling just how disconnected from reality this administration really is.

And despite his efforts to remake his record, (Republican incumbent) Gordon Smith voted for this escalation and is just as responsible as George Bush for the ongoing debacle in Iraq.

Oregon is representative of the rest of the country, slightly blue turning darker blue as Republicans cling to old bigotries and militarism, running from reality as the country passes them by.

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