With many excited thousands pouring into his last-minute California rallies, ecstatic press coverage, glittery star events with surprise guest appearances by Shrivers and Kennedys and Winfreys and other representatives of the wealthy Democratic elite, Obama seemed poised for a huge victory.
Some polls had him up by 13 or 14 points. Most polls had him up by three or four, minimum. Why did he fall so flat in the biggest, most populous state in the Union, a Democratic stronghold that any Dem must carry in November to win?
The deafening buzz that heralded Barack Obama's supposed surge of support heading into Super Tuesday was drowned out by the quiet casting of ballots.
Marie Cocco's column at RealClearPolitics
In a cogent article, RealClearPolitics' Marie Cocco has the audacity to point out that
The media are blinded in these lights, utterly unable to see the appeal of Clinton's prosaic promises to improve voters' personal bottom lines....
Obama won just 39 percent of those who described their family's financial situation as "falling behind." If the Democratic nominee does not represent these people, then who, exactly, does? We already have a party that fails to speak to them, address their problems or lift their aspirations. It's the Republican Party.
Super esday, muddled as the results seem to be, tells us one thing very clearly. Obama has not expanded his support much beyond African-Americans and upscale, educated whites.... Exit poll results from across the country confirmed that Clinton continues to attract support from ethnic minorities other than African-Americans. In California, Latinos voted for Clinton, 2-1. Among Asians, her margin over Obama was 3-1. This is in a state where Obama's multicultural appeal was supposed to lift him to victory. It fell flat.
Still, the Obama campaign vows a war of attrition against Clinton, and the Byzantine delegate-selection rules of the Democratic Party allow him to wage it.