Obama takes South Carolina by storm

Barack Obama stormed to a convincing win in the South Carolina primary yesterday, taking more than half of the vote - and twice as much in percentage terms as his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.

The Illinois senator polled 55 per cent of the vote in the first of the southern American states to hold a primary; Hillary Clinton was second on 27 per cent of the vote, with John Edwards, a native of the state who had won there during his failed bid for the presidential nomination four years ago. trailing in third with 17 per cent.

Turn-out in the primary was huge, with 530,000 voting compared to just 280,000 in 2004, and Obama's larger-than-predicted margin of victory was being ascribed to his success in bringing out the black vote, which makes up half of the electorate. He crushed Clinton 80-17 among African-Americans, and garnered a creditable quarter of the white vote against 40 per cent each for Clinton and Edwards.

Obama will take a big lift from the result with Super Tuesday - when more than 20 states vote on February 5 - just around the corner, although his aides have been trying to play down the massive support that their candidate won from African-Americans. They do not want their man to be defined as the 'black' candidate, as the Reverend Jesse Jackson was during his campaigns in the 1980s.

Hillary Clinton will be disappointed that she lost by such a large margin, although her campaign had long written off the state as unwinnable and had already moved its focus, sending Clinton off to other races even before yesterday's poll. Bill Clinton, who had engaged in a nasty war of words with Obama, last night conceded that Obama had "won fair and square".

The Edwards campaign will be wondering whether to continue, and if the enormous outlay that Super Tuesday will demand is justifiable in light of their man's poor third in his home state and no major upsets since his second place behind Obama in Iowa, the first of the primaries.

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 27, 2008