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Obama Takes South Carolina and Gets Kennedy Love

08:24 H | Topics: Race - South Carolina - US Presidential Race 2008

What a political weekend! On Sabado, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama won the South Carolina party primary by a fairly large margin.

With 99 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mr. Obama had 55 percent of the vote, Mrs. Clinton had 27 percent, and Mr. Edwards had 18 percent.

In his victory speech, Obama tried to distance himself from being the "black candidate".

"The choice in this election is not about regions or religions or genders," Obama said at a boisterous victory rally. "It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future."
The audience chanted "Race doesn't matter"...

Today, an official endorsement of Obama is expected from Senator Edward M. Kennedy, which likely will piss off the Clinton campaign something heavy, as they asked Kennedy to stay neutral knowing the power of a Kennedy endorsement.

The endorsement, which followed a public appeal on Mr. Obama’s behalf by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, was a blow to the Clinton campaign and pits leading members of the nation’s most prominent Democratic families against one another.

Even within the Kennedy family, the endorsement is causing a rift, with Robert Kennedy's daughter endorsing Hillary Clinton.

Some are saying that the Kennedy endorsement could add that extra push especially when it comes to the Latino vote.

There are still lots of households with photos of JFK, RFK, and César Chavez in the living room.Apparently EMK is willing to do some actual work:
Kennedy plans to campaign actively for Obama, an aide said, and will focus particularly among Hispanics and labor union members, who are important voting blocks in several Feb. 5 states, including California, New York, New Jersey, Arizona and New Mexico.

I know of a tia who has Kennedy pictures right next to her photo of Luis Muñoz Marín'
but I don't know if that says much.

Via / NYT , Yahoo! News, NYT (again), and The Reality Based Community

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