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Election Coverage Continues; Obama Takes South Carolina
Aired January 26, 2008 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: They don't -- Does anyone on the Republican side like Mitt Romney who is running against him?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is particularly deep.
AMY HOLMES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But McCain and Romney. The other big development for the McCain camp of course is the potential of the Giuliani flame out. And we know there is cross over between McCain and Giuliani voters who like McCain like Giuliani. So if Giuliani is knocked out in Florida that helps McCain tremendously.
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It also helps Giuliani because if he comes behind Romney and McCain is in front, he is going to go after Romney and that also helps McCain because Giuliani needs to show strength on those February 5th states.
COOPER: Let's go back to our discussion of Democrats. Carl Bernstein, a prediction moving forward, does Bill Clinton continue to be separate from his wife on the campaign trail and basically do this sort of tag team effort?
CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't think we know the answer any more than we ever know what goes on in the relationship between those two people. What we do know is now that relationship is again critical to this campaign. It's something that the Clintons didn't want.
The other thing, we have a different world tonight than we had this morning in the Democratic campaign. Because now Democrats are going to be looking at the question of can Obama or Hillary Clinton run better against probably John McCain? And that is a difficult proposition for the Clintons as well. One more question comes is again going to get introduced.
Obama is going to be able to get up and say look, I was against the war from the beginning. Hillary Clinton will go back to her idea that she is a defense intellectual. But now it's about delegates too. Super delegates. We hadn't talked about the super delegates. Hillary Clinton can lose some of those super delegate fist there is momentum for Obama that she thought she had.
So this is going to be state by state, delegate for delegate. Congressional delegation for congressional delegation. Endorsements ...
COOPERS: Pages of the calendar.
BERNSTEIN: You're absolutely right.
HOLMES: And a quick point about who can best beat McCain. I think you'll remember, Anderson, that John Edwards tried to make the contention that he said meaning no disrespect, but he can go into those rural areas, go into the red states. I think that the results tonight show that that is not necessarily true.
One more interesting thing about the exit polling data, despite all the ugliness and nastiness, if you look at the late deciders, I think they went for Obama.
COOPER: Roland Martin?
MARTIN: I don't think the question is what would Bill Clinton do, but how Obama is going to respond? They will change their communications strategy. What happened this week, frankly, has toughened them up. They are going to have to make some adjustments and more than likely they are going to play the ignore game.
Let Bill Clinton run his mouth and Obama stays on message. That is what is going to happen going forward.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What the Obama campaign now has to do is get above the fray as Roland is saying and they are going to start talking about issues, talking about the economy and laying out issues about getting large speeches and getting away from this bickering. And I was just talking to people involved in the Clinton campaign. They are not sure what's going to happen with Bill Clinton. They want him to remain engaged. It's unclear from these exit polls whether people kind of liked him or hated him. Bu they are going to choose where to engage him a little more carefully.
COOPER: But John King, you were taking a little more about the psychology of Bill Clinton. It's unlike any other person out there in some ways.
KING: His friends often say Bill Clinton thinks he could convert the devil. You have to remember his life story in politics. Survive Gennifer Flowers, survive Paula Jones, survive Monica Lewinsky, things that would have knocked any traditional politician not only out of the game, but off the planet he gets up and survives from.
He fights day to day and believes he can break the planet today and put it back together tomorrow. And he believes because he has done that. And that is ...
BORGER: He's not right.
KING: That is the interesting question.
BERNSTEIN: Because of Hillary. Bill is not running? The history to his survival is Hillary.
KING: He is the first survivor before they put it on TV. That is the key point that Carl and Gloria are making. That is he has done it himself for himself. He could not be knocked down. How does it translate into her campaign? That is something you don't know the answer ...
COOPER: (Inaudible) his tiki torches are extinguished.
BLITZER: Good discussion. Let's take a look and see what we've got going. It's clearly still a wide open contest on the Democratic side. Sixteen percent of the precincts have now reported and take a look at this. Barack Obama with 53% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 28 percent and John Edwards at 19 percent. Sixteen percent of the precincts.
And we take a look at the hard numbers that are coming in right now. Remember we projected that Barack Obama will win and Hillary Clinton will come in second. John Edwards will come in third.
Forty five thousand, nine hundred for Obama so far. Twenty three thousand nine hundred for Hillary Clinton. Seventeen thousand for John Edwards.
And Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska, so far he has 27 votes. It's a big win and an important win for Barack Obama. And this contest for the Democratic presidential nomination now moves forward. It moves forward to Super Tuesday on February 5. There will be a Democratic primary in Florida, but the Democratic National Committee has stripped Florida of its delegates so it will be largely unless things change over the next three days, a beauty contest and there is pressure especially from the Hillary Clinton camp to change the rules as the DNC has put forward.
But I want to go back to Soledad and Bill. Because you are looking at the exit polls and you are looking closely at one key issue. That has helped define this contest.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the things we were really interested in is what are the voters looking for? What qualities do they value as they go to the polls? So they ask them, what are you looking for? What did you see, Bill?
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Change was the issue. Change is Obama's issue. Change is the reason he won. Take a look at this. Fifty three percent, the majority of the voters in South Carolina said they wanted a candidate who can bring about change. Caring about people, that was the second issue, but only fewer than half as many. Experience rated very low. And here is a big surprise. Electability where they are looking for someone who they thought can win the election in November. Not especially.
O'BRIEN: Which his kind of odd. I thought. Only six percent. If you drill down on that top quality, change, no shocker Obama has got to win that.
SCHNEIDER: Obama won that handily among those voters who were looking for the candidate who could bring about change, three quarters voted for Obama. Notice that Clinton and Edwards, candidates of change and Hillary Clinton tried to present herself as the candidate of change, also but it looks like the voters of South Carolina didn't buy it. O'BRIEN: The message didn't quite stick. When you look at cares about people, that has traditionally been John Edwards' mantra over and over again. How did he do?
SCHNEIDER: Well, traditionally, actually, it's been what people like about Democratic candidates generally, remember Bill Clinton has empathy and cares about people. Doesn't seem to have rubbed off too much on Hillary.
Take a look at the vote among people who said were looking for a candidate who cares about people. John Edwards edged out Barack Obama on that quality. Hillary Clinton came in third, so she doesn't quite have the same empathetic touch. The feeling your pain that her husband did.
O'BRIEN: If that is the truth, that is true, but he is not running as we keep repeating. If that is traditionally important to Democrats, how bad is that number, 17 percent. Cares about people?
SCHNEIDER: That's a problem. She has other virtues that Democrats are going for, but the common touch is not something they see in Hillary Clinton the way they saw it in her husband. And many Democrats still do.
O'BRIEN: Those other virtues would be experience. That's been her mantra consistently throughout this race. How did she do in this question?
SCHNEIDER: She wiped everyone out. Among voters looking for someone who had the best experience, the vote went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. Eighty three percent. Edwards and Obama didn't even get into double-digits here. They ain't got experience that voters seem to notice and Hillary Clinton is the candidate with experience. It's a very different kind of Clinton image from the image her husband presented when he was running. He didn't present himself as the man of experience. He presented himself as the man of empathy. That's not his wife.
O'BRIEN: Interesting question. The role, being a woman, maybe a woman has to run with more experience. That's something people can discuss and talk about.
Listen, when you look back at the list of qualities that were important, cares about people came in high. Number two. And yet John Edwards who won was not enough to propel to a second place win.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. It was not enough to do that. As you see here Hillary Clinton did much better among those looking for experience. John Edwards did dominate that, but he actually shared it with Barack Obama. People thought both Barack Obama and John Edwards care about people, they both have empathy, they just didn't think Hillary Clinton did. And that's a bit of surprise.
O'BRIEN: All right. Bill, thank you. Let's send it right back to Wolf. BLITZER: Change versus experience and that has been a theme we been following throughout these many months of this campaign. And clearly they have some different ideas out there in South Carolina. The Democrats do at least on this day.
Thanks guys, very much. Abbi Tatton is taking a closer look at what's coming in as well. What specifically are you focusing in on online, Abbi?
ABBI TATTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are looking at a Barack Obama Web site. And not just the Web site, the e-mails the campaign is sending out but also text messages. First of all announcing the win here at the Obama Web site. But we just got a text message from the Obama campaign which is already looking ahead. A few minutes after the projection on CNN, the text says we won in South Carolina, but February 5 is when it's all happening. More than 20 states voting. And they are using this text message campaign reaching a lot of young voters to try to extend their reach, asking him to ask their friends to join this text message idea to spread the word that Barack Obama on February 5 is coming. This is something they did in South Carolina. Those big Oprah Winfrey rallies that you'll remember back in December asking the entire crowd to sign up their cell phones to receive these text messages.
Some of the Obama supporters out there, we are looking at live pictures here coming in on CNN politics.com as they wait in Columbia, South Carolina for their candidate to come out and speak to celebrate the victory there. We have got live events coming in not just in South Carolina, but all over the country coming in on CNN Politics right now. And that's also where you're going to be finding the election results and the primary results as they come in county by county. We have made the projections, but now we are seeing the margins that are just beginning to trickle in right now. Wolf?
BLITZER: Abbi. Thanks very much. Cnnpolitics.com. That's the place to go to get added information to what you're seeing right here. We want to go out to Candy Crowley. She is watching this in Columbia, South Carolina. And you are getting a statement from the Hillary Clinton campaign, Candy?
Absolutely. A written statement, Wolf, as you know. Senator Clinton is now on her way out of Dodge, if you will. She is headed for Tennessee. She put out a written statement saying, "I have called Senator Obama to congratulate him and wish him well. Thank you to the people of South Carolina who voted today and welcomed me into their homes over the last year. Your stories will stay with me well beyond this campaign and I am grateful for the support so many of you gave to me. We now turn our attention to the millions of Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the 22 states as well as American Samoa who will vote on February 5th."
What's interesting here is the reference to Florida. As you mentioned just a little while ago, Wolf, there are no Democratic delegates at stake in Florida because they have been sanctioned by the Democratic Party for moving up their primary date. Now just yesterday Hillary Clinton said listen, when I get to the convention, I am going to ask my delegates to go ahead and seat Florida and Michigan who had a similar problem with the DNC. The Obama campaign said right. Because Florida is coming up now, because she is leading in the polls. Because she is likely to lose in South Carolina and wants to change the subject and have everybody move to Florida. Look at what is going to happen in Florida so she will try to get some movement and some momentum as they move into February 5th.
So very interesting that she would bring up Florida which again has no delegates and the Obama campaign suspects she is merely trying to change the subject and point to what she will call a success Sunday night.
BLITZER: Candy, just to follow-up on that very important point, unlike in Michigan where only Hillary Clinton's name was on the ballot along with Dennis Kucinich and uncommitted. In Florida I take it all of the names are going to be on the ballot, including John Edwards and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That's in part why she is saying the vote for the Democratic primary on Tuesday should be significant and shouldn't just be for naught.
CROWLEY: Absolutely. And she is saying, look, everybody's vote should count. All these people want to be heard. And the truth is, whoever gets to be the nominee at the convention is going to say seat these delegates in Michigan and Florida. They don't want to lose Florida n the general election. They don't want to tick off Florida. They don't want to tick off Michigan. So of course that's going to happen. The argument is that she does it right now, five days in advance of the Florida primary says something about the way she wants to change the subject in Florida. Then move into those February 5th states.
BLITZER: Thank you, Candy.
We will check back with you. We are going to hear from all the candidates later tonight, but Bill Clinton who is not a candidate, he is speaking right now in Independence, Missouri. Let's listen in to the former president.
BILL CLINTON, HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: ... giving me a key to the city of Independence. I will try not to open too many unwarranted doors tonight, but I like having a key. Senator Jolie Justice (ph), county executive Mike Sanders, thank you for being here. I have a lot of friends in this audience I want to recognize. One is Pastor John Motis Miles (ph) who has been my friend since I was a young governor. I would like to thank the principal of this great school Jason Dyland (ph) and all the people from the school district who are here. Let's give them a big hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an interesting race. And I was here a week ago after we won our great victory in Nevada. In St. Louis. We had several thousand people there. There were a lot of people outside tonight. We just finished in South Carolina today and Senator Obama won there and Hillary congratulated him. And I joined that. Now wait a minute. He won fair and square. We went and asked the people to vote for us and they voted for him and we congratulate him.
Now we go to February 5 when millions of people get into the act. Let us begin with a clear statement. This country needs a change in direction. We need to change on the home front for the economy, for health care and education. We need to change around the world to restore America's standings as a leader for peace and freedom and cooperation.
To do it, we need the right vision, the right plan and the right leadership. I am here and I have worked around this country because I think I know something about what it takes to put together a successful presidency. And because today in my current capacity polst politics, I worked with ordinary Americans and ordinary people all around the world. My library is in Arkansas and some of you have visited. We have a school of public service there.
My office is in Harlem in New York City. We work trying to help the 23 million Americans who get a check every two week or every month but don't have a bank account. So they spend billions in alternative financial transaction when is they can't pay the bills they've got. We work on trying to fight the problems of childhood obesity and the exploding rate of diabetes among young people that threatens their future and the stability of our country and health care.
Around the world, I have been to 90 countries and 71 of them we sell the world's least expensive AIDS medicine, keeping over 750 thousand then people alive in Africa and Latin America and Asia. This is important work, but it brings me in touch with people. We are working on the problem of global warming in 40 cities on six continents. We're trying to help people make a living where they were never able to make a living before all across the world. I say that to set this up.
If I had never been married to Hillary, but I knew what I know about her service and her lifetime of making positive changes in the lives of other people in the United States Senate, often passing bills with Republican cosponsors to move issues from child health to the health care of our veterans forward, if I knew whey know about what I know about what she did in the white house years and if I knew what I know about what she did when I was governor and she led the education reform efforts and efforts at preschool and our efforts to provide rural health care and rural economic development, if I knew what I know about seeing what she did as a young lawyer to help children who were severely abused and neglected and children with learning disabilities and other disabilities, then I would be here campaigning for her for president because I think she is the best candidate I have ever had a chance to support.
Now, so, I will give you her pitch. She says we have got to turn this country around by setting some big goals. We have to restore the little class today and give poor people a chance to work their way into it. We have to reclaim the future for our young people instead of playing politics with it. We have to restore America's leadership and we have to reform the government to make it possible to do that. That is her simple pledge to you. Vote for me and I will restore the leadership and our rebuild the middle class, I will reclaim the future and I will reform the government to make it possible.
Now, what does that mean? What does it mean? It means number one, we have to do something about the growing, gnawing inequality in America. Inequality in incomes, inequality in health care, inequality in education. We are growing too unequal and we have put the middle class dream in danger.
In this decade, we are supposed to be in the seventh year of an economic recovery. We are supposed to be worried about a recession, but the truth is, most Americans are already in a recession. People all over this country are flat out of money.
Why? Because in this decade, 90 percent of the economic benefits have gone to the top 10 percent of earners. About half of that to the top one percent and a big part of that to the top one tenth of one percent. Median family incomes, the ones in the middle, are $1,000 lower today after inflation than the day I left office. And we can do better than that. Why is that?
Because our economy has only produced about 5 million jobs as opposed to 22.7 million in the previous administration, you might remember.
BLITZER: Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States wasting no time. He is speaking in Missouri. Missouri, one of the Super Tuesday states. An important contest coming up there on February 5.
Bill Clinton speaking on behalf of his wife Hillary Clinton who came in second tonight in South Carolina. The big winner by a substantial, substantial margin, that would be Barack Obama. John Edwards coming in third. If you want to continue to watch the former president speak go to cnn.com and you can watch live streaming live feeds coming in right there. We are going to take a quick break. Much more coverage coming up. We are going to go to Obama headquarters as well. They are getting ready to hear from the winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary Barack Obama. Much more coverage, coming up right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses and tonight he wins the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary. Welcome back to our continuing coverage from the CNN election center. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting.
Let's take a look at the numbers that are coming in with 41 percent of the precincts having reported, Barack Obama maintains a significant, significant lead. Fifty-three percent. So far to 28 percent per for Hillary Clinton and 19 percent for John Edwards. If we look at the hard numbers that are coming in, you can see how that majority is made up, 119,000 or so for Obama and 62,500 for Hillary Clinton and 43,900 for John Edwards. Forty-three percent of the precincts reporting. We are standing by to hear from Barack Obama and at some point he will be speak to his supporters. Suzanne Malveaux is out there at Obama headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina, where you must have a really excited, pumped up crowd going on behind you, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. The energy and excitement in this room is really quite incredible and something very telling about the audience here n. It was just a couple of minutes is the former President Clinton who was speaking on the screen and there were major boos. They booed the former president.
I talked to a spokesman and the chief strategist of Barack Obama and they say that South Carolina spoke today. That it was a reputation of the divide and conquer politics that we had heard and we have seen in the past and there is a recalculation in the strategy. They are saying that that they don't have to answer the misstatements that Bill Clinton makes. They don't have to react to everything. They are taking a good look at stepping back and they want to let him say what he has to say. They don't believe they have to necessarily engage in what Bill Clinton is saying on the campaign trail. They are excited about the positive energy here and they're looking forward to Georgia as well as Alabama. We expect that Barack Obama and his wife are going to arrive shortly. But Wolf, this is the group that really feels they made a significant statement and made history this evening. They are going to do things different with young voters and female voters and new voters and African Americans. They feel they have a coalition that could win the southern states and take them the big ones as well. Wolf?
BLITZER: He has already received, Barack Obama, a phone call congratulating him on his win. Do we have any guidance yet, Suzanne, about when he will be coming to the podium behind you and speaking?
MALVEAUX: About 9:00, right after 9:00 is when he is going to give his victory speech. It's not completely surprising that he won this state. A lot of people thought it was going to happen. But the lead here, the big lead, even the Clinton folks I talked to tonight were quite surprised it was that huge. It was in one person's words, freaking them out. Because it was just that big. This is a group that they feel they can change things and do it in a unique way by building this coalition.
They also say as well this is a fight not for the state, but rather the delegates. This is something that is going to go beyond February 5, Wolf.
BLITZER: And once he starts speaking our viewers will be able to see that live right here on CNN. Suzanne, thanks very much. She is at Obama headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina. I want to walk over to John King because he is looking at the actual counties that are coming into South Carolina right now. The precincts are reporting. We are at 51 percent of the precincts now having reported. And we are getting a sense of where Barack Obama got all of this support. A truly impressive victory for him tonight.
KING: We learn these highly technical terms in politics, studying polls and studying everything else. This is what you call a rout. Just a rout. Here's how we show it to you. Senator Clinton is winning one county so far right over here in Myrtle Beach. She is winning one county right now. Senator Edwards, two counties including where he was born in Seneca, his native county, and a small rural county here. He is doing well across the state, but he is only winning one county.
Watch this. Barack Obama is winning everywhere. These gray areas have yet to report. We don't have the election results. Remember we talked to you earlier tonight. Senator Clinton had to do well on the coast. Here is Charleston, almost eight percent of the population. She is losing big time. Seventy seven percent of the vote in and Senator Obama is beating her big in Charleston.
Beaufort County, only three percent of the population, this is the most affluent county in South Carolina and Barack Obama getting 54 percent of the vote.
Pull in just a little bit and come in right up here and here, Allendale County is the poorest in South Carolina and Obama getting 66 percent of the vote. He is winning among affluent voters, he is winning among the poor voters and he winning, Wolf, most importantly where the people are. Richland is where the capital is and it's eight percent of the population. Obama winning 55 percent of the vote there. Racking up big numbers. That's a heavy African-American number in the state. Greenville Spartanburg, Greenvile is the most populous and almost 10 percent of the state population, 51 prcent there. A bit more competitive in the Greenville area, but he is literally sweeping across the state. That obviously is disappointing not only to Senator Clinton, but to Senator Edwards as well.
That is a technical definition of a rout. We are waiting for five more counties to come in. Hillary Clinton has won -- You see Clinton is the lighter color and Senator Edwards in between. But all across the state of South Carolina, there is the full map for you. Fifty four percent of the vote now in, Wolf. And if you add these numbers up, this is a little more than half the vote, the Democratic turnout last time was just shy of 300,000 in the Democratic presidential primary.
Without a doubt, we will have yet again we talked the about it in Iowa and New Hampshire and the other states. Yet again, if this is 54 percent of the state now, we will have higher turn out than in the past Democratic primary, another example of enthusiasm on the Democratic side, which even as the Republicans try to figure out who will the nominee on the Democratic side be, they are worried about that. The energy in politics right now is clearly on the Democratic side.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Can we assume that what has happened today in South Carolina is indicative of potentially the other southern states that will be voting on Super Tuesday, February 5th, specifically Georgia, Tennessee and some of the others. Is South Carolina representative of what's likely to happen in those other southern states because we know New York and California and other states are going to be voting on those dates as well?
KING: Let's come over to it. Look, this is Super Tuesday right here. The answer is yes and no in that South Carolina is like Iowa and New Hampshire. They are traditionally an early contest. It is part of their history, part of their tradition, so turn out is traditionally higher than it would be in many other primaries. Many of these states that vote on Super Tuesday have moved up.
They're traditionally (INAUDIBLE) in the process, their voices have not been heard, so they wanted to move up to be heard, but you don't have a tradition and history of high turn out and participation. And only in a couple of these states, Georgia is the only state on Super Tuesday has a higher African-American population than the state of South Carolina. South Carolina here, you have Georgia here, that's the only state with a higher percentage of African American population.
Will the turn out be as high? We don't know the answer to that question obviously. Alabama, you have states in the south, Tennessee, you have Arkansas so there are some potential areas where the African American turn out will be significant. Will it be 50 percent as it is in South Carolina?
There is no historical data to look at because these states don't traditionally vote that early. In many of these other states, you don't have anywhere near the African-American population that you have in South Carolina. And Wolf, just look at the breadth and the scope of this, New York, Illinois, Missouri and California. You cannot be in all these states at once, so you are advertising on television and you are using your surrogates.
One of the big questions we have tonight, what will the role of Bill Clinton be going forward. You see him out in Missouri tonight. He is an asset in a vacuum. He's an asset because he can help Hillary Clinton cover the entire country for February 5. The question is will he be more -- as much controversy as he was in South Carolina? That's the question.
BLITZER: Ten days from tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: We will be seeing this national contest unfold. And it's anyone's guess what's going to happen, but it's potentially out there. You know what, it will still be wide open even after next February 5.
KING: That is the potential. We will be counting delegates. We're going to be studying over the next couple of weeks all of the rules in these states, how they diffy (ph) up their delegates, looking at the congressional districts because that's one of the challenges. If you are Barack Obama you want to go into a state that doesn't say have a high African American population statewide because a congressional district and you think that matters, you can target that state.
Out in California you need a lot of money to be on TV, so there is a different subset of strategies for almost everywhere on this board and we should note you do have the adopted home state of New York. Senator Clinton and Senator Obama's home state of Illinois, they are among the states on Super Tuesday. BLITZER: And let's not forget the big one, California out there as well. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to continue to study this map. We are standing by to hear from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards. They will be speaking in the course of tonight. At the top of the hour we expect to hear from the winner of the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama, much more of our coverage coming up from the CNN Election Center. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Barack Obama is the big winner in South Carolina tonight. He will come in first, Hillary Clinton second, John Edwards third. A substantial win, a huge win in fact for Barack Obama in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary. We're also getting some news now. We're just learning that Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late president of the United States will endorse Barack Obama. She has written an op-ed piece in "The New York Times", Sunday's "New York Times" that will be out tonight.
It's already out on the Web site we are told and Caroline Kennedy jumping on the Barack Obama bandwagon. She's going to endorse Barack Obama. This is an important endorsement for the senator from Illinois. Let's take a look at the numbers. Sixty-seven percent of the precincts in South Carolina have now reported in and Barack Obama maintaining the majority of the vote in that state with 54 percent.
So far to 27 percent for Hillary Clinton, 19 percent for John Edwards. Remember John Edwards won the state four years ago. He will come in third tonight when all the votes are counted. But right now with 67 percent of the precincts in, John Edwards coming in third. Rudy Giuliani is in Florida right now. The Florida primary is on Tuesday as all of you know.
This is make or break for Rudy Giuliani. He's invested everything he has in Florida after giving up in Iowa, giving up in New Hampshire. He is now hoping to jump-start his campaign in Florida. He is speaking to some supporters in Orlando with so much on the line. Let's listen in briefly to hear what the former New York City mayor is saying.
RUDY GIULIANI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A wonderful election and a great night and I want to thank you for having me. To Lou Oliver (ph), who is the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party Executive Committee, Gary Fister (ph), Pat Copeland (ph), Roy Bass -- Ron Bass (ph), rather, and all the numbers of the Orange County Republican Party, thank you for having me here tonight and thank you for your great interest this election that's coming up.
Just about every editorial page that you see has this election now basically down to two words that are talked about all the time. Change and economy. Everybody in this room knows that if the Democrats are put in charge of fixing the economy, the change they'll take to Washington is the change in your pocket. And when you see that big sign behind the Democrats saying change, you put a big question mark after it and say what kind of change do they want to make?
Because change in and of itself can be good. Change can be bad. I will give you an example. Here's one of the changes the Democrats want to make. They want to raise your taxes by 30 percent. That's bad change. I want to lower your taxes with the largest tax reduction in American history. That's a good change.
(APPLAUSE)
GIULIANI: That's the kind of change that our economy needs because that's the kind of change that stimulates the private economy. Now I don't just believe this. I don't just promise this. I believe it and promise it because I have done it. Because I have actually seen how strategic tax reductions lead to a dramatic impact and a growth economy. And I'm the only candidate for president, Republican or Democrat that has seen that happen because I am the only one that has lowered taxes. I did it 23 times when I was mayor of New York City. That has me leading my Republican opponents 23, nothing, which is a good police to be.
BLITZER: Rudy Giuliani speaking to supporters in Orlando, Florida. The Republican presidential primary of Florida is going to be critical for the fate of Rudy Giuliani whether or not he can continue. Right now the polls in Florida show John McCain and Mitt Romney neck and neck. Rudy Giuliani right now at least third, maybe even fourth to Mike Huckabee. This is going to be critical for him as we go forward.
We will be obviously covering this thoroughly all day Tuesday and into the night. I want to bring in Soledad O'Brien and Bill Schneider because they are looking at how Barack Obama managed this stunning victory for himself tonight. You are getting more information, Soledad, from our exit polls.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, what you just announced a few moments ago about Caroline Kennedy's support for Barack Obama I think was really a good clue. And we wanted to look more closely about white support overall for Obama. That brings us to really looking at age first for white voters. What did you find out?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right as we go towards Super Tuesday it is important because these are going to be states that have many more white voters than South Carolina in the Democratic primaries. Look at the breakdown of white voters who are in South Carolina by age.
Among white voters who are 60 and over, Obama only got 15 percent of the vote. Among middle aged white voters between 30 and 59 years old, he got a quarter of the white vote, but among white voters who are under 30 years old, look at this, Barack Obama got 50 percent of the vote. So clearly the young vote is a key to his breaking into the white vote that he desperately needs to do to do well on Super Tuesday.
O'BRIEN: Mobilizing those young people to the polls will be crucial for them. What do those numbers look like when you talk about education?
SCHNEIDER: Also education a very, very big difference. We divided the white voters into those who had graduated college and those who had not, Barack Obama got only 17 percent of the vote among white voters who did not finish college. Among college graduates it nearly doubled to 32 percent. He is clearly picking up young voters and better-educated voters.
That's his constituency. That's what he has got to go over on Super Tuesday and that's the reason why he is doing substantially better than Jesse Jackson did in 1988 when he was a contender. In 1988, Jesse Jackson averaged just 7 percent of the white vote in the southern states that voted on Super Tuesday.
Right now in South Carolina, Barack Obama is getting 24 percent of the white vote and he has got to build on that to really make a breakthrough in those Super Tuesday primaries.
O'BRIEN: Very interesting numbers and we continue to crunch them as we wait and see. We're certainly looking to candidates as well. We're going to take a short break. We're back right after this. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. It has been quite an exciting night of politics. We are anticipating Barack Obama speaking to an incredibly enthusiastic crowd in about 10 or 15 minutes some time right after the 9:00 p.m. hour. That is when we are told he and his wife will come on to the stage.
We know Hillary Clinton is already on her way to Tennessee. We watched Bill Clinton in Missouri. They are already moving forward into other Super Tuesday states, trying to make as much headway as possible. Let's check in with Donna Brazile and Bill Bennett. Donna Brazile is in Washington, Bill Bennett, CNN contributor, is in Nevada.
Donna, for Barack Obama, let's talk about balanced momentum. How does he capitalize on what happened tonight and how does he try to overcome the sort of tag team of both Clintons?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well there's no question that Senator Obama will get back to his message of change. He will get back to building the kind of coalition that we saw that allowed him to win the Iowa caucuses. Senator Obama tonight will say that change did not come easy. He is going to once again appeal to the party to unify, appeal the Independents to join him and of course remind the country that the reason why he is running is because he believe that he can end the partisan gridlock and he can bring the country together.
So I think there is no question that this past week has made Barack Obama a stronger candidate just like Iowa made Hillary Clinton a very strong contender. Going forward you will hear Obama back on message, trying to broaden that coalition and of course trying to secure more delegates to win the nomination. COOPER: Bill, isn't that sort of what we heard people saying Barack Obama was going to become? After New Hampshire people said he was going to become more specific on his policies and yet it didn't seem like that happened or he just got knocked off his game with this other stuff going on.
BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think he can stay with the dream. You know I was just thinking two things. One, the fairy tale. You know he should respond to the fairy tale and say he calls it a fairy tale. Some call it fairy tale. I call it the American dream, but I suggest back to rewrite for this Obama song, what Amy talked about earlier with Bill Schneider just showed about the young people, remember fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you if you are young at heart.
Youthful idealism. It's a big engine and has been for the Democrats traditionally. Sometimes it has disappointed. We remember Eugene McCarthy (ph) and Bobby Kennedy and a lot of young kids for Howard Dean. But nevertheless, this is a very important part of the energy behind the campaign. And don't forget the Clinton song. Remember Fleetwood Mac (ph), "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow", well Barack just stole that too.
COOPER: Roland Martin, CNN contributor, Barack Obama, how does he capitalize on tonight?
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he bottom line is he is going to present this, again this sort of rainbow coalition view in terms of pulling all of these various people together. You also go inside the numbers tonight, very critical, Anderson. That is this was a beat down. All right, my radio listeners would call this a beat down.
John calls it a route. That's what it was. This was a first primary where the winner exceeded 50 percent. The caucus was in Nevada, first primary, the largest voting percentage out of all of the wins, the largest margin of victory. He won every income group, it is the first of any candidate in this whole campaign.
He wins every age group except 65 and older. He nearly doubles her among married voters, nearly doubles her among single voters, especially single women, not only that, he beat her among liberals and moderates. He also beat her among those who did not go to college. And so what you're going to see is you know this whole notion she was appealing to low to middle income voters; he is saying I can appeal to those people too.
Now we talk about the black vote in terms of not being as high. Georgia 53 percent in 2004. Alabama around 30 percent -- Tennessee 30 percent, Alabama 45 percent.
COOPER: Are you talking about people turning out to vote or...
MARTIN: Democratic voters.
(CROSSTALK) MARTIN: No, Democratic voters and so you have several key states on February 5 and February 12 where African Americans will make up at least 30 plus percent of the voting margin, so Obama tonight shows that wait a minute. The first test of a southern state, I can do a coalition building. He is going to take that in terms of the next states and say look, I can compete as well. And so he is down by nine points in terms of the polls in California. When you look at some of these numbers, he can say I'm a coalition builder unlike Senator Clinton is.
COOPER: If you are Barack Obama do you bring -- do you ask Oprah Winfrey to tag around Bill Clinton wherever Bill Clinton goes?
(CROSSTALK)
MARTIN: Here's what is interesting. You know Candy Crowley just sent me this. ABC News is reporting that earlier today Clinton said this about Obama. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign and Obama ran a good campaign here. Nobody brought up Jesse Jackson. You know so he is still sort of claiming (INAUDIBLE) southern strategy it is not working. Clinton should give this thing up and recognize you might need to find a new strategy.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pardon me, Amy. Go ahead.
AMY HOLMES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Carl. And I think I would also point out that one of Bill Clinton's strength was not only that he was a former president, he is a super star and (INAUDIBLE) in his party, but that he also had a southern appeal. He was supposed to help Hillary with those voters and I think we saw tonight in South Carolina that did not succeed.
COOPER: Well did that not succeed or was it the presence of John Edwards there, which took away white voters from Hillary Clinton?
HOLMES: I think the presence of John Edwards definitely made a difference, but again we said at the top of the night, Hillary does very poorly with white males. Edwards got those votes. It's not clear that they would have gone to Hillary had he not been there.
(CROSSTALK)
CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: If you combine the anti-Clinton vote...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
BERNSTEIN: ... in South Carolina, Edwards' vote are a good deal of it and Obama's vote is huge. This could not be a more grievous event for Hillary Clinton going into February 5th than anybody in the political business could have imagined. For Bill Clinton to say oh well Jesse won in -- you know the last time. This is something else again. (CROSSTALK)
BERNSTEIN: This doesn't mean that Obama is going to win the nomination, necessarily. It means though that the door to Obama is now wide open and it looked like it was closing earlier in the week.
MARTIN: Anderson we forget she poured a ton of resources into the state. This was not a state where they pretty much just said hey, you know we'll just kind of run a little campaign. They poured staff. They poured money. She was up 20 percent a couple of months ago. They were expecting to win South Carolina. They got blown away. That should be troubling to her campaign...
(CROSSTALK)
BERNSTEIN: ... resources in Iowa also. The states where they have put their big resources, they are not winning. And Bill Clinton is a huge loser in this because it looks I think to many people in the party that he has squandered his post presidency the same way he squandered part of his presidency and that means the luster of his beloved figure is off.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... probably the most preposterous statement tonight from Bill Clinton was in my role as post politics.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: You were thinking ahead in all this.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: More likely in his role as running mate.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: But the thing about Bill Clinton that is so interesting is if you look at the exit polls, 58 percent of the people said you know Bill Clinton was important in my decision, but they are kind of split, 48 percent went to Obama, 37 percent went to her, so we are not quite sure how that shakes out.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: One more thing, Anderson, let's look to Super Tuesday. I guarantee you Obama is going to take the fight to her in New York and New Jersey.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: And we are anticipating Barack Obama speaking very soon. We are going to take a short break. We'll cover it live. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: We are getting ready to hear from the winner of the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama. He is getting ready to speak to his supporters momentarily. We are going to go there and listen to what he has to say. He will deliver a victory speech tonight in South Carolina just as he did in Iowa a few weeks back. Let's take a look and see how he did it, 86 percent of the precincts have now reported.
That's almost all of them. Look at this. I think we can call it a route. Fifty-four percent for Barack Obama; 27 percent for Hillary Clinton; 19 percent for John Edwards; a huge, huge impressive win for Barack Obama in South Carolina right now. If we look at the numbers, how he managed to do it so far with 86 percent of the precincts, 229,000 or so for Barack Obama; 114,000 for Hillary Clinton; 79,500 for John Edwards.
A very, very impressive win. If we take a look at the delegates that were at stake in South Carolina tonight, we're just beginning to allocate the 45 delegates that were at stake by the voting tonight. A total of 54 delegates in South Carolina if you add up the super delegates. So far right now as we have just begun the process of allocating 54 total -- 45 tonight, eight for Obama, four for Clinton, two for Edwards, zero for Mike Gravel.
He is technically still in the contest, the former senator from Alaska. This is a live picture you're seeing from Barack Obama headquarters right now in South Carolina. The crowd there very, very excited. They are getting ready to hear from the winner of this primary tonight, Barack Obama. He will be speaking, we will be showing you his speech.
We're told he's going to be coming out in three or four minutes or so. We will go there live as soon as he speaks. You will hear every word of what Barack Obama, the winner of the South Carolina primary has to say. Until we see him walk up to that stage, though, let's get some more analysis of what's going on. Anderson Cooper has got the best political team on television.
COOPER: John King, you were talking about Hillary Clinton's organization moving forward with all the states now up for grabs.
KING: Not to downplay this at all, this is a huge night for Obama. As Roland said, he is winning a majority. He is going to have momentum coming out of here. He has an opportunity to speak tonight as the winner to the states yet to come. But if you liken this, this is one state they were competing in as checkers.
He did a fabulous job and he should be congratulated. Now you're going into something nobody has ever lived through before. None of us as old and as many times as we've been through this and none of them. You are going into 20 something states voting at once from coast to coast, some big states in there, some TV states in there, so infrastructure matters.
She does have the advantage. Not all these people are with her passionately, but she does have labor unions. She does have experienced state party people. She has the Democratic Party infrastructure largely on her side and that matters when 20 states are voting as one.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Can she overcome? Yes, but it matters.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: And she starts, that is she starts today leading in all those states. All the polls show that she is leading except in Illinois, which is of course Obama's home state in New York, in New Jersey, in Minnesota, in California. In Georgia she is ahead, so...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well.
TOOBIN: ... he's got to turn this victory...
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: These things are really tangible and this leads, as we all know, but...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll see.
BORGER: ... yeah, we will see. But I think what Obama does is he goes to the issues now and tries to really define his candidacy to people in these 20 states, talk about Hillary Clinton as the status quo candidate. She starts talking about her experience because people who voted for her believe that she had the experience tonight. And she goes back to that and as I said before, I think he takes her on in her home state in New Jersey, in California.
COOPER: Does he also start taking her on the issue of experience? She touts 35 years of experience in public work. Do those numbers add up?
(CROSSTALK)
KING: That's playing her game.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: He blows that off with a sentence. Experience? What experience? And then says this is about tomorrow. Look back at all of our records. Please do, but this is about tomorrow. And I'll tell you something else, the people rooting most for her tonight outside of Camp Clinton are the Republicans.
COOPER: Actually let's bring Bill Bennett on that as we watch Obama headquarters waiting for Barack Obama to speak. Bill Bennett, if you were a Republican watching tonight, as John King just said do you want to run against Hillary Clinton or is it Barack Obama?
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