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Continuing Coverage of the Campaigns; Obama Predicted as Strong Winner
Aired January 26, 2008 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BASH: At 1:00 Eastern, but as we have been talking about Florida, there is actually voting going on in the state of South Carolina, and the Democratic primary going on there now and polls close in about one hour and I will kick it up to my colleague Wolf Blitzer up at the election head quarters in New York who is going to bring you prime time coverage of the results of the South Carolina primary.
Hi, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yeah, we want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world to the CNN election Center and we are watching in less than one hour the polls will be closing in South Carolina and the Democrats will have their primary, and we will see what happens tonight. An important race and this is a first primary for the Democrats in the south, potentially important developments for the three leading Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.
We have reporters fanned out across South Carolina right now and beyond. Candy Crowley is watching all of this in Columbia, South Carolina, and Susan Malveaux is over at the Obama headquarters, Jessica Yellin is at the Edwards headquarters, Jim Acosta is in Nashville, Tennessee that is where Hillary Clinton is about to have a rally, they are getting ready and we are watching all of this together with them, and Anderson Cooper is here with the best political team on television and they will have complete analysis of what is going on.
Soledad O'Brien and Bill Schneider they are watching the exit polls, and we shortly will be able to share some of the information that we have been getting throughout the day, but let's go out to Candy Crowley right now first. Candy has been watching the South Carolina story and it is a dramatic story, and we will see what happens once the polls close now in less than an hour but set the stage for us, Candy. What are the candidates doing with their final arguments today?
CROWLEY: Well, you know, their final arguments were really yesterday as you know, elections days are high tension for candidates. They go out to a couple of restaurants, and they go to visit a polling place, and mostly what they do is what we do, is to sit and wait and wonder what these voters are thinking, and how they took this whole last week of campaigning in South Carolina.
As you know, things got very tense here, Wolf, in South Carolina. Bill Clinton was here campaigning for his wife when she was out of a state and there was a lot of back and forth between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The issue of race here in the south really hitting a lot of nerves. Sometimes among voters here who thought that reporters were stirring it up, candidates who thought that each other were stirring it up. So we had quite a tense time here and so it will be really interesting to see if this shows up in the polls in any way.
Look, this is a huge night for all of these candidates, because as you say, it was is and it is the first southern primary, but they already have South Carolina in their rear view mirror as you know. Next up is February 5th, where so much is at stake. They have more than 20 states, and they need to pay attention to them, and of course, they can't pay attention to all of them, so these candidates are getting out of South Carolina tonight, and going to really at this point to separate states and trying to set their strategy for the push to February 5th, Wolf.
BLITZER: Candy, we will be back with you shortly. Thank you. Susan Malveaux is over at Barack Obama headquarters and it is empty behind you right now, but that will change very, very soon. Give us a little bit of the lay of land there?
MALVEAUX: Absolutely, Wolf. We expect a grand party at least that is what a lot of people are saying, Barack Obama's waiting in his hotel and resting and relaxing. Now one of the things that they really worry about here is the influence of Bill Clinton and they really felt that he was trying to paint Barack Obama as the black candidate. They say that now it is going to be about message control, that he is going to try to define himself as best as possible, and some can see that perhaps it was Bill Clinton who is moving in to defining him somewhat and taking the shine off of him, but take a look.
When you take a look at the numbers, wolf, it will be very interesting to see whether or not he increases the women vote, the female vote and that is something he needs and how he fairs with the white voters and widely seen that John Edwards might take a chunk of that and that he is performing strongly and obviously, he is competing with Hillary Clinton. Wolf.
BLITZER: Thank you very much, Suzanne, and we will get back with you shortly. I want to bring in Jessica Yellin she is over at John Edwards' headquarters right now, this is the state he won four years ago, he was born in South Carolina and he represented North Carolina for six in the United States Senate and this is an important test for him tonight.
YELLIN: So important for him, Wolf. Tonight, John Edwards wants if not to win, to come in a very strong second to show that he can deliver and to push him forward propelling the candidacy to justify it to continue through Super Tuesday and beyond. John Edwards this week has continued to hit the message that he is the candidate who will fight special interests the hardest, but he has added a new wrinkle and he has said that the squabbling between the Clinton campaign and the Obama campaign shows that he is the one, as he puts it, grownup in the race, and the grownup wing of the Democratic Party as he is putting it and he continues to stump the message that more than the other two, he will represent the interests of the people, the real people who don't have power in this nation. Now I should point out that the Edwards folks insist that no matter the results tonight, they will continue straight through the democratic convention, and they are looking to accumulate as many delegates as possible and say that even if he is not one of the top two performers entering the Democratic convention, he could still come out the nominee if this race is incredibly close, and they say he is going the distance, but he certainly wants a strong finish tonight. Wolf.
BLITZER: Thank you, Jessica. We will be back with you as well. Over to neighboring Tennessee right now, Jim Acosta is watching all of this. This is where Hillary Clinton is, and I want to point out to the our viewers that Tennessee is one of those Super Tuesday states that will have its primary on February 5th and the Clinton supporters will be filling that room behind you?
ACOSTA: Yes, and a few moments ago they were playing Dolly Parton in here getting ready to warm up this crowd with some Tennessee music. It is fitting that Hillary Clinton is coming to Music City, because she may be ready to change the station and maybe in the mood for some different music after what she is hearing in South Carolina this evening, and what her campaign is saying at this point is, OK, look, South Carolina may not go her way, but they feel they are looking strong for Super Tuesday and they feel that they are in a running strong lead or at the very least a tight race in almost all of the states including Tennessee which is an important state in that Bill Clinton won this state in 1992 and 1996. Not too shabby for a Democrat in the south. Hillary Clinton riding into this town tonight not looking back, but forward, Wolf.
BLITZER: Well, she is not there yet. She is still in South Carolina but she is coming in very soon to Nashville, Tennessee and not wasting any time in South Carolina getting ready for the next important test, not only in Tennessee, but in a lot of states. How similar, Jim, is the what will happen in the South Carolina tonight is the first test in the south for the Democratic presidential candidates and how similar of a makeup from South Carolina to Tennessee?
ACOSTA: Well, it will be interesting to see how things play out here. Obviously the African-American vote is not as consequential as it is in South Carolina. So the cards will be stacked and handed out differently this time around. And the big question for this campaign coming into Tennessee and going into Super Tuesday is that after that nasty battle in South Carolina, what happens tonight? What happens this day forward?
Do the campaigns, you know, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Barack Obama do they continue to hit each other over the head with baseball bats and chains and that sort of thing or does that sort of get put aside and is a different type of campaign possibly emerging here. It is unclear whether the Clinton campaign will recalibrate in terms of what Bill Clinton's role will be and how strong of a role in terms of how much he is saying about Barack Obama and how all of that will plays out.
So it will be interesting to see what type of message Hillary Clinton brings to Tennessee tonight and what kind of posture she takes as this campaign takes forward. They feel that the contest is far from finished and won't be finished on February 5th and may not finished in March. So at this point, it is going to be everybody is going to have to pull out their score sheets and look at the delegate's counts as these days move forward.
BLITZER: All of a sudden the delegate count becomes critical. Jim Acosta in Nashville, Tennessee, getting ready for Hillary Clinton and her entourage to show up there fairly soon.
I want to go the Anderson Cooper who is watching all of this with the best political team on television, and what do they think and you, Anderson, about what we should be looking for immediately hours ahead.
COOPER: Well, it is fascinating that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are both already on the way to other states and already putting South Carolina behind them. Whatever the results tonight, John King what are you going to be looking for?
KING: I'm going to be looking at the racial polarization, because you have had this bitter and often ugly debate on race issues, and we will see how it plays out in South Carolina and I think there is a short term snapshot you want to take there and see if there is a move of African-American support Obama out of proportion to say where he was in the polls among African Americans a week or ten days ago. But then see if there is a polarization on the white side as well. Because when you move on to Super Tuesday, 20 states in play, and none of those states will you have an African-American percentage in the Democratic electorate as you will in South Carolina. Most of the votes in South Carolina Democratic primary will be cast by African-Americans; you will not see that it again. Some states, some southern state close to that, so if there is a racial polarization how that will effect Super Tuesday could be big.
BORGER: I want to follow up on that because Barack Obama has been trying to portray himself as a candidate with really broad appeal to all economic levels, to blacks and whites and it is clear in South Carolina that the Clinton campaign was trying to say, no no, he is a candidate with much more narrow appeal. Largely to African-Americans for example, and we are going to have to see how that plays out tonight. See what percentage of the white vote that Barack Obama gets and what percentage of the African-American vote Hillary Clinton gets.
COOPER: It is remarkable just a few weeks after Iowa, a race that seemed to be off of the table it now seems to be front and center.
BORGER: It is, it is front and center and that is I believe the success of the Clinton campaign in the South Carolina primary, because I think what they wanted to do is lower Barack Obama's altitude, because he was standing there on a pedestal, the man from hope, et cetera, et cetera, and also point out to people that he is an African- American candidate.
COOPER: And they certainly have done that. We will talk a lot about that tonight, and Jeffrey Toobin, what should viewers be looking for? TOOBIN: One thing is turnout, 293,000 voters voted in the 2004 primary and in every primary so far, and Democratic turnout as soared and let's sees if it soared here in South Carolina as well. The other thing I want to look at is the so-called Bradley effect. African- Americans have sometimes not lived up to their polling numbers, and some people thought that was the case in New Hampshire when the polls suggested that Obama was going to win, and he didn't. Most polls show him winning in South Carolina, will the polls be accurate? So turnout and polls.
COOPER: We have a deep bench and we have our CNN contributor Carl Bernstein, and Amy Holmes will join us later as well as Bill Bennett and Donna Barzell (ph) we are going to get their comments after a short break and we are also going to take a look at exit polls and what we can learn from the exit polls after this short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Forty five minutes until the polls close in South Carolina, this is the first Democratic presidential contest in the south. We are watching this very closely and welcome back to the CNN Election Center. I'm Wolf Blitzer and you are also look at the live pictures coming in from Columbia, South Carolina right now and that is a polling station right there and people are still voting in Columbia, we are watching closely to see how significant the turnout will be tonight. People are still voting for another 45 minutes or so in South Carolina.
Once again, the polls close at the top of the hour. We have been checking with our exit polls to see what is on the minds of the voters down there, the Democrats and Soledad O'Brien and Bill Schneider are going through the numbers right and what are you picking up?
O'BRIEN: Well, it is interesting, because, Wolf, we wanted to see what issues motivated people to go to the polls and also was there any kind of racial disparity between the whites and the blacks and what motivated them to the polls. So the most important issue for the blacks first, what drove them to the polls?
SCHNEIDER: The answer is that the number one issue for African- Americans voters in South Carolina, you can see here the majority said the economy and followed by health care and Iraq was the number three issue to African-American voters. Interesting comparison with white voters.
O'BRIEN: Did you see a big difference?
SCHNEIDER: Nope. This is the white voters. Ah, this board is white voters, 53 percent said the economy and 24 percent said health care and 20 percent said Iraq. Now, let's take a look at African-American voters on the next board --
O'BRIEN: Right here. Fifty two percent for economy.
SCHNEIDER: It is almost the same numbers so it is easy to confuse, 53 percent once again said the economy and followed by health care and fewer, 15 percent said Iraq. What is interesting here is number one the economy has come to dominate all other issues and look at the Iraq issue it is coming in third. It is not nearly as prominent among Democrats as it was maybe a month ago.
O'BRIEN: Also makes sense in a way, because race is not playing a role when the economy is bad, everybody is feeling it and seems like the polls are supporting. Let's talk a little bit about drilling down further on the economy, how do people feel about it? Obviously it is bad, but how bad?
SCHNEIDER: Very bad, very, very bad. Let's look at what they said; they think that the economy is like these days. Here is the result for all of South Carolina Democrats. Almost 90 percent said that the economy is not very good or poor. Only 10 percent of the voters, the Democratic voters in South Carolina think that the nation's economy is in good shape. This is a very, very negative, very down view of the economy and clearly reflecting the news, but also changing the context of this whole election which now seems to be really about the economy.
O'BRIEN: All right. Bill, thank you and, Wolf, back to you.
BLITZER: It revives the slogan "it is the economy, stupid" was the campaign mantra in 1992 for another Clinton who was running for president. I want you to briefly remind our viewers about these exit polls, Bill. Tell us how we have been doing throughout the day and how do we get these numbers?
SCHNEIDER: We interviewed voters around polling places in the state of South Carolina and talked to them after they have voted, it is illegal to talk to a person on his or her way to cast a vote. So we waited until after they have voted and then we give them a sheet of paper where they answer some questions about who they are and how they voted and why they voted the way they did and they give them back to us and we tabulate the votes on an essential computer, and we will post them post them here to you. What is important is these are exit polls and they fill them out immediately after they vote.
BLITZER: All right. Bill thanks very much. Soledad we will be checking back with you. We asked a lot of questions and we have a lot of numbers so we have a lot of information to share with our viewers and the viewers can go to CNNpolitics.com as well and get more information any time.
Here is a good idea, watch us here on CNN and if you have a laptop go to CNNpolitics.com and get the entire inside information especially after 7:00 p.m., after the polls close at the top of the hour. Good way to watch an election unfold.
Let's go back to Anderson who has the best political team on television.
COOPER: I wanted to check in with CNN contributor Carl Bernstein, and CNN contributor martin Roland Martin. Carl, what should the viewers at home look for? BERNSTEIN: Well, with respect to the pollsters, I think the anecdotal is more important. There is a new factor in the campaign and that is the character of the candidates and their spouses, themselves, and if you talk to people in the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, there is a feeling I think that Bill Clinton has gone over the line, and there are a lot of voters as well as party officials who are upset, and it is probably going to be reflected in some of the numbers tonight and going to carry over towards Super Tuesday.
COOPER: You are talking about people who support the Clintons?
BERSTEIN: Absolutely, but both. I think there is a tenor and a lot of people including in the Clinton campaign who will say, look, they played the race card. That is unthinkable. Or would have been unthinkable and it goes beyond that, there is an old thing that Lyndon Johnson used to do. He used to tell the guys, put out a pres release and the guy would say it is not true. But he said, I just want to see him deny it.
I think there is an element that is growing in this campaign of a perception of the Clinton campaign that is difficulty ahead, and at the same time, Obama, there is difficulty in terms of him still appearing diffuse, not specific, but he is running an inspirational campaign and it seems to be working to an extent in South Carolina if the anecdotal evidence is right that it might be a real shock for the Clinton campaign.
COOPER: Roland Martin, do you believe that the Clintons, there is some saying that the Clintons have gotten into Barack Obama's head in the last week or so with the tactics they have been using.
MARTIN: Clearly the Obama campaign did not want to confront this much head on, on the issue of race. You say the unthinkable, Carl and it is not the unthinkable, because Bill Clinton has a history on the issue and what shocks people frankly is the misuse of the southern strategy. That is what this was. We are accustomed to seeing the Republicans use it, but now we see Bill Clinton use it, and I think in the media we didn't really want to call that until Thursday evening and Friday when it was so apparent what it is.
The other issue is that I am watching tonight the female voters and we have set it up as the black primary, because of the number of black voters, nearly 50 percent. And nearly 50 percent who are white, but the key is that in every primary and caucus, females have far more dominated the terms of numbers of voters so it is interesting to see how the women of South Carolina voted tonight in this primary.
COOPER: Let's go over to John King. John King you are going to be looking at the board after this next break, and kind of showing us district by district in South Carolina, to give us a preview of what folks should be looking for.
KING: We want to look at the richest counties and the poorest counties and watch those votes as they come in, because there is an income disparity in that the lower support Hillary Clinton and higher income Democrats tend to support Barack Obama. We want to look where Columbia is in the capital and Greenville up in the northern part of the state and the western part of the state, and those are higher African-American populations and we will also look at the Seneca why that is where John Edwards is from. If he is going to perform in South Carolina tonight, he needs to get a big turnout in the white rural areas where he grew up.
COOPER: And again, CNNpolitics.com is our online source, and you can follow online as well. We will have more with John King right after this break. Again, looking at that map of South Carolina district by district and CNNpolitics.com is the Website. Our coverage continues here. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Thirty four minutes or so until the polls close in South Carolina. This is the first major test in the south. It is also the first state with a huge African-American population expected about 50 percent, 50 percent of the Democrats who vote in this contest today will be African-American. We are watching all of this in about a half hour or so, the polls will be closing.
Let's get a closer look at the state of South Carolina right now. We are learning a lot of geography, John King about South Carolina, and we were just there, and give us a sense of what you will be looking for as the actual votes come in.
KING: Well, we will be looking very different places than we looked at when the Republicans were voting, although some similarities, the state is white right now, because we have no votes in yet. We are waiting. All of the counties of South Carolina are represented white right now, because no votes are in yet. Up here, you see the candidates so you can get accustomed to the colors. Obama the darker blue and Clinton the lighter shade.
And if here is the place we are going to watch, this is the capital of South Carolina is here in Richland County, it is 8 percent of the state's population, it is a high African-American percentage turnout, this is one of the places where Barack Obama is going to do well among African American voters and if turnout is up among African-American voters this is one of the first places we will see it in Richland County.
Lets pull back out up here in Greenville, we spent a lot of time talking about Greenville on the Republican side, because of the white evangelicals up there, we wanted to see how Mike Huckabee would do, we will watch Greenville a lot tonight as well, because it is a big population center and 9.5 percent of the state's population is a large African-American population up here so you want to see the turnout there and how that vote breaks down.
There is also a significant more white voters in Greenville County than anywhere else in South Carolina. So if there is a racial polarization in the elector we will see it up here in Greenville County.
I want to come up over here. This is a small tiny county on the Georgia border, why we want to show you this, there is not much population and not much of an impact on the statewide vote, but this little town right here is the birthplace of John Edwards. John Edwards who ran up big numbers in the South Carolina primary running four years ago and he is obviously in third places in the polls right now, Wolf, in some financial trouble in this campaign and needs to see if he can stay on in the race, so if he is going to do well, it is going to start in the rural counties there.
One other thing we want to note, I want to pull out Charleston again, we spent a lot of time along the coast, 7.7 percent of the state's population and we spent a lot of time along the coast where we were saying John McCain had to win along the coast if he was going to win South Carolina, Hillary Clinton has to win along the coast. If she is going to win or at least be competitive in South Carolina, say more competitive in the late polls would be, she needs to run up the numbers here especially in Charleston County, so we will want to watch that as the night goes on.
BLITZER: Because a lot of retirees and others have moved there from all over the country.
KING: A lot of people from outside of South Carolina and not natives. This is where the influx is and also a lot of military people in that part of the state and you would think of them perhaps in the first reflex as Republicans, but there are many Democrats as well and she has emphasized her leadership and armed services committee as well, saying she is more experienced and ready to be president. So we will look there along the coast for Senator Clinton, and I would look right here in Columbia and right up here in Greenview when time to judge. A the African-American turnout and B up here, this is a racial polarization; it will be up there in Greenville.
BLITZER: When you were up there, did you get any anecdotal evidence that the debate last Monday night where the three of them were up there on the stage that seemed to have an impact and shaping or solidifying the people's opinions?
KING: Well, the point that Jeff Toobin made just a short time ago something about, if you are a Clinton supporter or an Edwards supporter or an Obama supporter, they are energizing because they now view this as a fight.
The Obama people feel they picked up in the polling and the anecdotal and statistical evidence is that they have picked up in the polling in the past week and they feel very good about it and they believe that Bill Clinton's active involvement playing what they would describe as the race card and that intensified the intensity to vote for African- Americans, but move the numbers in Senator Obama's favor so that is one of the things that we of course want to watch as it goes along.
This is an interesting laboratory tonight. We are watching a hotly contested bitter Democratic primary in a state where the Democrats probably have almost no chance of winning in November. So it is an early contest early on in the primary, in November, very unlikely that the Democrats will have South Carolina in play. BLITZER: And 30 or so minutes away from the polls closing in the state. Right now all of these counties are white, but fairly soon after 7:00 p.m.; we are going to start seeing some shades of blue pop up in all of the counties.
KING: We will give you a peak of what it might look like. This is back in 2004, and John Edwards sure looks the map would look like this tonight. But this is when John Edwards ran against John Kerry and because it was Edwards' home state, you didn't have the intensity of the campaign you have, but even again in the town of John Edwards' hometown right here up in this little tiny county up here, but even in the state, John Kerry did win a few counties but not terribly populated counties, but this is what it will look like when it is filled in and the colors will be different, because we have different candidates, but again, we are going to look here and the numbers there ran pretty close.
BLITZER: In that county when he won 45-30 over John Kerry in 2004.
KING: And not that competitive back then, but we will look where the people are Greenville, down here in Richland County and again for senator over perform or surprise anybody, we will learn about it on the coast.
BLITZER: And we will learn more about these counties in South Carolina in the coming hours, John, thank you very much. We are going to be sharing with you more information and we are just getting in and collating it and Soledad O'Brien and Bill Schneider are going through the exit polls and more information and much more of the coverage from CNN election center. That is coming up right after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: We are counting down to top of the hour and 26 minutes or so until the polls close in South Carolina. The Democrats had their presidential primary, and that is unfolding right now, and we are getting new numbers from the exit polls that we have been conducting throughout today, and Soledad and Bill are going through those exit poll number, and, I guess that we are learning, Soledad, when people are making up their minds?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, because we really want to figure out if all of the fighting and the nastiness as John King called it just a moment ago had an impact on how people felt when they went to the polls so the first question we asked was which candidate attacked was the one who did the attacking unfairly? What did you find?
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I call this the blame question. Who do they blame for all of the squabbling? So we asked them, did they blame Clinton, Obama? Well, among the Democrats who voted today, 21 percent said they blame Clinton and six percent blamed Obama, but a whopping 50 percent said its both their fault, and 21 percent said neither one. So they seemed to blame everybody.
O'BRIEN: And focus on that number, it is split because the Obama voters said it was Clinton and Clinton voters said it was Obama or not?
SCHNEIDER: Not. What happened is that I checked and the Obama and the Clinton voters agreed that think were both to blame.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now, back to Wolf's question which is did the events of the last week really influence who you would vote for, and what did you find out?
SCHNEIDER: Well, we asked them, when did you decide whom you were going to vote for and the answer was that one-third of the voters in the primary, 31 percent said they divided to vote in the last week since the debate that we sponsored Monday night. That's when all of the squabbling broke out and they have been fighting ever since so we will see later if those 31 percent were different from the more than two thirds who had already made up their minds.
O'BRIEN: Of course, asking nationally, is the nation ready for a black president? Is the nation ready for a female president? We can't really answer that but we can take a closer look at what happened in South Carolina. What are they saying? Let's start with a woman president?
SCHNEIDER: Is the country ready for a woman president, well, this is supposed to be bitterly polarized, about three quarters of the voters in South Carolina said that yes, the country is ready for a woman president, and both candidate supporters agreed with that.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. How about for a black?
SCHNEIDER: And we asked about an African American president, and the answer is, again, yes. More than three quarters said that the nation is ready to elect a black president, so on this issue, there is no real polarization, a woman, African American, they say we are ready.
O'BRIEN: The voters in South Carolina.
SCHNEIDER: The voters in what is supposed to be a deeply polarized state.
O'BRIEN: A little more insight from the exit polls. Wolf?
BLITZER: Well, the people are always going to be skeptical about the answers, because they are going to say, well, people think it is the right answer to give the politically correct answer and how do we know that this is how they really feel and I know you have studied this over the years, Bill.
SCHNEIDER: Well, it is one of the little problems of polling is that people want to give the right answer, so in this case the right answer is clearly, that these are Democrats, remember, that the nation is ready to elect a black or a woman president. I think what this suggests is even the bitter squabbling seen in the campaign did not affect that view.
BLITZER: All right. I know both of you are going g back to look at the exit poll numbers and we are going to share those with our viewers momentarily, thanks guys very much. Abbi Tatton is she has been getting I-Reports coming in from voters out there and what are they sharing with us?
ABBI TATTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the pictures of the people in the state as they go to the polls today and we have been getting them from all over South Carolina today. Going first to the last-minute campaigning that's been going on here, and this is from Mike Meehan. He is in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, this is just outside of Charleston and he described himself as a Charleston native and he snapped this picture of John Edwards making a last-minute campaign stop talking to voters at the Charleston cafe here today and he said that the atmosphere there on primary day is electric.
Now, going forward and going up north to Richland County here and if we take a look at this picture from Yung Choi who has been driving around downtown Columbia and Richland County, we are going to be looking at it carefully later on as the polls close and this is where a populous part of the state and Columbia is and he said very much Hillary versus Obama from what he saw outside of the polling places where people are casting their votes today.
We also have some pictures coming in from Obama supporters who are really organizing get out the vote efforts of their own. They are not affiliated with the campaign, but supporting the campaign and this is from Gary Snyder who says his is an ad hoc group from 40 grass roots volunteers and they have been getting on any phone they can and offering rides to voters and making sure they get out there and they have been doing this since 6:00 a.m. And we will be seeing what the results we are getting in a few minutes. Wolf, we will be watching this at cnnpolitics.com and people can watch us as we breakdown the results and follow along county-by-county as it comes in online at cnnpolitics.com.
Wolf?
BLITZER: Abbi, thank you very much.
What 21 minutes until the polls close in South Carolina, 21 minutes from now, we will know more about what will happen here among the three Democratic president candidates and remember that cnnpolitics.com and you follow the numbers as we get them and that is the place to go.
We will take another quick break and much more coverage of the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And welcome back to the continuing coverage of the South Carolina Democratic primary. We have just about 18 minutes until the polls close, and we anticipate getting some numbers right at the top of the hour, and we are going to bring them to you as soon as we get them and you follow along at home at cnn.com/politics. We've been talking a lot about Hillary Clinton and a lot about Barack Obama but John Edwards, Gloria Borger, he plays an important role tonight. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CORRRESPONDENT: He plays a hugely important role tonight, and I think what you have to look for is how much he draws from Hillary Clinton. When you look at voters in the low income brackets, she has always done well with them, and those are his voters. In this particular race in South Carolina, you have to look and see how John Edwards does with white voters and I also think you have to see how he does with the older voter, because that has been Hillary Clinton's terrain, and if he can beat her on some of those or draw even with her, that is really going to help Barack Obama. He is no friend of Hillary Clinton's in this campaign right now.
COOPER: And some were saying earlier that John Edwards is drawing votes away from Barack Obama.
BORGER: Not the case.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, SENIOR ANALYST: Well, the theory behind that was that Hillary Clinton is the most famous woman in America, and most people have made up their minds about Hillary Clinton and you are either for her or against her and among people who are against her, there are two candidates to choose from and if there were just one candidate to choose from presumably that would do better.
BORGER: But I think it's changed. People are starting to give John Edwards another look now maybe after the CNN debate in which they were battling each other and John Edwards ...
COOPER: In that debate he took the role of trying to rise above.
BORGER: His new line is I am the grownup in that campaign.
KING: Well, I guess we're going to find out how many grownup Democrats there are if that's the case, how big the grownup wing of the Democratic Party is.
COOPER: Send the e-mails to John King.
KING: Look, he is on fumes when it comes to money and he has taken federal matching funds, so even if money were to come in, he is restricted by the federal spending caps and you are going into a blur of states on Super Tuesday and it would be a miracle for him to be put back into the position where he could be Democratic nominee and surprises do happen in politics, but if you have delegate chase now between bitter rivals Clinton and Obama, because they come out of South Carolina not liking and not trusting and worse when it comes to what they think of each other, John Edwards could be a factor and get resources and start getting 15, or 18 or 20 percent as we move on, he has some labor support behind him and if he left the race, a fracture and a changed vote for Edwards is going to Barack Obama, and there are some institutional labor union Democratic voters who might go to Hillary Clinton so that is unclear, that would be state by state the impact of Edwards getting out. But no reason to get out now. If you think this is going to be an extended race much like the Republican side much like on the Republican side about delegates and you can go to the convention or at least get later in the campaign with power.
COOPER: So if you are John Edwards and low on money and on fumes and no matter how you do tonight, you stay in the race.
BORGER: I think you stay in the race. I think the magic number is 15 percent and we will see if he gets a 15 percent threshold, because then he will get some delegates out of South Carolina, and he wants 200 or 300 delegates, because he can make a difference.
TOOBIN: And let's not forget too that John Edwards is a human being with a distinct story and he is not like Joe Biden and Chris Dodd to return to his life. John Edwards, this is his life to be a presidential candidate.
COOPER: He's been doing it a long time.
TOOBIN: And he has been doing for almost 10 years by some reckoning, so he, I think is going to stay in the race, because this is his occupation, and his wife is ill, and I think that, you know, he does not want to go to leave this life.
COOPER: And we are five minutes until the polls close and we are watching the clock very closely and check in with the CNN political contributor Donna Brazile who is in Las Vegas as well as CNN political contributor Bill Bennett. And Donna, John Edwards, his role moving forward?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, John Edwards would say this is the biggest cause of his life. I think that if he comes in third tonight, it is clear that John Edwards will have to do more than just complain about the two front-runners, the celebrity candidates, and he must show and demonstrate he can win. This is about delegates and not just the acrimony and pretending to be the grownup, but tonight, what we will see is a historic turnout across the board.
I spent much of this day in Charleston, and as I went from precinct to precinct people were happy and they were determined to make history tonight, and to go out and vote for what in my judgment one of the candidates did believe can ultimately become president and not many voters carried an Edwards sign or Edwards poster into the polling places.
COOPER: Bill Bennett in Las Vegas, just about every night you have been here during our special coverage I think it was especially after Iowa, Barack Obama better watch his knees and back and how do you think he has faired in the last week against the Clintons?
BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You think I was right, Anderson? Well, he has done all right. Look, he needs more of a back swing, and he doesn't want to get in this gutter fight clearly, but when you saw that debate and saw that he took a punch, and she just hit him with a roundhouse right, it was really something.
He better realize what he is in, and I hope that they are, you know, doing some sparring and they've got some sparring partners, because this is not over. That is from the fight side. On the positive side, if what happens tonight is what we expect, it really is a historic thing. I know Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina primary in the past and kind of symbolic win, but this guy really could be the president of the United States, and that is an important moment in American history, American history, not African American history, American history. And in a Southern state a vote for a black man who could plausibly, very plausibly be president of the united states, and I hope that there is some time if that occurs that everybody steps back top a appreciate it.
BRAZILE: You know, Anderson, when I was in South Carolina I saw many African Americans bringing their kids to the polls and I never saw so many young kids going in with their parents or grandparents and into those voting precincts and there was a tremendous amount of pride and not just at the possibility of supporting the first African American, of course, with a plausible chance of winning, but also the first female and I saw it and heard it from both camps that was a historic day for South Carolina and of course the country.
COOPER: I want to bring in CNN political analyst Amy Holmes who has just joined us. Amy your thoughts about tonight and what are you looking for?
AMY HOLMES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know what? I am going to be looking for the white male in this vote. In all this talk of race and gender and one of the underlying stories that has not gotten attention is both in Iowa and also in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton lost the male vote 60 percent of them went to Obama or Edwards and that is within her own party and heading into a general election should she win the nomination, that is a real problem for her, so I am looking at that.
COOPER: Roland Martin?
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And it seems that Bill Bennett and I get into some kind of fight every primary and I will not say that Jackson winning in '88 was African history, that was indeed American history and a lot of people came into the Democratic Party process because of the Jesse Jackson campaign, and Ron Brown running the DNC and without Reverend Jackson running, you don't have Donna Brazile running Al Gore's campaign in 1992. So let's not say that was African American history. That was indeed American history when he won South Carolina.
COOPER: We're going to take a break. Our coverage continues. Polls closing in 10 minutes from now, we will talk with Bill and with Donna coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN election center and seven minutes to go until the top of the hour, that's when the polls close in South Carolina. The voting stops, and they are still voting and we still have, what, seven minutes or so to go before they stop voting there, and there you will see one live pictures from a polling station that doesn't look like anyone is using those two voting machines right now, but they have been voting, and we have been getting all sorts of conflicting anecdotal evidence and how many people are showing up today and some suggesting could be a record turnout for the Democrats and others suggesting maybe not. We will get the official numbers as they come in. Let's go back to John King and he is looking at the state of South Carolina with some specific, with all of the counties right now white, and none of the shades of blue, but pretty soon, we will see a lot of various shades of blue up there.
KING: We will and see the various shades of blue come in and again, here are the three candidates to familiarize yourself with the colors. Obama with the darker blue in the middle, and Edwards with the lighter blue and Clinton with the lightest blue.
We look at the count, there is obviously nobody up there right now so we have to rest that. This is the entire state, and you mentioned that the polls close soon and generally the results come in fastest from the cities. Richland County, has the capital of Columbia, the significant size of state and also, Wolf, a significant African American population so we will get an early sense as the results come in.
And move back up here, again, Greenville County, another population center, the largest county in the state, almost 10 percent of the population and significant African American population, but also the highest percentage of white voters, registered voters is in Greenville County so we will want to watch that.
That as we shrink back the state down a little more, we have seen this in the various contests the income disparity with the upper income Democrats tending to vote for Barack Obama and lower income voting Democrats tending to vote for Senator Clinton and if you are John Edwards you have to compete in both of those areas to contest and especially in the lower income Democrats, but this is Buford, County, right here. It is only three percent of the state population. This is the most affluent county in South Carolina.
So we will watch how the vote breaks down there to get a sense if there is not only a racial breakdown of the state, and racial disparity, but a an income disparity in the Democratic Party. So we will look at Buford County. And then if you move up just a little bit, Wolf, right up here, missed that by one, down here, and I am off to the counties, let's close down the state and come on in, and right here, Barnwell County and these are the white rural areas on the Georgia border and tend to be the poorer counties, they tend to be the white counties, so if you look along in here, Senator Edwards' strength if he is going to perform well ahead of the polls will come down in here and also right up in here in Seneca and again, another tiny county, but that is where John Edwards is from.
If John Edwards is over performing we will see the counties like this turn to this shade of blue early on and know he is having a strong night and that what he wants to do as the night goes on, but again, the main places you want to watch especially early on, because the voters are going to come in fastest, the Columbia area, the Greenville area, and as we've said all along, down here along the coast, Myrtle Beach, especially Charleston, that we will see if Hillary Clinton is going to do better than she's been doing in the polls, we will see that along the coast. BLITZER: Affluent along the ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. Is that right?
KING: Yes, the most populous county and the second most populous county right here along the ocean, and retirement communities, upper income people and more white people in than African Americans in terms of the Democratic electorate and that is where you will see that there in terms of the income disparity, over here and up here.
BLITZER: We're only a few minutes away. Back to Candy Crowley, she is on the scene, Suzanne Malveaux, is as well. First to you, Candy, give us a little sense of the anticipation and excitement of what you are seeing?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORESPONDENT: Well, I have to tell you they have been to South Carolina for these primaries for some time now. I have not seen this kind of Democratic excitement in a while. Every place you went whether it was a Hillary Clinton event, Barack Obama, even John Edwards as he campaigned through the rural areas that John King was just talking about, there were people on the street, this afternoon waving flags.
I have actually never seen that in South Carolina. So there was a lot of excitement going into this. We don't know how much excitement there is going to be in the general population across South Carolina that maybe are not the political junkies that you see on the street. So some excitement tonight, I have to tell you though, that these candidates are already sort of moving forward even as we speak.
The motorcade getting ready to take Hillary Clinton to get on a plane to go to Tennessee, and Barack Obama is headed to Georgia and John Edwards to North Dakota. So they are moving out of here and what will be will be now and it is totally out of their hands in South Carolina so they want a forward look for those particularly coming out of here badly, they want to start looking ahead and have that picture someplace other than South Carolina.
My -- I suspect however you will hear from the winner while they are in South Carolina, Wolf.
BLITZER: We will be hearing from all three of these Democratic candidates at some point throughout this evening. Stand by Candy, Suzanne Malveaux is over at the Barack Obama headquarters right now is that room beginning to fill up?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Wolf, Barack Obama is at the Hampton Inn in downtown Columbia and he has been resting, relaxing and watching these numbers come in. They are very encouraged and the insiders are I sag that simply this is a coalition that came together and one insider saying that they are showing the Clintons a dose of Southern hospitality and what they wanted to do and what they wanted to accomplish was to essentially get the African American vote, and also if they were able to in some way get a reasonable or sizeable margin of the white vote.
They realize that John Edwards would be rather strong in this state, and that he would siphon off some of that community, but they figured if they could get a good share of that they would be in good shape to move ahead, but clearly this is a win they really needed desperately and the campaign concedes that there were times when they allowed Bill Clinton to divert the message here and really tried to define Barack Obama as the black candidate. They feel that they have overcome that.
Now what they are going to do is to obviously take advantage of it and go to Georgia and Alabama, two Southern states very much a significant African American community and they will rally the base as they did here, but they are also going to have the broad message that this goes beyond race. That is what they are hoping to see tonight. Wolf?
BLITZER: Suzanne, and at some point we will hear from Barack Obama, behind you, and he will be making an address to his supporters, but we have no idea when that is going to be, but they are getting ready for that, is that right?
MALVEAUX: The band is already assembled. They have done some sound checks. So we think it could come fairly soon. Obviously they're looking at these numbers. This has all just happened. They are very excited about it and so it shouldn't a long time from now, Wolf.
BLITZER: We'll be watching very closely not only at Obama headquarters but where Senator Clinton is, where Senator Edwards is. Throughout this night we will be hearing from all these Democratic presidential candidate, some will be winners, at least one of them, but others may project - try to pretend to be a winner as well going forward. Suzanne will be watching all of these. Candy Crowley, we have reporters fanned out throughout these locations.
Thirteen seconds to go before the top of the hour. That's when the polls close. Tell our viewers also this. As these polls close in South Carolina, we are now ready to make a projection.
A strong victory for Barack Obama today in South Carolina.
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