Vote 2008: Live-Blog

Okay, so Obama didn’t pull off an upset in Indiana. But the race ends where it began two weeks ago, making it that much harder for Clinton to argue Obama withers under scrutiny. Some interesting things in the numbers: Obama won the suburbs of Indianapolis. I was there last week and the area seemed to be trending to Clinton, on the experience issue. The areas a bit like Silicon Valley, where Clinton won. But I’m wondering if the “us vs. them” argument Clinton was making on the gas tax holiday issue, and her eschewing of economists, caused a mini-backlash in those affluent (might I say elite?) areas. Also interesting (and possible evidence for a backlash) in the IN results: Obama won, narrowly on the who’s most like me question in IN, and won handily on the who’s more trustworthy question.

It’s almost over. 93.3 percent of delegates are pledged. This am, on The Takeaway, the Clinton campaign’s Howard Wolfson almost seemed to sigh as he acknowledged the steep hill ahead of them. More later — tune into Brian and I (or download the podcast) as we discuss more at 10:00 am.

Wow, interesting evening. As of 10:12 pm, Clinton is ahead by about 30,000 votes in IN, and the Gary numbers haven’t come in. I was in Gary last week, and it’s almost entirely African American. Indianapolis went for Obama, but Gary will be more so. There are 84,000 people in Gary, enough to really tighten this thing.

One interesting thing, in Gary, the Obama voters said they’d still vote for Clinton. But in southern Indiana the white working class voters were far less willing to consider Obama.

Sorry all — been spending much time with the hosts and no so much on the blog. So remainders — I think the white male vote for Hillary is significant, and counterintuitive. But based on my week in Indiana, the role of racism in this can’t be discounted.

Obama is on now, congratulating Clinton on an Indiana win even before many new outlets have called it.

The margin in Indiana looks to be (if it holds) big enough to give Clinton arguing rights, but far from enough to upend the race. La lucha continua….