What’s the Matter With California?Paul Hogarthbyline‚ Feb. 06‚ 2008Last night, Barack Obama accomplished what no insurgent presidential candidate has ever done: survive Super Tuesday. The Illinois Senator did so by amassing a broad coalition of blacks, liberals and red-state Democrats – paying off dividends across the country except in California. Hillary Clinton’s ten-point win here exceeded expectations, and such baffling returns will keep progressives guessing for days what went wrong in the Golden State. Clinton won in part because she got a large share of support from white women and Latinos – her traditional base – as well as from Asian-Americans. But Obama also got slaughtered in the Central Valley and other conservative parts of the state – defying the national trend, and confining his base to San Francisco and other liberal coastal counties. The state’s electorate was also very conservative when it came to Propositions: voters approved 4 anti-labor Indian gaming compacts, sunk a measure to fund community colleges, and (while it’s good news for progressives that Prop 93 failed) kept the status quo for term limits. |