Peggy Simpson worked 17 years for the Associated Press, in Texas and Washington, D.C.; covered economics and politics for the Hearst Newspapers, served as Washington bureau chief for Ms. magazine and reported on Eastern Europe's transition from communism to a Democratic market economy, as a freelancer during the 1990s. She has taught at Indiana University, George Washington University and at the American Studies Center at Warsaw University. She currently is a freelance writer in Washington.

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WMC Exclusive: In Mississippi Primary, Race Divide Widens  by Peggy Simpson

March 12, 2008

Senators Obama and Clinton. Some Rights Reserved.

Black Mississippians helped give Barack Obama a resounding victory over Hillary Clinton Tuesday comprising half of all voters and choosing him by more than 90 percent. The story of his victory in the race to become the Democratic presidential nominee faced tough competition in a political media distracted by the Elliot Spitzer sex scandal.

Overall, 60 percent of the Mississippi voters chose Obama, with 37 percent going for Clinton.

Clinton did well with white Protestants and with Catholics. She won white men by a 68-30 margin, white women by 71-23. Obama took the majority of women, 58-39. He won 94 percent of black men, 90 percent of black women.

The exit polls turned up some interesting nuggets, including the fact that 12 percent of voters in the Democratic primary were Republicans, choosing Clinton by 75-25, and 17 percent were independents, choosing Obama by a far closer margin, 53-43.

In some recent primaries including Texas, Republicans organized to vote in the Democratic primary for the person they thought would be beatable against GOP Senator John McCain. That might have been the case with Mississippi Republicans. But independents hedged their bets far more than in earlier primaries, denting the Obama argument that in November Clinton could not keep the votes of independents Obama had attracted in the primaries.

And, speaking of McCain, who easily won the Republican primary in Mississippi: exit polls of voters in the Democratic primary gave him a 59-38 unfavorable rating.

The impact of former President Bill Clinton also could be seen from the exit polls. A third of voters thought he had helped his wife’s campaign, exactly the same proportion as those who thought he had hurt it. But Bill Clinton’s race-related remarks on the eve of the South Carolina primary may have had a more toxic effect on black voters.  Of those who said he had hurt Hillary’s campaign, 75 percent were Obama voters.

The pollsters also let voters get in on one of the burning questions today: whether the Democratic primary nominee should choose the loser as running mate, to keep the party unified in November.
Yes, the majority said. But within that, there were clear differences. If Clinton became the nominee, 56 percent said she should choose Obama as her running mate—with 74 percent of Obama voters saying yes but only 26 percent of Clinton voters agreeing. If Obama were the nominee, 54 percent said he should choose Clinton as his sidekick—with 64 percent of Obama voters but only 35 percent of Clinton voters favoring this outcome.

Another key question measuring the irritation factor between the campaigns, as they go into the final stretch with no one having a lock on enough delegates to win, dealt with how voters would feel about the ultimate winner.

A total of 58 percent said they would be satisfied with Clinton as nominee, including 43 percent of Obama voters. A total of 69 percent said they would be satisfied with Obama as nominee, including only 15 percent of Clinton voters.

The Mississippi primary played out against a backdrop of yet more accusations involving race and gender. A top Obama foreign policy campaign advisor, Samantha Powers, was fired after telling a Scottish newspaper that Clinton was “a monster.” This week, Geraldine Ferraro got into hot water for saying that “if Barack Obama had been a white man, he would not be in this position and if he were a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. But he happens to be very lucky to be who he is and the country is caught up in the concept.”

Amid the indignation within the Obama camp, some staffers said that comment was worse than Powers’ “monster” remark about Clinton, calling for Ferraro’s ouster from the Clinton campaign hierarchy. Ferraro, the 1984 vice presidential nominee and a former congresswoman, is a super delegate for Clinton.

Clinton herself brushed off the controversy, and said of Ferraro’s comments, “I don’t agree with that.” Ferraro told ABC Wednesday morning that she was “absolutely not” sorry for what she said but that her comments had been “taken so out of context and have been spun by the Obama campaign as racist that it’s doing precisely what they don’t want done,” which is to divide the Democratic Party even more.

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