Live Blog: Nothing Could be finer than to win in Carolina …

This evening we are following the returns from the Democratic Party voting in South Carolina. At stake are 53 delegates.  This primary is the prelude to Super Tuesday.  All look extremely promising for candidate Hillary Clinton.  Polls close at 7 p.m. EST.

I’m getting this posted a bit early because I will be watching the returns with the Honorable Anthony Foxx–who is President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation— and members of the Krewe of Hillary. Members of the national campaign are beginning to join us here in Louisiana but Texas is the obviously big deal coming up.  Our turn to vote is next Saturday. We’re also one of the expected blowout states.

Sanders was not in South Carolina today. He spent time in Texas and Minnesota.  Two states where polls are showing less than a total blow out.

Sanders is hitting two Super Tuesday states today: He was in Texas earlier and now he’s headed to Minnesota. As a Politico reporter has pointed out, he might miss the networks calling South Carolina. And if Sanders loses the state, Clinton could have to wait for a congratulatory call.

Black voters who are extremely enthused about Hillary make up a solid majority of Democratic voters in the southern state and most southern states.

Black voters account for roughly six in 10 Democratic primary voters in preliminary exit polls reported by ABC New. That would would set a new record: the current record is 55 percent, set in 2008 as then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned — against Clinton herself — to become his party’s first African American nominee.

Exit polls reported by ABC News also showed that a large majority of Democratic voters, fully seven in 10, wanted the next president to continue President Obama’s policies, rather than pursue a more liberal agenda. Sanders has called for a “political revolution” that would enact sweeping liberal policies — including universal, government-run health insurance — beyond what Obama has put in place.

And exit polls showed there had been no surge in young voters, a key part of Sanders’s voting base. In these early polls, younger voters’ current share of the vote in South Carolina was on pace to be the lowest yet in any Democratic primary contest this year.

Racism is a key issue in the primaries in the South.  South Carolina has instituted a voter ID law and that’s only one of the many reasons that the nation’s black voters are eager to find some one with a proven record in promoting racial justice and equality.

Larrie Butler, a 90-year-old African-American man, was born in Calhoun County, South Carolina, at a time when the South was segregated during Jim Crow. He moved to Maryland after serving in the military and attending college, but returned to South Carolina in 2010. He got a voter-registration card and voted in the state in 2010.

In 2011, South Carolina passed a strict new voter-ID law requiring a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. When Butler went to the DMV to switch his driver’s license from Maryland to South Carolina, he was told he needed a birth certificate to confirm his identity. But Butler was born at home, when there were few black hospitals, and never received a born certificate. When he went to the state Vital Records office to get a birth certificate, they said he needed to produce his Maryland driving records and high-school records from South Carolina. After he returned with that information, he was told he needed his elementary-school records, which Butler couldn’t produce because the school was closed. So instead he found his census record, which was not accepted because his first name in the census, Larry, did not exactly match the name he’d used for his entire life, Larrie. He was told to go to court and legally change his name at 85 years old, in order to obtain the birth certificate required to get a driver’s license in South Carolina and also be able to vote.

“It made me feel terrible,” Butler said.

 

Hello from Second Vine! This is my favorite cabinet secretary now! The enthusiasm in the room during Hillary’s victory speech was amazing!