Yes, Virginia, There is Such a Thing as "Post-Racial" Politics: Potomac Primary Shows Obama Winning More White Men, Latino and Women Voters

Fresh from an eight-state winning streak, there is good news, very good news and some possibly excellent news for the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama. First, the obvious:  On the day after sweeping the "Potomac Primary" and winning Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC, the Obama campaign has the momentum. In a campaign where Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and even Mitt Romney--remember him?--were trading victories through Super Tuesday, Barack Obama is the man of the moment.

Then, the very good news. The Illinois junior senator now leads Sen. Hillary Clinton in the number of delegates, pledged and the all-important superdelegates.  CNN reports  Obama now has a total of approximately 1215 delegates (1059 pledged and 156 supers) to Clinton's 1190 delegates (956 and 254). The Associated Press has a slightly different tally, reporting 1223 total delegates for Obama and 1198 for Clinton. They'll figure out the math later--the AP has different numbers of pledged and superd's for each--but the bottom line is Obama is leading by about 25 delegates, and, that becomes key going forward.

Now, the excellent news, which is not in the delegate count or the headlines, but, in the exit poll results from the Virginia primary.  The Obama campaign is cutting into Clinton's bedrock of support among union workers, working class Democrats, women, and, even Latinos, which bode well as the Obama juggernaut heads into Ohio and Texas. These states have primarily blue collar Democrat demographics and are thought to be likely Clinton pickups. Even more importantly, Obama and Clinton and now splitting the white vote.

Sam Stein at The Huffington Post, where you can often find my writing, breaks down Obama's Virginia demographics: "Ninety percent of blacks supported the Senator, as did 66 percent of those under 40-years-of-age. ... He also captured the majority of those voters who make less than $50,000: 59 percent to 40 percent ... [and] narrowly lost the white vote to Clinton, 48 percent to 51 percent, but won the majority of white men in the state, 55 percent to 43 percent. That group, as recently as the South Carolina primary several weeks ago, also seemed firmly in the Clinton camp."

The exit results also indicate Obama won Latinos by a "margin of 55 to 45, though the later made up a small portion" of the Virginia electorate and the survey sample. Latinos make up only  4 percent of the Virginia primary, but, more than 20 percent of the Democratic electorate in Texas, so, take those results with a grain of salt.  The takeaway is that Obama may be gaining traction among Hispanic voters--throughout the election cycle he has underperformed among Latinos, even in the Illinois primary, which he won; Obama managed to capture about half of the Latino vote.

Winning working class Democrats and those who make under $50K was the appetizer. The inroads with Latinos, well, that was just a small taste of things to come, perhaps, so that's the dessert. The main course was Obama's pickups among female voters. Progressive and feminist blogger Taylor Marsh: "It's hard to imagine last night being worse for Clinton. Losses were expected, but these numbers have to be tough for the Clinton team to swallow. The worst news for Clinton, according to CNN's figures, is that he cut in to her base of women, according to exit polls. Clinton did win white women by around 10 points in Virginia, 13 points in Maryland, though that's a lot less than Super Tuesday when her margin was 25%."

None of this means the nomination will be wrapped up for Obama. Indeed the going forward will be tougher for both Obama and Clinton, for entirely different reasons. But the Obama campaign demonstrated in Virginia, once the capital of the Confederacy, that white men and women are now attracted to his campaign in record numbers. Yes, Virginia is for lovers--but it's also the unlikely home of a new era in post-racial politics.