To understand the scope of Barack Obama's big victory in South Carolina on Saturday, consider this. Obama not only defeated Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin, he also won more votes in the South Carolina primary than Republican frontrunners John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined. Yes, that is not a misprint.

Democratic turnout was incredibly strong in this Republican state, indicating that the Democrats are much more excited about the race and their candidates than the Republicans were a week before. A record 530,000 Democrats voted Saturday, nearly 100,000 more than in last week's Republican primary.

Obama's numbers in this red state also suggested that he might be able to assemble a national multiracial coalition in the fall general election campaign that could compete and win in some southern states traditionally won by Republicans. About as many South Carolina white men voted for Obama as for Clinton, and about 70 percent of white voters said they would be satisfied if Obama won the Democratic nomination, according to exit polls reported in the New York Times today.

The news also spelled trouble for Clinton, whose campaign was widely criticized by fellow Democrats for negative attacks. "If the South Carolina result buoyed the Obama team, it left Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign facing a new set of questions," the New York Times reported. "Her advisers’ steady attacks on Mr. Obama appeared to prove fruitless, if not counterproductive, and the attack-dog role of former President Bill Clinton seemed to have backfired."

Perhaps as a result of the negative campaigning and their enthusiasm for a viable African American candidate, black voters in South Carolina abandoned the Clintons after years of loyalty. Even black women, a targeted constituency by both campaigns, voted overwhelmingly for Obama. "More than half of black voters in the state said the country was definitely ready for a black president, while only about a quarter of white voters reached the same conclusion," the Times reported. That's a dramatic turnaround from other polls that had shown that blacks were less likely than whites to believe America was ready for a black president.

It was a stunning victory for Obama that exceeded all expectations. With Clinton and Obama now tied with 2 wins each, the battle turns to the delegate count and the Super Tuesday election on February 5. If Hillary Clinton hoped to surprise or startle Obama in South Carolina, she failed. If Obama hoped to prove himself in that state, he more than succeeded.

Just finished watching the South Carolina debate and I have a few quick observations. I thought the first hour was a hot mess. Clinton and Obama spent a good deal of time throwing mud at each other, and I don't think it helped either of them. John Edwards also played a critical role, at one point teaming up with Clinton against Obama, especially on the question of his voting "present" more than 100 times in the Illinois state senate. But Edwards didn't hold back against Clinton either and he took her on as well.

The nastiest exchange of the entire debate took place when Senator Obama charged that he was working as a community organizer while Clinton was a corporate lawyer on the board of Wal-Mart. Clinton fired back by saying that she was working against the Republicans when Obama was a lawyer representing a slumlord in Chicago. Score one point for each candidate.

It's a hard task for Obama to maintain his stature as a good guy while he has to roll in the mud with the Clintons. That's exactly where Hillary Clinton wants him to be. As long as Obama can float above the fray, she can't attack him effectively. But when she brings him down to the ground, she pounces like a tiger.

Personally, I'd like to see a mix of the two candidates' styles. I'd like to see a visionary candidate like Obama who can inspire us as Americans to a higher calling. But I'd also like to see a candidate who can win in November and is capable of fighting aggressively against the conservative smear machine.

The second hour of the debate was a bit more subdued and polite in comparison to the first, but there were still some lively exchanges at times. I have mixed feelings about the nasty tone of the debate. On the one hand, it may turn off Democrats and provide ammunition for Republicans. On the other hand, the Democrats need to be prepared for the low blow attacks of the Republicans in the fall.

What started out as a potential train wreck, however, ended up being a mere fender bender. All the candidates handled themselves very well and revealed their strengths and weaknesses in the debate. In fact, I felt proud of all three candidates when it ended. Edwards impressed me for the first time in a long time. Clinton showed why she's such a strong fighter who can take on the Republicans. And Obama showed that he's the guy who can transcend the divisions of the past and build unity.

Democracy is sometimes ugly, as it was tonight, but it's worthwhile.

Two weeks after the election, analysts are still scratching their heads trying to come up with an explanation for the stunning disparity between the pre-primary polls and the final results in the New Hampshire primary.

The prevailing theory seems to blame the problem on the unusually large number of undecided voters who made up their minds at the last minute. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won that group.

Opinion polls have over-counted support for black candidates in several closely watched elections over the years. This problem first surfaced when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley lost his 1982 bid to become California’s first black governor. The polls showed Bradley, a Democrat, with double-digit leads, but he was defeated by white Republican George Deukmejian. The phenomenon became known as "the Bradley effect."

In 1989 we saw it again. The two most famous examples of the disparity between poll numbers and election results took place with two African American candidates who actually won. Douglas Wilder narrowly defeated white Republican Marshall Coleman in the 1989 Virginia governor’s race after pre-election polls and one exit poll showed him with double-digit leads. On the same day, David Dinkins narrowly beat white Republican Rudy Giuliani by two points in the New York City mayor’s race after leading by 18 points in a newspaper poll a week before the election.

The polling disparity doesn’t always show up on election day. In the last major election cycle in 2006, the polls accurately predicted two of the most closely watched races with African American candidates. Black Democrat Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. narrowly lost to white Republican Bob Corker in the Tennessee Senate race, and black Democrat Deval Patrick easily defeated white Republican Kerry Healey, just as the polls had predicted.

And then there’s Iowa. ABC News polling director Gary Langer pointed to the accuracy of this year’s Iowa polls as evidence that race is not a likely factor in disparities between the polls and results in New Hampshire. “There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate,” Langer argued. “And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls,” he said.

Similarly, Frank Newport at Gallup seems to dismiss the possibility of a racial gap and again points to Iowa as proof. “Discrepancies between pre-election polls and the actual vote for black candidates, in fact, are certainly not the norm," he writes. "This year, as an example, the pre-election polls in Iowa were very accurate in relationship to Obama's actual vote in the caucuses.”

Both pollsters make good points, but Iowa is not New Hampshire. The Iowa polls may have been accurate because Iowans vote in public caucuses. The New Hampshire polls may not have been accurate because primary voters cast their ballots in private.

Two weeks ago Jon Stewart interviewed pollster John Zogby on “The Daily Show,” and the issue of race never came up as a possible explanation for the polling failure. Zogby cited the 18 percent of New Hampshire voters who made up their minds at the last minute as a possible reason.

But Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, challenged that logic. Among the voters who said they made their decision on election day , Clinton’s margin of victory was “very small,” Kohut wrote in the New York Times. Clinton won 39 percent of the late deciders while 36 percent went for Obama, a gap which Kohut says is “too narrow to explain the wide lead for Mr. Obama that kept showing up in pre-election polls.”

Kohut is one of the few pollsters who seems willing to acknowledge the possibility of a race-based explanation. The others seem to dismiss the idea before giving it any serious consideration.

Race may be the answer, or maybe it’s not. At this point we just don’t know if race was a factor in the polling disparity. But it’s too early to dismiss the possibility. This is an unprecedented election. With no incumbent from either party, a viable black candidate, a viable woman candidate, a viable Mormon candidate, and incredibly high voter interest and turnout, the 2008 election is taking the country into uncharted territory.

Since Saturday's Nevada election was a caucus, South Carolina will be the first Democratic primary since New Hampshire. Barack Obama is widely expected to do well in South Carolina with the help of high black voter participation. But going into Super Tuesday on February 5, we will really get to put the polls to the test. Will the polls accurately predict the outcome in states where Obama is predicted to do well, or will the people tell the pollsters what they think they want to hear?

America has made considerable progress in race relations in the past 50 years, and many of us would like to think that race doesn’t matter. We’ve elected black governors and senators, and appointed black cabinet members, diplomats and military officers at the highest levels of government. But the principle of racial equality has yet to be tested at the highest level of public office.

If we really want to know how race affects politics, we need not jump to conclusions either way. Instead, we should observe the upcoming state primaries and carefully watch what voters say to the pollsters.

And then watch what they do.

Is it just me, or is race suddenly becoming an issue in the presidential campaign that it wasn't before Barack Obama won Iowa?

Last week, former Bush political strategist Karl Rove described Obama's unfortunate "you're likable enough" remark to Hillary Clinton at the New Hampshire presidential debate as "trash talking" that he said "was an unattractive carryover from his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard."

Over the weekend, BET founder and Clinton supporter Bob Johnson attacked Barack Obama for his past drug use, a subject the Clinton campaign said they didn't want to bring up when another supporter raised it a few weeks ago.

Johnson said he was insulted by the Obama campaign's complaints that the Clintons had been playing the "race card" before New Hampshire when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that it took President Lyndon Johnson to fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King's dream and former President Bill Clinton said Obama's Iraq storyline was a "fairy tale."

"As an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved,” said Johnson.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised that Bob Johnson would be more insulted by Barack Obama's inspiring campaign than by the degrading, sexist and homophobic booty-shaking videos he ran on his network for 20 years. And if I recall correctly, our last two presidents each have a little history with illegal substances. Why is this an issue?

Then today the right-wing New York Post reported that Obama and his wife Michelle entered into his Iowa victory party on January 3 as Jay-Z's rap song "99 Problems" was blaring. In the song, Jay-Z reportedly says, "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one."

Before Iowa, Barack Obama was the magical black guy who transcends race. Now he's becoming the drug using, rap-singing, basketball-playing black guy who likes to beat up on white women as he shucks and jives his way to the White House.

What's going on here?

They said it would never happen. They said the Clintons were politically dead and would never recover from a huge loss in Iowa and the projected loss in New Hampshire. But something funny happened on the way to the nomination tonight. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton upset Barack Obama by pulling out a stunning victory. The polls were completely wrong, and at the end of the day, the pundits were left scratching their heads.

Last month I predicted Barack Obama would win New Hampshire and Hillary Clinton would win Iowa. As it turns out, I had it completely backwards. But oddly enough, I predicted the Republican result completely accurately in both Iowa and New Hampshire. I predicted Huckabee, Romney and McCain would finish first, second and third in Iowa and McCain, Romney and Huckabee would finish first, second and third in New Hampshire. Maybe I'm too close to the Democratic field to make objective analysis.

The speeches Tuesday night set the tone for the race to come. Edwards vowed to fight onto the convention and be a voice for the 48 states that had not spoken and for the millions of Americans whose voices are seldom heard in politics. Obama spoke next and articulated an upbeat message of hope for the future of his campaign with the theme "Yes we can." And then came Hillary.

Hillary Clinton said exactly what she needed to say. She said that by listening to the voices of the people of New Hampshire she was able to find her own voice. That's not only a powerful message but a powerful narrative that suggests she heard what the critics had to say. So she decided to be herself, she took over her campaign, she let herself (almost) cry, and she tapped into the women's vote in a way that the old, cold Hillary Clinton of Iowa could never do. She even kicked Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Wesley Clark off the stage for the victory speech and filled it with young people who represent the future of America. New Hampshire provided dramatic political theater and it had the potential to become a defining and transformative moment for Clinton's campaign.

If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she can look back at the New Hampshire primary as the place where she began to turn it around. And if Barack Obama should lose the nomination, he might point to New Hampshire also. I find it very odd and troubling that the polls were so far off in projecting the outcome of the Democratic race, and immediately I thought about the history of polling when black candidates run for office. But no matter what happened with the polls in New Hampshire, we have a good old fashioned race on our hands.

There will be no coronation of Saint Barack or Queen Hillary this year. Instead, the Democrats will get what they deserve -- a fair chance to evaluate several good candidates and decide which one they like the best.

I watched both the Republican and Democratic debates and I didn't see a clear winner in either one.

On the Democratic side, I thought all the candidates were competent and strong. I loved the part at the end when they talked about what mistakes they had made during the campaign in previous debates. It was also interesting that Edwards and Obama seemed to team up on the left (literally and figuratively) on the change side and Clinton and Richardson, when he wasn't busy pounding on the table, seemed to team up on the right (literally and figuratively) on the experience side. When did experience become a leper, Richardson asked.

On the Republican side, Romney was the focus of much of the attention and criticism, but John McCain curiously didn't speak up much. All the Republicans, except for maybe Ron Paul, were far too conservative for me. It seems they only talk about fear-based issues like national security, 9/11, "Islamofascism," terrorism and illegal immigration.

Ironically, Romney made the same argument for himself earlier in the day (or the day before). "We cannot afford Barack Obama as the next president. He's a nice fella and a very well-spoken fella, but he's never done it," Romney said in Derry, New Hampshire. That almost makes sense except Romney has never done it before either. For that matter, none of the candidates has "done it before." The best qualification for president is simply to be president, and nobody running for president has done that before.

The most disturbing comment of both debates was when Romney talked about health insurance. Apparently he believes the millions of Americans without health insurance are simply deadbeats who want to live off the government. "The reason health care isn't working like a market right now is because you have 47 million people who say 'I'm not going to play. I'm just going to get free health care paid for by everybody else.' That doesn't work," Romney said.

The night belonged to Barack Obama. Mike Huckabee won the Republican vote in the Iowa caucuses, but the night really belonged to Obama. After a long hard fight, Obama emerged on top with a strong victory over his two closest rivals, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

It was also a night about change. A record 220,000 Democrats showed up at the caucuses to cast their public ballots in the election. When all the votes were counted, Obama won convincingly, carrying most of the 99 counties in the state, winning on all the major issues that the voters cared about, and even carrying the women's vote against a formidable woman candidate.

To see my law school classmate standing on the stage as the first African American ever to win the Iowa Caucuses made me extremely proud. I felt proud to be a black man and proud to be an American tonight. "They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high," Obama began his speech. "But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do."

Let me be clear. This campaign is not over. Senator Hillary Clinton raised $100 million last year, she's ahead in most of the polls, and she still has the counsel of the former president, who many consider to be the best politician in the Democratic Party. But Clinton will have her work cut out for her if she hopes to win. I like Hillary Clinton. I have never been one of the Clinton haters, and I would be happy to have her as president. But I would be excited if Barack Obama won the presidency.

The Iowa vote seems to indicate that the public wants change. Even on the Republican side, Huckabee's victory over the well-funded Romney campaign was a sign that many GOP voters are unhappy with the direction of the country and eager for new leadership.

John Edwards said that the message tonight was that the two candidates who thought they could buy the election were wrong. I assume he's referring to Romney and Clinton, and if that's the case his message makes some sense, although the Obama campaign actually spent more money in Iowa than any other candidate in the race. But Edwards is not the future. He's a good man with a good heart, but he said nothing last night to convince me to vote for him.

For her part, Hillary Clinton tried to spin the election results as a victory for the entire Democratic Party. With Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and New York's African American Lieutenant Governor David Patterson behind her, Clinton looked optimistic but sounded like she was prepared for the possibility of losing when she spoke of a "Democrat" in the White House in 2009.

If Obama was the best speaker of the night, then Huckabee was clearly the most humorous and quotable. "This election is not about me, it's about we," he said. With Chuck Norris at his side, Huckabee echoed Edwards's theme when he said the election proved that "people really are more important than the purse." Huckabee was significantly outspent by Romney, who used his speech to invoke the memory of his Olympic experience and claim that he had "won the silver" medal.

Last month I predicted that Clinton and Huckabee would win the Iowa caucuses, and I was only half right. I got the Republican side right but I completly misread the Democratic side. I also predicted that Obama and McCain would win New Hampshire. I still believe that will happen -- McCain was already in New Hampshire last night -- but now that Clinton has lost Iowa, a second consecutive defeat could spell the beginning of the end of her campaign.

Already last night two Democrats, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, announced that they were dropping out of the race. Soon I expect Richardson may drop out too. This has always been a 2- or 3-person race on the Democratic side between Obama, Clinton and Edwards. But Clinton and Obama have much more money than Edwards and I'm not sure he can last very long without picking up a victory somewhere, and I have no idea where that will happen.

Anything can happen in politics, and there's always a risk in predicting the future. But for the first time ever, Americans tonight saw the real possibility that a black man could be elected president of the United States. At the end of a long night, the one impression that stayed with me was a simple line from Barack Obama. Tonight, he said, "America remembers what it means to hope."

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