State votes for Obama

The Sun Herald, 3/12/8

Barack Obama coasted to victory in Mississippi’s Democratic primary Tuesday, the latest in a string of racially polarized presidential contests across the Deep South and a final tune-up before next month’s high-stakes race with Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania.

Obama was winning roughly 90 percent of the black vote but only about one-quarter of the white vote, extending a pattern that carried him to victory in earlier primaries in South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.

His triumph seemed unlikely to shorten a Democratic marathon expected to last at least six more weeks – and possibly far longer – while Republicans and their nominee-in-waiting, Sen. John McCain, turn their attention to the fall campaign.