Richard Whalen

Is America ready for a black President? Barack Obama’s 10 straight primary victories with an average margin of 33 percent tell me Democrats are very decidedly for Obama because of what he represents. And he represents what everybody wants -- change. People may lie to pollsters but votes don’t lie.

And so, we have entered into a new era in our electoral history -- “Identity Politics” – where voters have turned a deaf ear to Hillary Clinton’s criticisms about Obama’s lack of authenticity and his inexperience. They don’t care.

In Wisconsin, Obama made serious inroads into Clinton’s once-stalwart women voters, increasing his margin to 49 percent from his Super Tuesday’s 43 percent. Similarly, among Clinton’s low and middle income voters, Obama increased his margin 54 percent versus 42 percent won Super Tuesday. And in another significant turnaround, according to an exit poll conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool, one third of voters in the Democratic primary came from union households and they split their votes evenly between Clinton and Obama.

Speaking of unions, consider the surprising boost for Obama by the once Republican-oriented International Brotherhood of Teamsters. After the dramatic Teamsters’ move, labor leaders said, “Change to Win,” a five-million-member coalition of unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. were expected to vote February 21 to endorse Obama. This will be especially important in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

This major endorsement puts the obvious question squarely on the table: how bad is Hillary’s present situation? Is it downhill from now on? The stark truth is that she does not simply need to win Ohio and Texas. She needs delegates to catch up with Obama and she also needs to win double-digit victories to close the gap. (The pledged total now stands: Obama – 1319, Clinton – 1250.) Can she pull it off? I don’t think so.

Her strategy is falling apart, her voice is becoming shriller and shriller and her sharpened attacks and advertisements against Obama are not working. And is she getting a bit too testy? Speaking in Ohio after the Wisconsin polls closed, she did not even mention the Wisconsin results! But then the networks decided to cut off her speech to cover Obama’s 45-minute victory speech in Texas, where he proclaimed: “Houston, I think we’ve achieved a liftoff here.”

Yes, his speech was too long and we heard it all because the networks have picked a winner, along with the rest of change-minded Americans.

Do you think Hillary got the message?