Checking the Pulse

Here's the poster that graced the door to an Obama event at the YMCA today. Clinton may have taken Nevada tonight, but the momentum I'm feeling on the ground in Charleston right now is Obama's -- I'm seeing more functions, more canvassers, etc. (Most polls in the last couple weeks also have him up by anywhere from 6 to 13 points... to be taken with a grain of salt, of course.) That said, Charleston is also a natural fit for Obama. While surely old South, it also homes a lot of transplants and is the most progressive part of the state by most counts, which is part of the reason that one of the state's most active LGBT rights orgs, the Alliance For Full Acceptance (AFFA), is based in Charleston rather than SC's capital, Columbia.

As WNYC commentators say, the following statements are "thoroughly unscientific," but here is what I have found in the field. All of the African American folks I have spoken with thus far either support or lean Obama, without exception. Almost all of the white gay folks I have interviewed support Clinton -- and clearly McClurkin helped to seal the deal on that. I know a couple Edwards supporters, but even they admit that they are in the minority in terms of the LGBT community, most of whom have gone with either Obama or Clinton.

The last line of an Obama radio ad today offered, "It's your world on Saturday the 26th, let's change it." Many in the black community have clearly begun to believe that change is within reach -- along with the white folks and others who made up about 70% of his event at the YMCA today.