To paraphrase the great Southern poetry collective, Lynyrd Skynyrd, "There's good people in South Carolina !"

Of course Bill Clinton has an interesting point when he says that Jesse Jackson is a previous winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary, and ignores an even more important one when he skips the reality that Hillary Clinton enjoyed a healthy lead over Barack Obama in the state only weeks ago. Given that Hillary got thumped by about 28 points, the scientific reality is that 1 out of every 3 South Carolina Democrats have abandoned Ms Clinton in those short, important weeks since Iowa .

I said before the South Carolina primary that a Barack win of 7 or 8 points would even the race, and that beyond that it didn't matter much if it was 10 or 15, as polls suggested. 28 is obviously nicer, but in the big picture I'm not sure that it's all that much better than 7 or worse than 70. It's a big, serious, solid win.

What's more important than those numbers, right now, are (1) message, (2) electability, (3) momentum, and (4) organization. If there's an edge in momentum you would have to give it to Obama at this point, but it's probably a negligible one. In a similar sense, Hillary has all the deep pockets support that money can buy, but Obama's not exactly mendicant, and organization is probably the single most over-rated factor in a Presidential campaign (in the '92 Brown campaign I had our Vermont campaign being run by a 17 year old kid from Colorado--he was staying in the YMCA, best ground floor room where he could jump out the window to answer the pay phone outside, which was how I contacted him. We beat Clinton there by 4-to-1).

No, the big issues to come out of South Carolina were…ok, you just know that this being me speaking that one of them is Ronald Reagan. The other one's Bill Clinton.

Ronald Reagan

Everyone knows that I consider President Reagan the worst president in the history of the United States . An argument can certainly be made that George W Bush is even worse, but he couldn't have existed without Reagan's corporate revolution.

He was terrible on virtually every issue, but the worst is that Ronald Reagan presided over colossal shifts in the tectonic plates of American politics…changes of a magnitude all but unimaginable in these days when changes have been incremental to the extent that they have occurred at all.

So Reagan was a disaster, but he was a mensch! He was not the laughing matter that so many of his opponents thought, immediately prior to being steamrolled. He did not conduct his affairs in response to public opinion polls, he did not publicly sniffle when things went a little bit bad, and he begged no quarter. He was an adversarial president in many ways, and certainly a divisive one, and a wildly unpopular one during his final days, but the fact that he changed American politics in a truly historic manner cannot be denied.

It must also be said that the largely misunderstood "Reagan legacy" was easily revived. As I told anyone who would listen at the time, the Democrats (including myself, then) had to impeach the bastard and run him out of town on a rail like the dog he was. Instead, in the gutless manner that has typified Democratic politics over the past couple decades, Reagan was allowed to limp off into the sunset. Where he regrouped with a coterie of historical revisionists, and promptly morphed into something bigger and grander than he had ever even conceivably been.

However misplaced their affections-and however much they confuse his real legacy with his rhetoric-there are millions and millions of Americans to whom the memory of Reagan is the embodiment of every great thing about America, something as genuine and nurturing as the land. In an era in which matters for Americans to be proud of have been (not incidentally, I think) in short supply, for many, many, many Americans, Reagan is it.

How ironic, then, that when Barack Obama praised Reagan's ability to enact policies and motivate people, he was immediately attacked by the Clintons, who do neither. After all, what was President Clinton, if not a pale imitation caretaker for the Reagan revolution, whose principal achievement was to preside over the emasculation of the Democratic party?

The primary effect of the Clintons ' "Reagan attacks" on Obama is to render Hillary less electable should she win the Democratic nomination.

Bill Clinton

President Clinton has remained popular, but in a much different way. I have never met anyone who enthused over what a great President Clinton was, never, not one. I have often, however…I would go as far as to say that most people seem to think that Bill did "alright given the circumstances," or "was about as good as we could have hoped for at that time," or "could have been worse." The most enthusiastic Clinton supporters that I've met along the years were those who claimed that he stood for more honourable things than he publicly admitted, but maintained a façade of moderation to the extent of a nearly sedentary somnambulism-extraordinary in its own way, I guess-in order to ensure electability. Those people were as disappointed after electing him as I was unsurprised.

Early numbers suggest that Hillary got her ass kicked even worse in areas of South Carolina where her husband campaigned.

Bill has been the attack dog in the new and apparent Clinton strategy of labelling Obama "the Black candidate." This is hardly a well designed strategy for getting out the vote in the most loyally Democratic demographic of the entire country, should Hillary manage to obtain the Democratic nomination. Unlike Obama, who has made good on his claim to electability by engaging previously disengaged voters (another record turnout in South Carolina), Hillary's electoral strategy would have to turn on another one of those elections where 12% of the country think she's a good enough idea to X a box (half of eligible won't register, more than half of registered won't vote, almost half vote for the other guy). That's not a strong claim to being an agent of change, though she continues to assure us that she really is one.

Other than Obama's healthy margin of victory, the main story out of South Carolina is probably Hillary's self-inflicted wound to her greatest strength: her previously almost-credible claim to being a strong woman (if not militantly feminist) candidate. South Carolina found her running behind her husband, asking him to make the stronger sort of comments that she couldn't or wouldn't bring from herself. The result appears to be along the lines that the more people looked at the Clintons, the more they remembered what a sham of a marriage it so often appears to be, and reminded them how sick they were of Bill by the time that they finally got rid of him.

Hillary's credentials as a standard-bearer for anything strong and relating to women have been destroyed by her own hand, though they were never particularly strong in the first place. "Don't worry," her actions tell us, "when the going gets tough I'll ask the boys for help." She's used her husband in a way that Elizabeth Dole and other successful spouses have not. This is not about having a famous husband, it's about looking to one for intellectual cover.

None of this is to say that the Clintons are stupid people, or that any political lesson is lost on them. No, I fully expect Hillary to move towards rehabilitating her image in its tarnished areas--by finally serving the doofus his divorce papers! "See, see?! I am the candidate of change!" she'll shrill.

The Race Card

Barack Obama, more famously than myself, is of mixed racial heritage. Black father from Kenya , white mother from Kansas , I believe. My own blond-haired blue eyed presentation results from a lot of British/American blood, a great deal of Scotch-Irish, substantial servings of French, German, and Dutch, a few Italians and American Indians, and one Black guy.

In recognition of Mr Obama's outstanding policies, his extraordinary integrity, and his willingness to throw an elbow upon only the most extreme provocation…in honour of our shared genetic heritage…it is my distinct honour to proclaim Mr Obama the best white candidate in the race.

No more politics, I want to go home.

Yeah more politics, back to the politics page