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Does Kern have a Democrat divide?

ANALYSIS: The Obama camp struggled to win Hispanic votes locally and in much of the U.S.

BY JAMES GELUSO, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jgeluso@bakersfield.com | Wednesday, Feb 6 2008 10:16 PM

Last Updated: Thursday, Feb 7 2008 11:32 AM

The day after Super Tuesday, lingering questions remained: What happened? And now what? Democrat Hillary Clinton’s stomping of Barack Obama — both statewide and in Kern County, where she got 57 percent of the vote — caught many by surprise.

“I really, really thought Obama would do better,” said Candi Easter, chairwoman of the Kern County Democratic Central Committee. “I don’t know why that is. There’s a lot of excitement in Kern County about Obama, and yet it didn’t show up at the polls.”

She guessed Latino voters preferred Clinton even though high-profile local Latinos such as state Sen. Dean Florez of Shafter and Assemblywoman Nicole Parra of Hanford came out for Obama.

“Maybe they just couldn’t overcome the prejudice they’ve got going,” she said.

That’s not it, Florez said.

He said there’s a generational gap in the Latino community where elders look back fondly on “the Clinton years” while younger ones tend to think about the future. Younger Latinos, especially college-educated, have had more exposure to blacks, Florez said.

And older Latinos, he said, outnumbered younger ones at the polls.

“Nicole Parra and I supported Obama. Nicole’s dad and my mom supported Hillary Clinton. Nothing to do with racism whatsoever,” Florez said.

Local Republican consultant Stan Harper said the high number of early voters may have benefited Clinton because Obama was said to be surging late.

Of the ballots counted Tuesday night, 49 percent were mailed in, said Kern County elections chief Sandy Brockman.

Mark Abernathy, another GOP consultant, credited Bill Clinton. He said the former president’s comments after Obama won South Carolina reminded the nation that Obama is black, exploiting a divide between Latino and black Democrats.

Obama is getting the black vote and white male vote, Abernathy said, while Clinton is getting votes from Latinos and white women. And women make up 60 percent of voters in most Democratic primaries, he said.

Bakersfield High School teacher Ken Hooper, who worked on Obama’s campaign here, said the Obama camp succeeded by getting some delegates and preventing a Clinton shut-out in California. Most voters went for Clinton because they know her, while Obama had to be introduced.

“When we were able to do that, we had success,” he said. “I don’t know if we weren’t effective or not, but I know we couldn’t reach the entire county.”

MORMON OR MILITARY

On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain beat Mitt Romney 36 percent to 34 percent in Kern County, despite talk radio hosts and others touting Romney as a more “true conservative.”

“Mitt Romney lost in Kern County because there were a lot of people who just could not accept his Mormon religion,” said Jack Duncan, executive director of the Kern County Republican Party. “I don’t even like to think about it, but that’s what I believe.”

That may have only swung 10 percent of voters, he said, but that was enough to tip the balance.

Karen DeWalt, former chairwoman of the county party, was confounded by McCain’s win. She said his military background — he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Romney has no military service — was probably a factor.

HUCKABEE'S TRACTION

Republican Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor, won five Southern states Tuesday, but only 16 percent of Kern’s vote.

“For those who might prefer a candidate who had strong Christian values, of which I’m one, there’s just the fact that we don’t know him well enough,” Abernathy said.

Harper said Huckabee’s weak finish in California versus the South reflects that religious Californians are less likely to take their political cues from their church.

WHAT'S NEXT

Abernathy sees McCain wrapping up the Republican nomination by the middle of next week. And then, he said, conservative talk radio hosts who have attacked McCain will take a week or so to lick their wounds — then start finding good things about McCain.

“One good thing about McCain, he will fight the Islamoterrorists, and he will fight that war and win that war,” Abernathy said. And, he said, “he’s been consistently pro-life more than many other candidates.”

But on the Democratic side, it will be hard for Clinton to pile up the delegates needed to win — and Abernathy expects she will — until the nominating convention in August.