Beside the fact that he's in the Netherlands and pretty much apolitical (unless increasing understanding is political), one of the reasons that I like the Votemaster so much is that is it a site about meta-polling: what polling methodology and results mean, not just what they are. This analysis of the Democratic primary in South Carolina just isn't the sort of thing you read elsewhere:

Now onto the exit polls. Obama got 54% of the men's vote and 54% of the women's vote. Clinton got 23% of the men's vote and 30% of the women's vote. By age, Obama won all age groups, but was strongest in the 18-29 year-old segment (67%) and weakest in the 60+ segment (38%). Clinton came in second in all age groups and came closest in the 60+ group with 35% of the vote. Education didn't seem to matter; college-educated and noncollege-educated broke the same as the statewide totals. By income, Obama did best among the voters making less than $50,000 (57%) and worst among those making over $100,000 (46%). Surprisingly, Edwards did worst (15%) among the people below $50,000 and roughly the same in all the other categories (22-26%). For a guy running a populist campaign, that must be disappointing. Here he is shouting himself hoarse about how he wants to help the Americans who need the most help and they don't like him.

Now the biggie: race. An astounding 55% of the voters were black and 78% of them went for Obama, 19% went for Clinton (likely black women), and a mere 2% went for Edwards. Among white voters, Edwards won the primary with 40% of the vote to Clinton's 36% and Obama's 24%. Thus among the white voters, 76% went for Clinton or Edwards. These data explain the surprising way the voters broke by income. A large number of poor blacks voted. Did they vote for the black candidate or the candidate who wants to help the poor? They voted overwhemingly for the black candidate, even though he tends to draw most of his support nationally from well-educated, upper-income white voters. In other words, race trumps income.

Bill Clinton's observations comparing Obama to Jackson's wins in the state's primary in the '80s have raised questions but that questioning fails to note that 55% of the voters were African American and I wonder to what degree simple surprise at that fact is also playing out. Al Sharpton didn't win in the state - maybe it just means that if this state is persuaded, that persuasion will be evident in the largest portion of the voting population. The tensions over Romney's faith are similar. Conservatives are trying to assess the place of the Latter Day Saints, a place that Gordon B. Hinckley, the late President of the church, did much to change. And I expect Utah to vote for Mitt.

One of the greatest things about the US primary system is that everyone gets to learn, if only for a few days or hours, about what folk are like in the next state over. New Hampshire people will come out to hear speeches, New Yorkers are really that leftist and California is big. You also get a sense of what each thinks about points of view by how open the process is - do independent vote? Do the machines actually work in this county - and is the county officer who watches over them him or herself a political appointee? These are facts whether they don't align with the idea many have that the USA is one homogenized blob of Walmart shopping. It's all local and about the local.