A new set of polls from the Carolinas show that both of these states could be close this Fall, despite the fact that neither has voted Democratic since Jimmy Carter was the South's favorite son in 1976.

The new North Carolina poll from SurveyUSA: McCain 50%, Obama 45%, with a ±3.8% margin of error.

And here's Public Policy Polling's (D) survey of the much more conservative South Carolina: McCain 45%, Obama 39%, and Bob Barr 5%, with a ±4.2% margin of error. The X-factor here is Barr, as much of his vote would presumably have gone to McCain in a two-way race.

Barack Obama responds to Bill Clinton's reference to the fact that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988...

Stephanopoulos said: "The implication is pretty clear: You’re the Jesse Jackson of 2008.”

To which Obama replied: “Jesse Jackson ran historic races in 1984 and 1988...that was 20 years ago, George."

And then it got interesting. Stephanopoulos asked explicitly: "You think President Clinton was engaging in racial politics there?"

Obama answered: "I think that, that's his frame of reference was the Jesse Jackson races. That's when he was active and involved and watching what was gonna take place in South Carolina. I think that a lot of South Carolinians looked at it through a different lens."

Ben Smith says that Obama appeared to be trying to defuse the idea that Bill was drawing a racially-charged comparison. It seems to me that when Obama said that voters looked at this through a "different lens," he basically meant that voters weren't putting Obama in the same "black candidate" box that Bill was slotting Obama into. Not sure if Obama is completely letting Bill off the hook here, though he was being awfully subtle about it.

Obama's victory speech...

Late Update: John Aravosis has an interesting look at just how surprising tonight's results really are in light of the numbers over the past few months.

The numbers, with 99% reporting:

Obama: 55%

Hillary 27%

Edwards 18%

Massive win for Obama, obviously. Hillary is speaking now. More soon

Obama is giving his victory speech right now. He hits a conciliatory note about his Dem opponents:

We have fine candidates in the field – fierce competitors, worthy of respect and our admiration. And as contentious as this campaign may get, we have to remember that this is a contest for the Democratic nomination, and that all of us share an abiding desire to end the disastrous policies of the current administration.

But then he twists the knife:

But there are real differences between the candidates. We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington – a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. And right now, that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got.

The status quo, presumably, being the Hillary candidacy. Full text of Obama's speech after the jump.

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CNN and MSNBC call second place for Hillary.

It's another big blow to John Edwards, who was born in this state and whose campaign was talking up a late surge -- and a possible second-place finish -- that didn't materialize.

Indeed, the Edwards camp sought to draw attention to a Hillary robocall targeting him at the last minute, pointing to it as proof that the "prohibitive frontrunner sees John Edwards as a threat to her becoming the nominee."

CNN and MSNBC both call it for Obama. More in a bit.

Late Update: Apparently the margin was large enough for the nets to call it on the basis of the exits alone...

MSNBC Says Obama got 81% of the black vote. And, according to MSNBC, he got 25% of the white vote, which is higher than polls were indicating.

More in a bit.

Late Late Update: NBC, based on the exits, says Hillary finishes second and Edwards last, another disappointment for Edwards, whose campaign had been talking up a late surge.

Late Late Update: The networks call it: Hillary wins second, and Edwards finishes in third.

The Associated Press has some interesting exit poll data that sheds a bit of light on which candidate is seen by voters as the aggressor in the South Carolina race and which is seen as the victim.

The AP finds that Obama voters are decidedly more aggrieved than Hillary ones are. Not only that, but large percentages of Hillary voters say she attacked him unfairly:

After the contentious Democratic debate Monday night, three in four Obama voters said Clinton had attacked Obama unfairly and slightly fewer than half accused their own candidate of attacking Clinton unfairly. Two-thirds of Clinton voters said Obama attacked her unfairly and nearly as many said she attacked him unfairly.

Meanwhile, the AP gives us this rather inconclusive data about Bill's impact on the race:

Nearly six in 10 of those voting said former President Clinton's campaigning in the state was an important factor for them, including a quarter who called it very important.

Right, Bill's campaigning was important in shaping voter attitudes, but how exactly? Did it help Hillary or hurt her? Hopefully we'll get a bit more data on this later.

Results expected shortly after 7 P.M., which is to say in an hour or so...

The campaigns report high turnout and no major problems at the polls.

We'll be blogging the results and more right here.

The Hillary camp moves to frame their expected loss in South Carolina, sending out a new campaign memo from adviser Howard Wolfson that returns to the post-Iowa argument that this race is all about delegate totals:

Regardless of today’s outcome, the race quickly shifts to Florida, where hundreds of thousands of Democrats will turn out to vote on Tuesday...

This remains a delegate fight, with 1,681 delegates at stake on February 5th, and 2,025 needed to secure the nomination -- and we are ahead in that fight.

We'll be blogging today's South Carolina results right here at Election Central. Full memo after the jump.

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The final SurveyUSA poll in the South Carolina Democratic primary shows Barack Obama on his way to a win, but it's one marked by racial polarization. Obama has 43%, Hillary Clinton 30%, and John Edwards 24%. Only 18% of black respondents said they'd vote for Hillary, and only 21% of whites preferred Obama.

Pollster.com analysts Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin are giving their final takes on the SC polling. Franklin's word of caution to Obama fans is particularly noteworthy: "Obama has appealed to white voters in previous primaries and caucuses. The pre-election polls have found him getting as low as 10% of the white vote in South Carolina. The potential for racial polarization in this Southern state could damage his ability to transcend race as a basis of voting."

The Obama campaign just sent me some audio of an event -- from yesterday, the Obama camp says -- at which Bill Clinton said this:

“The President is not called the Chief Executive Officer of America for nothing. You don’t run the bureaucracy but you are responsible for seeing that your ideas turn into positive changes in other people’s lives.”

Bill's notion that "you don't run the bureaucracy" as President sounds awfully similar to something that Obama said the other day:

"But I'm not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that's not my job. My job is to set a vision of 'here's where the bureaucracy needs to go.'"

This Obama quote attracted sharp criticism from Hillary, who said that what we really need is a "hands on" president.

This is of course is why the Obama camp is now brandishing this similar remark from Bill himself.

I'm unable as yet to vouch for the context of the Obama quote, but will bring you the fuller context as soon as I'm able. Audio of Bill's quote in a bit.

Late Update: Okay, a transcript containing the full context is after the jump.

It's true that Bill was agreeing with Obama's case that the president doesn't "run the bureaucracy." In addition to this, however, what Bill said here was also partly critical of Obama. Bill was basically saying, "Yes, Obama, you're right, the president doesn't `run the bureaucracy,' but he is the Chief Executive Officer, and he's tasked with not only coming up with a vision, but translating it into reality."

But does Obama really disagree with this? Obama has said that he doesn't view the job as one of CEO. Back in December he said:

"But the president is not the CEO of America, the president is not the COO of America," he said. "The president is someone who sets goals, has a vision for where the country needs to go, is able to gather the absolute best talent around him or her, to evaluate when we're making progress on those goals, to recognize when we're making mistakes and make adjustments, set a new course."

So, while Clinton is saying that they differ on the narrow question of whether the job of president should be characterized as "CEO," and while Obama has certainly certainly stressed the idea that a President's primary task is to set a vision for the country, there's no real evidence that Obama really disagrees in any meaningful way with Bill's idea that the job of president is to set and implement a vision.

Late Late Update: It's also worth noting that whatever distinction Bill did try to draw here, he did agree with Obama's point that a president doesn't "run the bureaucracy."

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Liberal champion Russ Feingold is having a tough time choosing between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but he's more than willing to elaborate on his anti-endorsement of John Edwards. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Feingold discussed why he simply doesn't buy the sincerity of Edwards' current positions.

"You have to consider what the audience is, and obviously these are very popular positions to take when you are in a primary where you are trying to get the progressive vote," Feingold said. "But wait a minute — there were opportunities to vote against the bankruptcy bill, there was an opportunity to vote against the China deal. Those are the moments where you sort of find out where somebody is. So I think, people are being taken in a little bit that now he is taking these positions."

Meanwhile (via Ben Smith), here's Edwards' new ad in South Carolina, in which he's depicted as the candidate who is actually serious on the issues, as compared to the sniping between Hillary and Obama:

The new Zogby poll in South Carolina shows Barack Obama continuing to hold a healthy lead over the rest of the field — and that John Edwards just might be sneaking up on Hillary Clinton for second place. Barack Obama leads with 38% support, followed by Clinton at 25%, and Edwards with 21%.

Some commentary from John Zogby: "The real movement here is by John Edwards, who is the only one who continues to gain ground in our three-day tracking poll ... Can he catch Clinton by Saturday’s vote, perhaps bumping her from a second-place finish? Perhaps that is why she has returned to the state to campaign."

The new McClatchy-MSNBC poll in South Carolina finds:

Obama 38%

Hillary 30%

Edwards 19%

According to the pollsters, the race is growing more polarized along racial lines: Only 25% of blacks support Hillary, and only 10% of whites support Obama.

The Hillary campaign just announced that Bill Clinton has gone up on the air for his wife in a new positive South Carolina radio spot -- and it's hard to miss this line:

I want to thank you for twice giving me the chance to serve as president. The 1990s were a time of prosperity. We created more than 22 million new jobs, moved eight million people out of poverty, and turned our economy around.

The line seems designed to be push-back against Obama's claim that the GOP was the "party of ideas" for the last decade and a half. The Hillary camp had an ad up directly attacking Obama for the claim, but that ad came down today.

Now Bill is up on the air personally making the case for his presidential era, only this time in a positive spot. Full script after the jump.

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A truce in the ad wars? For now, anyway. Earlier today CNN reported that the Hillary campaign has yanked their radio ad in South Carolina hitting Obama for saying the GOP is the "party of ideas." The Hillary campaign is claiming that it was scheduled to come down.

Now the Obama campaign has responded in kind with their S.C. ad hitting Hillary for being willing to "say anything" to win. Obama spokesperson Bill Burton tells us: "Once we confirmed that Clinton was taking down her attack ad, we instructed radio stations in South Carolina to take down our response ad."

The Hillary campaign responds to the Obama camp's memo saying that Hillary is "pulling out all the stops" to win South Carolina by pointing out that a few days ago, Obama hit Hillary for neglecting the state and not taking it seriously.

Here's Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer's retort:

So does the Obama campaign think we are giving up on South Carolina or going all out for it? I guess it depends on the day.

The Obama campaign rolled out a new argument in a campaign memo today: That Hillary is "pulling out all the stops" to win in South Carolina -- and will "say and do anything" to do it.

The Obama camp has clearly settled on the message that Hillary will "say anything" to win -- the same phrase appeared yesterday in a new Obama radio ad. This memo takes this a step further by fusing that message with an apparent effort to inflate expectations for Hillary by saying that she's "pulling out all the stops" to secure victory in South Carolina.

It should be noted that the other day Obama criticized Hillary for not spending time in the state and hence not taking it seriously.

The memo suggests that the Obama camp might think that they need to deal with the fact that many commentators are presuming a solid South Carolina win for him.

"There’s an old South Carolina saying that goes like this -- some people would rather climb a tree to tell a fib than stand on the ground and tell the truth," the memo says. "The truth is Hillary Clinton’s campaign is pulling out all the stops to win in South Carolina. And it includes saying and doing just about anything to win." Full memo after the jump.

Late Update: The Hillary campaign responds.

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Barack Obama has a new radio ad in South Carolina, responding to Hillary Clinton's attack ad against his "party of ideas" comment. The ad's announcer cuts straight to the point: "It's what's wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected."

The ad then goes over Hillary's own praise of Ronald Reagan, and her backing of a particular Republican policy that isn't too popular with the Democratic base — "George Bush's war in Iraq."

The script is available after the jump.

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Must-see TV: Bill lays into a reporter big time, suggesting that those covering the racial dust-ups, rather than the issues, are proving that they're "determined to take this election away" from the people of South Carolina...

Also note Bill's strongly worded objection to comments by prominent South Carolina Democrat Dick Harpootlian, an Obama supporter, who charged that some of Bill's recent comments "were reminiscent of Lee Atwater," an extraordinarily over-the-top comparison of the former president to one of the most notoriously dirty political operatives of the last generation.

The Obama campaign has just sent out to reporters audio and script of a negative Hillary radio spot hitting him over that now-infamous interview in which Obama called Republicans the "party of ideas." Note that the ad uses Obama's own voice.

VOICE-OVER: “Listen to Barack Obama last week talking about Republicans.

BARACK OBAMA: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”

VO: “Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”

BO: “The Republicans were the party of ideas.”

VO: Hillary Clinton thinks this election is about replacing disastrous Republican ideas with new ones, like jump-starting the economy. Putting an immediate freeze on foreclosures and mortgages. Cutting taxes for the middle class. And creating millions of new jobs. With the economy in crisis, we need a president with the ideas, the solutions that get our economy working for all of us. Hillary Clinton. Solutions for America.

The Hillary ad implies -- without quite stating outright -- that Obama said he favored specific GOP ideas, which he didn't really do, though he did say that the GOP's ideas ran counter to "conventional wisdom." Stay tuned for audio.

Late Update: Here's the audio:

As promised below, here's our longer post, with video, about ABC's report yesterday on Obama's allegedly "testy" exchange with a reporter in South Carolina.