Yes, Obama’s Iowa win matters in O.C.

Check out those white people in Iowa!

Political pundits phrased it more delicately, but that seemed to be the general idea after Barack Obama’s surprisingly comfortable win in last week’s Iowa Democratic caucuses. The Census Bureau puts the state’s African American population at roughly 2.5%, but the Illinois senator cruised to victory.

Imagine. A virtually all-white state embracing a man identified as African American, even if he is the son of a black man and a white woman. Let’s not quibble over 50-50 racial percentages, however, or point out that only Iowa Democrats and independents voted for him -- not Republicans, who had their own caucuses.

All I’m saying is that it may be premature to give Iowa the NAACP’s “State of the Year” award just yet. If there were such a thing.

Besides, if we really want to see how Obama does in a place where African American voters are hard to find, there’s no better place than right here in Orange County.

The two places have a remarkably similar population (around 3 million), but the latest census figures put Orange County’s black population at 1.67%. The county would need a 50% increase in its percentage just to reach Iowa’s total.

So, that prompts me to wonder: How will Obama do in our fair county on California primary day Feb. 5? With even fewer blacks than Iowa, for God’s sake, does the man stand a chance here?

Give me a call Feb. 6.

For now, all I can tell you is that an Obama office will be opening Sunday at 210 N. Broadway in Santa Ana. It’ll be almost exclusively operated by volunteers, but it’ll be run by paid staffer Gustavo Delgado, assigned from Obama’s statewide campaign office.

“I just picked up the keys five minutes ago,” Delgado said by phone midafternoon Monday, as he was simultaneously ordering the Six-Dollar Burger at a Carl’s Jr. drive-through.

The question: Did Obama’s showing in Iowa matter in Orange County?

“It really does,” Delgado says. He cites an Obama campaign website that has been running since the beginning of last week to recruit people for a precinct training session on Saturday. By midweek, 34 people had signed up, he says.

But as the Iowa results came in Thursday night, the number spiked to nearly 90, Delgado says. On Saturday, about 65 people showed up.

I must confess that I’m making the Iowa-Orange County comparison mostly to poke fun at what I think was the overplaying of the race issue in the Hawkeye State. I just don’t see it as that big a deal in a Democratic Party primary, but Delgado says it’s a legitimate question, if only because some primary election voters might ask themselves if they think Obama could win a general election.

That is, if Obama supporters thought the country as a whole might be reluctant to vote for him in November, that might affect their decision on whether to support him in the primary.

However, Delgado quickly adds, “I haven’t found any reason to believe that is true, and I don’t believe it’s a concern.”

The only straw poll of Orange County Democrats was taken last summer, says Melahat Rafiei, the Orange County party’s executive director. Hillary Rodham Clinton led the field with 49%, more than twice Obama’s total, she says. John Edwards was a close third.

Rafiei says the Iowa results might shake up things if a new poll were taken, but with other primaries coming up in rapid succession in the next month, any poll numbers would be fluid.

She says all three top-tier candidates have made visits to Orange County in recent months, and adds, “I could see any of the three winning” the county’s vote. Rafiei agrees that the “electability” question might be the only reason that race would come into play with Obama in a local Democratic primary. But she doesn’t think it will be a factor among Orange County Democrats -- most of whom, she says, are working, middle-class white voters.

It’s too bad that Orange County’s vote totals will be lost in the statewide total. This is a big county with potentially interesting things to say about red-blue politics in what traditionally has been safe GOP territory.

And as for Obama and white voters, if Iowa was seen as so telling, wouldn’t Orange County’s embrace of him (or lack thereof) be just as interesting?

Yes, it would. But I get the feeling that Obama’s skin color won’t have anything to do with whether he “wins” or “loses” Orange County.

And that is a good thing.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.