During his paranoid racial meltdown yesterday, Pat Buchanan said that Barack Obama would never have won the Democratic nomination were it not for his race. Buchanan complained that Geraldine Ferraro had been criticized for making the same point, which he called "the truth."

But the real truth is that Pat Buchanan is completely wrong: among voters who said race was an important factor in deciding their vote, Hillary Clinton has won more votes than Barack Obama.

We know this from exit poll surveys in which Democratic primary voters were asked whether race was an important factors in deciding their votes. (The surveys cover 27 states with about 30 million voters.)

I plugged all the numbers into a spreadsheet this evening and here's what I found:

• 19% (5.4 million) of Democratic primary voters said race was an important factor in their decision.
• Of these voters, 50% (2.7 million) voted for Hillary Clinton.
• 48% (2.6 million) voted for Barack Obama.
• Among voters who said race was important in the decision, Clinton won roughly 100,000 more votes than Obama.

The exit polls also ask about gender:

• 21% (5.9 million) of Democratic primary voters said gender was an important factor in their decision.
• Of these voters, 63% (3.7 million) voted for Hillary Clinton.
• 37% (2.1 million) voted Barack Obama.
• Among voters who said gender was important in their decision, Clinton won roughly 1.5 million more votes than Obama. (The numbers don't add up because of rounding.)

To recap:

• Among Clinton voters, 19% said race was important and 26% said gender was important.
• Among Obama voters, 19% said race was important and 16% said gender was important.
• Among voters who said race was important, Clinton netted 100,000 votes
• Among voters who said gender was important, Clinton netted 1.5 million votes

This is emphatic, conclusive evidence that not only was Pat Buchanan wrong, but so was Geraldine Ferraro.

The extraordinary thing is that Barack Obama has steadfastly avoided playing the victim card, while Hillary Clinton has used it time and again.