Obama Walks Fine Line With Black Voters in South Carolina
by Associated Press
Friday, January 25, 2008
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CHARLESTON, S.C. — Democrat Barack Obama is walking a tricky racial line in South Carolina, openly appealing to black voters while striving not to be tagged as “the black candidate.”

His success or failure will help decide his party’s presidential nomination, and could strongly influence the fall general election if he prevails over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Blacks comprise large portions of the Democratic electorate in Deep South states, and they could help Obama win a handful of primaries, including Saturday’s in South Carolina. But the more Obama is seen through a racial lens, the more it might hamper him in other states, especially those where voters are unaccustomed or unwilling to support black candidates.

Obama’s aides acknowledge the dilemma, saying it is inevitable for the first viable black presidential contender. They hope he can benefit from black voters’ enthusiasm while also highlighting the many votes he has drawn in states such as Iowa, where he won the Jan. 3 Democratic caucus.

Former President Clinton addressed the racial dynamic this week in Charleston, where he mixed praise and rebukes of Obama. He suggested his wife will lose South Carolina because many blacks understandably will vote for Obama, even as many women will vote for Sen. Clinton.

Clinton campaign strategists deny any intentional effort by Bill Clinton, his wife or even surrogates like Bob Johnson — who referred to Obama’s admitted youthful drug use — to stir the racial debate. But they say they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as “the black candidate,” something he has worked to avoid.

A new McClatchy/MSNBC poll holds warning signs for Obama. He leads overall in South Carolina, but his support among white Democrats fell in one week from 20 percent to a mere 10 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who is running third, appeared to pick up the white support Obama lost.

Obama addressed racial issues Thursday when a reporter asked if he feared the Clintons were trying, to his detriment, to depict him as the black candidate.

He replied that he has run his presidential campaign and public career “based on the idea that we’re all in it together, and that black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all of us share common dreams, common fears, and common concerns.”

That approach, he said, won him votes “across the board” in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and will elsewhere.

“I’ll let the Clintons speak to what their strategy is going to be,” Obama said coolly.

Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, must juggle race-related matters that sometimes seem to conflict. He must convince blacks that America is ready to elect someone like him, so their votes for him will not be wasted and their hopes dashed. At the same time, he says voters can embrace him without regard to color — as if he had “polka dots.”

An exchange Tuesday with a black woman at Winthrop University in Rock Hill illustrated the two-step dance. The woman said her father, 77, was reluctant to back Obama because he feared “an African-American candidate won’t be able to do what he needs to do in Washington to get change done.”

Obama, before a crowd of 900, said he was “absolutely convinced” that Americans “don’t care whether you are black, white, brown or green.”

“If I came to you and I had polka dots,” he said, “but you were convinced that I was going to put more money in your pockets and help you pay for college and keep America safe, you’d say, ‘OK, I wish he didn’t have polka dots, but I’m still voting for him.”‘

If the racial minefields are worrisome, they don’t keep Obama from having fun with the heavily black audiences here. The Harvard Law School graduate sometimes playfully breaks into a black vernacular, which seems to amuse him and his audiences greatly.

“I need you to grab Cousin Pookie to vote,” he told a crowd in Kingstree on Thursday. “I need you to get Ray-Ray to vote.”

At a similar rally in Dillon, Obama said Clinton was ducking the need to shore up Social Security. “There are some things that aren’t right,” he said, “and some things that just ain’t right. And that ain’t right!”

He chuckled, the crowd laughed and cheered. “In Washington,” he added with another big grin, “that’s how they do.”

James Thrower, a federal government employee from Sumter, is among those black voters charmed by Obama this week.

“In the beginning of this campaign, I didn’t think America was ready” to elect a black president, Thrower, 50, said after an Obama rally. “Now I do.”

“This country needs some fresh blood,” he said, and he will pick Obama. “We don’t need Clintons back in control.”

But both Clintons, campaigning separately, have wooed black and white supporters in South Carolina this week. An event Wednesday in Kingstree underscored the tension and suspicions animating the rivalry.

After fielding questions from an audience of about 200, Bill Clinton called on a black man standing near the stage. The man said he was a pastor and told Clinton that “black America is voting for Obama because he’s black.” He said Democrats are in a “dangerous position” because if Obama wins the nomination, voters will elect a Republican in November. “They’re not ready for a black president,” he said.

Several black audience members nodded and said, “That’s right.”

“I have to tell you I hope you’re not right,” Clinton responded.

He said that despite the “mean things” said about him “in the Obama camp this week,” he would support the Illinois senator if he is nominated.

“The reason I think Hillary is more electable is not race, it’s this,” Clinton said. “If there is a security crisis somewhere between now and the election, the fact that Hillary” has served on the Senate Armed Services Committee and visited more than 80 nations “will make it much harder for them to spook people by saying she can’t handle a national security crisis.”

The self-identified pastor later refused to give his name to The Associated Press.


Still at it@ gmahogany. LOL

Still at it,indeed. All I can say about the "first viable Black candidate" quote that Obama's aides made (though from a strategy view, i know WHY they are saying that), is he better do at LEAST as well as Jackson did, or they are going to look mighty silly or presumptious for making that claim..........

I had already heard about the 10 point drop, in one week, among white voters in SC on Fox news, earlier this week. I already said in this thread or another one, that people are ignoring the white vote in SC. That drop has to do with many things,imo. It has to do with all of the attention being given to the Black vote in SC(whites aren't used to not being the center of attention,many of them take "courting Black folks with being anti-white"). It has to do with Edwards benefitting from that slugfest between Clinton and Obama the other night(as I mentioned in an earlier post), and it has to do with the fact that Edwards is from South Carolina, and has roots and connections there. I believe he won SC, in the last primary cycle. I wouldn't be totally shocked if Edwards came in second in SC. Anyway, we are about to find out,lol.

[quote=The Mighty Mos Def!;1458160]Yep. Obama could actually benefit from the white vote being split in South Carolina. At this point, the longer Edwards stays in the race, and keeps more populist voters from going Hillary's way, the better, for Obama. What I'm looking out for, and I suggest all followers of the campaign do the same, is too see if white voters will leave Edwards camp, like they did in Nevada, to vote Hillary's way; that would foreshadow a lot of problems for Obama's campaign in my opinion. If Edward’s campaign continues to have traction, it would be politically expedient for Obama to have a backroom deal in place to give Edwards his VP running mate nod, if he agrees to stay in the race until the end. On the other hand, Clinton should stay away from Richardson(Latino), because I believe that could/would be exploited by Republican strategist, in the African/Black-American community in particular(illegal immigration; overwhelmingly voting against an African/Black-American candidate). All it takes is a poor turnout among us or a slight trend towards a Republican candidate by us(see Ohio in ’04) to throw the Democrats off course.

I had thought that Edwards types were more likely to go Obama's way if Edwards dropped out, if only because of the fact that it is so obvious that Edwards really doesn't like Clinton,lol. You're right though, I would not bet against Edward's white supporters going the opposite route, anyway, and supporting Clinton in the end.

I found the preacher’s fear of having his name attached to his beliefs, in the piece posted by CashMoney, interesting. I don’t believe African/Black people expressing “guilt” about not believing in a candidate’s viability to be a particularly good sign. In the other thread, you brought up many Africans/Blacks “guilty” behavior for not being in the Clinton camp this go around; it seems like there’s some of that going on with Obama’s candidacy as well. For that reason, I hope, for myriad reasons, that things transpire as we expect they will in South Carolina(Obama winning), or we’ll be discussing ‘some other things’ after the dust settles.

That WAS deep. It makes you wonder how many other AA's are secretly feeling that way. That's why I don't believe in haranguing people about who YOU think they ought to vote for. Ultimately, people are going to go in that booth and do what they want to do, even if they tell you want they think you want to hear, to avoid being seen as a "traitor". That's how you end up with people losing primaries that the polls indicated they were supposed to win handily. My gut tells me though, that Black folks are more inclined to walk it like we talk it, than white voters are, as a general rule.

Off topic, did you see ‘your boy’ “Uncle Juan” Williams damn near in tears last Sunday on “FOXNEWS,” because some whites in the Democratic Party were showing their true color(s)? You know what say about chickens coming home to roost, lol.

No, I didn't hear about that. Uncle Juan, had tears in his eyes, because some white folks disappointed him? You don't say,lol.

How the Clinton's sucessfully ghettoized Barack

I guess this is how the West was won," Hillary Clinton exulted at her victory rally in Las Vegas after the Democratic caucuses.

Well, not exactly, ma'am. Yet how the Clintons, by deftly playing the race and gender cards, turned back the greatest single challenge to a Clinton Restoration will be studied for a long time to come.

It began in Iowa, where Barack Obama, the first African-American crossover candidate with broad appeal to all racial and ethnic groups, was on fire in a state that was overwhelmingly white.

Came then Billy Shaheen, the Clinton New Hampshire co-chair, to suggest that, were Barack to be nominated, Republicans would ask when he had stopped using drugs and whether he ever bought or sold drugs. Mark Penn of the Clinton campaign denied on MSNBC's "Hardball" that his team was raising the "cocaine issue."

Mission accomplished, Shaheen dutifully resigned. Bill Clinton drove the point home, telling an interviewer that to nominate Obama would be a "roll of the dice."

Nevertheless, Barack won Iowa going away and stormed into New Hampshire for what pundits predicted would be a defeat for Hillary so crushing it would be the final chapter of the Clinton era.

Then Bill Clinton told a Dartmouth audience that Obama's claim to being consistently antiwar was a "fairy tale."

That, plus the media pile-on, Barack's snide dismissal of her in the debate -- "You're popular enough, Hillary" -- and her choked-up moment hours before voting began caused the women of New Hampshire to rally in sympathy. Obama's lead, estimated by some at 15 points, vanished, and Hillary won what became one of the great upsets in New Hampshire history.

Stunned and stung, Barack's African-American backers then rushed into the baited trap. One after another, they headed for the TV cameras to charge that the Clintons had fought dirty, forcing voters to focus on the race and gender of the candidates rather than on their records, ideas and issues.

When Hillary said sweetly that while Dr. Martin Luther King was the inspirational leader of the civil rights revolution, LBJ was the indispensable leader who had enacted the laws, King, martyr-hero of black America, became an issue.

As the raillery grew acrimonious and the rage among Barack's backers rose, his black support solidified, but his white support, recoiling from race politics, peeled away. And the sisterhood rallied to Hillary.

Robert Johnson of Black Entertainment Television then stoked the fire once more, asserting that when Bill and Hillary were fighting for civil rights, Barack was in Chicago doing whatever he was doing in the neighborhoods. The implication: Barack was doing drugs, while Bill and Hillary marched. Denying malevolent intent, Johnson, too, apologized.

But the damage has been done. And reviewing the returns from Nevada and the polls in South Carolina, it may be irreversible. Barack is no longer a crossover candidate who transcends race. The color-blind coalition he seemed to be assembling appears to be coming apart.

His momentum is gone. The emotional movement that was Iowa has passed. The media are no longer smitten. And as African-Americans rally to him, Democratic women, a majority of the party, are rallying around Hillary.

Consider the stark Nevada returns. Though Barack used as the refrain of his concession speech in New Hampshire "Yes, we can!" -- the battle cry of Hispanics, "Si, se puede" -- though he was endorsed by the Culinary Workers Union, he lost Hispanics by nearly two to one.

Equally ominous, he lost both the white vote and the women's vote by the same three-to-two margin, while sweeping the African-American vote five to one. Once a candidate who happened to be black, Obama is now the black candidate.

This may be a portent of what is to come. With Hispanics, whites and women a huge majority of Democrats, Hillary should sweep a majority of states in the Southwest and the West, including Texas and California, where African-Americans are relatively few in number and Hispanics are many.

If Barack loses South Carolina, he is cooked, as the Clintonites have made him the favorite. Even if he carries South Carolina, it will be written off as black folks coming out for a native son.

Folks will look instead at how well, or badly, he does among whites. If Hillary and Edwards crush him among white voters, the message will be that the Democratic Party will risk ruin if it nominates an African-American who has shown little appeal among whites and even less among Hispanics. For whites and Hispanics are the swing votes in presidential politics.

In three weeks, Barack has been ghettoized. The crossover candidate, the great liberal hope, has become a Jesse Jackson, who is ceded the black vote and a few states, then given a speaking role at the convention, as the party moves on to the serious business of electing a president.
One cannot deny that Bill Clinton was right. Nominating Barack would be a "roll of the dice." But nor can one deny that Bill and Hillary helped make sure the risk would be one the party would not take.

Townhall.com::Ghettoizing Barack::By Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan is full of sh*t. His ass has had a KLAN robe in his closet since anyone can remember, in spite of his recent years attempts at cleaning up and civilizing himself, yet we are to believe that a. he SINCERELY gives a damn about Obama and him being the "Black liberal, crossover candidate of hope getting "ghettoized" by the Clintons",lol, or b. BelieveS that the Clintons needed to do anything in particular for white folks to act like white folks when push came to shove. He is killing two birds with one stone with this article, actuallY three.1. Sticking a fork in Obama like he's done , 2. Making sure that the Clintons get the blame for it(not white voters, who even if they are responding to attempts at injecting race by the Clintons, had to be SO INCLINED in the first place.......),so Blacks will resent them if she gets the nom and stay home so HIS candidate and party can win,and 3. He got in a shot at Jesse Jackson, who we all know he's BIG a fan of.


As my previous post stated, people who went all off the deep end cause an all white state went for for someone Black were a. jumping the gun, and b. not steeped in history(or they would have known that it's been done before) and c. were using the wrong barometer to measure Black candidate viability
.
What REALLY tells the tale, is how white people respond and vote in states where there are Black people in significant numbers(but not majority numbers) and race CAN'T be conveniently ignored even if the candidates NEVER mention it, because race is going to be an issue, even if simmering beneath the surface, in any state where there is significant DIVERSITY and THERFORE competing interests/views/competition for resources, thats true whether the state has significant numbers of Blacks or Hispanics in addition to the majority white population. In other words in any states that are not ALL white, which would be most states.

Obama according to polls is getting about 10% of white support in SC. Does anybody REALLY think that large numbers of whites in SC were planning to vote for him, up until the recent Bill and Hillary show? But for that, they would have supported Obama. I don't think that's what it means. I said early on that the rest of AMerica is not Iowa or New Hampshire. Those are white folks, but they aren't REAL white folks. By that I mean white folks that live in places where they are not the only people there, which is the only time they may not have a problem with N*ggers,lol. SC, and these Super Tuesday states are REAL white folks, that's what folks should have been watching in the first place, imo...

.....Lee Atwater, the Republican strategist who was the architect of Bush #1's racist "willie horton" strategy, back in 88, was villified and demonized for coming up with it. He even apologized for it on his deathbed. He didn't even necessarily believe in the implications of it, it was just strategy for him. He wasn't the point though, the MASSES of white people in AMerica who RESPONDED to that racist strategy and who didn't need much prompting,btw, were the point. That's what neither Black people nor most white people want to face.