Race, Gender Play Unprecedented Roles in S.C. Democratic Primary
Cox News Service
Sunday, January 27, 2008
SUMTER, S.C. — It wasn't supposed to be this way.
South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary was supposed to be a test of a candidate's appeal to African-American voters, an early opportunity to inspire and unite the party's most loyal constituency.
 SCOTT SHEPARD/Cox Washington Bureau Marilyn Leneau, 50, of Sumter, a state government employee, says she doesn't feel compelled to vote for Hillary Clinton simply because she is a woman.  SCOTT SHEPARD/Cox Washington Bureau Maria Reddick says she considered supporting John Edwards because she initially thought he was most electable, but now thinks Obama could be just as electable.  SCOTT SHEPARD/Cox Washington Bureau Junior Isaac, 81, a retired truck driver from Bishopville, says he never thought an African-American could be elected president in his lifetime.  SCOTT SHEPARD/Cox Washington Bureau Jack Ellis, the former mayor of Macon, Ga., in South Carolina as an Obama volunteer organizing military veterans, says Bill Clinton's 'shenanigans' will backfire not only on Hillary Clinton's campaign but on the Democratic Party in the fall.  SCOTT SHEPARD/Cox Washington Bureau Rev. Lee Dingle of Sumter, who says African-Americans will not be angry with the Clintons 'if they believe the right thing.' |
However, the weeks-long scrap between New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama over race has left black voters in this state confused, angry and feeling somewhat betrayed.
Many here blame Bill Clinton, the former president who, ironically, is one of the most popular politicians ever in the African-American community.
"These shenanigans by the Clintons are going to backfire on them and maybe the Democratic Party this fall," said Jack Ellis, the former mayor of Macon, Ga., who is in South Carolina organizing military veterans for Obama.
"And Bill Clinton, of all people, should know better," Ellis added. "Nobody stood by him more than black people when he was impeached. And now, for him to pull this kind of thing, is just unforgivable. He knew exactly what he was saying when he used the words 'fairly tale.' He was saying it's a fairly tale to believe a black man can get elected president."
Clinton, during the New Hampshire primary, suggested that it was a "fairly tale" for Obama to portray himself as having been completely opposed to the war in Iraq. But the comment, perceived by black voters here even weeks later as a remark about Obama's electoral chances, reflects the raw sensitivities in the final days before the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary on Saturday.
And those sensitivities, independent experts note, are heightened as much or more by the unprecedented nature of the campaign – with a woman and an African-American as the leading candidates for the party's nomination - than by what is said by the candidates and their surrogates.
"We don't have any good comparisons for how it (race and gender) is going to play out," said political science professor Robert Oldendick of the University of South Carolina. "We are in uncharted territory."
There was no shortage of animosities for the media to focus on Thursday. The Clinton campaign aired new ads implying that Obama admired the "disastrous policies" of Republicans, and the Obama campaign broadcast ads charging that Clinton will "say anything and change nothing."
Still, Obama appeared to be shifting campaign gears slightly on Thursday, getting ready for broader appeals in the Feb. 5 round of primaries and caucuses following South Carolina's first-in-the-South contest.
"Black voters shouldn't blame Senator Clinton for running a vigorous campaign against me," Obama told reporters after a rally in the largely black community of Kingstree. "That should be a source of pride. It means I might win this thing."
Indeed, his political success so far is a source of pride for voters like Junior Isaac, an 81-year-old retired truck driver from Bishopville. "I never thought I'd see this day - a black man with a real chance to be president of the United States," Isaac said.
Obama's victory Jan. 3 in the caucus in Iowa, a state with an African-American population of just 2.5 percent, convinced Isaac that Obama could win. "That was big, white people voting for a black man," he said of Iowa.
After squabbling over race, civil rights and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the New Hampshire primary in the week after Iowa, the two front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination declared a truce early last week.
But the truce did not hold once the White House contest moved here, where race is the subtext not only of the Democratic presidential campaign but also of South Carolina politics in general.
A Confederate battle flag still flies on the capitol grounds near a prominently displayed statue of Benjamin "Pitchfork" Tillman, who publicly defended the lynching of blacks as governor and senator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Moreover, nearly half of the voters in the Democratic presidential primary, to be held Saturday, will be black.
Because of the primary demographics, the Democratic Party chose South Carolina to host the first presidential primary in the South.
But the course of the campaign here has disappointed some of the Democratic National Committee officials who helped move the state to the forefront of the nominating process.
"Democrats in South Carolina have every right to expect the Democratic candidates to conduct a fair and honest contest of ideas and policies that would right our ship of state," said Donna Brazile, one such official. "There is a growing sense that the spirited debate between the two top-tier candidates is no longer fair nor honest. I said it once and I'll say it again: I am disappointed."
So, too, are an increasing number of black voters here who believe Clinton is trying to force Obama to walk a tightrope, maximizing his African-American support for a badly needed primary victory while avoiding the label of "black candidate" later in the contest.
The spat between Clinton and Obama may be most troubling to African-American women, who, for the first time, face the historic choice of choosing between a woman and a black man as their party's presidential nomination. Although many black women support Clinton — and nearly 20 percent have yet to make up their minds, according to a poll released Thursday — the clashes have turned off some voters.
"It really doesn't have anything to do with my gender, but having a woman in the White House would be nice," said Marilyn Leneau, 50, a state government employee in Sumter. "But the way this woman (Clinton) has been playing it here, I don't think so."
Added Maria Reddick, a real estate agent: "I don't feel it from her (Clinton). I thought I was going to have to support (former North Carolina Sen. John) Edwards, because he seemed the most electable. But I think Obama might be the most electable. He's doing OK, even with people fighting dirty against him."
The daily tracking by pollster John Zogby showed Thursday that Obama has a 39-24 percent lead over Clinton, with a healthy lead among African Americans, 56-18 percent. But the bickering between Clinton and Obama this week may have hurt them both. On Wednesday, Obama was the choice of 43 percent of likely Democratic primary voters and the choice of 65 percent of black voters.
The latest Zogby tracking poll shows as much as 19 percent of African American voters in South Carolina are still undecided.
Bill Clinton sought to lower expectations for his wife's performance in the weekend primary, saying Wednesday that he expects blacks to vote for Obama and women to vote for Hillary Clinton, a dynamic that may cause his wife to lose. But the Obama campaign countered Thursday, distributing a strategy memo to the media maintaining that the Clinton camp is "going all out" to win South Carolina.
The Rev. Lee Dingle, associate minister of Sumter's Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, lamented the politics of both sides and the rise in racial tensions, even though dismissed the suggestion that there will be lasting damage.
"Anyone who believes the right thing won't be troubled by all of this," Dingle said. "These are both good people running for president, and both would do the right thing."