Still in the Lead, But Polls Narrow There is strong support in the African-American community here for Barack Obama, and it should deliver him a victory in this Saturday's primary. But the attitude of white voters also suggests that the character assassination of Obama by the Clinton machine has succeeded, and that they will continue to move heaven and earth to deny him the Democratic Presidential nomination. The question is, can Obama be resurrected? And what extraordinary measures will be required to resuscitate the Prince of Hope? I have to admit that my previous diary was slightly misleading. I did canvas a "predominantly African-American" neighborhood and returned to Goose Creek yesterday to continue knocking on doors. But the lists I was using included only African-Americans. While I found strong backing for Obama, there is also considerable nostalgic support for the Clintons. And with the 20% or so undecided voters, there is enough of a margin of doubt about the final outcome. My main message to voters: this is the most important election of your lifetime, remember what happened in New Hampshire, so ignore the polls and make sure to vote. At least in the areas I visited, there should be a strong turnout. And support for Obama ranges across age, gender and economic levels. This included the poorest areas of town as well as very comfortable middle class neighborhoods. Politics is a family affair here. I was told more than once that "we" are voting for Obama, and there was constant concern if a son or spouse was not on my list as an eligible voter at that address. Tom in Vermont called me after my last diary and related his own experience with family voting. He and several other volunteers made about 600 calls to South Carolina earlier this week. One of Tom's calls was to an 89-year old woman with 9 siblings, 18 children and thirty-some grandchildren. She insisted that everyone of voting age in her extended family will be voting for Obama. I suspect this pattern repeats itself across the state. The Clinton Strategy And Black Leaders' Complicity According to Dick Morris, a loss in South Carolina is now part of the Clinton strategy. By focusing on the racial division that gains Obama this one victory, the Clintons will take more white and Latino votes in subsequent and delegate-rich primaries. The expectation is that the African-American voters will naturally come back to the fold in the general election. This strategy appears to be working here in the white community here. And as long as "black leaders" remain complicit in their conspiracy of silence about the the Clintons, black voters will be back in the fold in November. Linda in Florence SC best describes the "hostility factor" that has been generated in the South by the slurmail campaign. Sure, there are some white Obama supporters in this more "liberal" part of South Carolina. You meet them at the North Charleston volunteer training sessions. I've even ran into some on the street. But as one female Obama supporter lamented, "this is South Carolina". In her case, her grandmother is typical of white South Carolinians who say they "will never vote for a Muslim". The fact is, racism is still very much alive in South Carolina, and the Who is Barack Obama lies only help voters legitimize their opposition, when they probably would never vote for a black man in any case. In the meantime, not one of the African-Americans I spoke to since I arrived here has mentioned or even appeared informed about the measures signed into law by Bill Clinton that hit African-Americans the hardest. The myth of the first black President and the Golden Age of the Clinton Administration is perpetuated by black leaders, who fail to acknowledge the Clintons play their communities for votes despite having approved some very damagin legislation. I have yet to meet an African-American here who knows that 1996 welfare reform bill completed an important objective of the Reagan Revolution, and hurt African-American women and children the hardest by failing to fund job training and child care provisions of the welfare-to-work legislation, while cutting food stamps and child/family nutrition programs. Or the fact that black men were most adversely affected by the 1994 crime bill that eliminated Pell grants for prisoners while leaving in place the harsher sentencing in crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine cases (and that Hillary opposed applying retroactively the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning this unequal justice). Clinton Does Rove At the debate on Monday, Hillary came fully prepared to spin Reagan and healthcare. I expected a word from Obama about "Obama Republicans" and "Anti-Clinton Independents", and more about why the Clinton Administration failed on healthcare in 1993 because of secrecy, which is now applied to the records of her "experience" as First Lady. And all she had to say was "Rezko", and her campaign got another week's worth of media distraction from Hillary's deceptions on Obama's pro-Choice position in New Hampshire. Is Obama still waiting for the Clinton's to play by his rules? It isn't going to happen. And why should Kennedy and Gore come to his aid if he is not going to stand up and fight back? Instead of going into a defensive mode, this was an invitation to retaliate with Hsu, Chung, Marc Rich's pardon and Denise Rich's donations, as Chuck Todd pointedly reminded us. Will our candidate survive this onslaught? Can he come back? I honestly don't know. The public is fickle and the media is so dumbed down we are all numbed out. But I will be doing my best in the next few days to take South Carolina. The rest is out of my hands. |
