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http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008...-avoid-being-pigeon-holed-as-black-candidate/
With South Carolina Victory in Hand, Obama Tries to Avoid Being Pigeon-Holed
as 'Black Candidate'
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Barack Obama spent the better part of last year trying to counter criticism
that he wasn't "black enough"; now, following his rout of Hillary Clinton
and John Edwards in South Carolina, his detractors appear to be trying to
cast him as the "black candidate" in the race.
Obama is doing his best not to be painted by anyone else's brush, but in
South Carolina, which he won 55 percent compared to Clinton with 27 percent
and Edwards at 18 percent, in many ways he was forced by Clinton's camp to
make clear he is black.
Hoping to avoid falling into the pigeon hole created by conducting a
campaign on a single issue, Obama gave a rousing victory speech Saturday
night in which he did everything he could to transcend race while speaking
directly to the undercurrent that drove much of the South Carolina battle.
"What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces
that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent
us from being who we want to be as a nation. It's the politics that uses
religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us
that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the
categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are
apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won't cross over. The assumption
that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don't vote.
The assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate;
whites can't support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can't
come together," he said.
"But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in.
I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South
Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. . I saw what
America is, and I believe in what this country can be. That is the country I
see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire
nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against
the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling
against our own doubts, our own fears and our own cynicism," Obama
continued.
In this election of "viable" firsts - first viable woman candidate, first
viable black candidate - South Carolina voters said they are confident the
United States can look beyond race and gender.
FOX News exit polls showed that 77 percent of South Carolina voters said
they think the country is ready to elect a black president and 76 percent
said it is ready for a woman president. A large majority of voters said they'd
be satisfied with either front-runner as the Democratic nominee.
But the race, in a lot of ways, did come down to race. No one asked
directly, but if South Carolina voters based their decision on having the
same skin color as the candidate, it would explain why 81 percent of black
voters - who made up 53 percent of the electorate - chose Obama.
The polling also showed that 79 percent of black women who voted - 33
percent of the overall electorate - supported the Illinois senator over 19
percent who preferred the former first lady. Among white women, Clinton won
by 44 percent to 34 percent for Edwards and 22 percent for Obama.
Notably, the public bickering between Obama and his opponent's husband, Bill
Clinton, may have hurt Hillary Clinton. Twenty-six percent of voters said
Bill Clinton was very important in deciding their vote, and of those 46
percent backed Hillary Clinton and 43 percent Obama.
The Clinton campaign strategy had been to place Bill Clinton in South
Carolina to capitalize on his strong relationship with African-Americans in
the state while Hillary Clinton focused on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5 states. But
not only did voters want to hear from the candidate, rather than her
surrogate, in the run-up to the vote, Bill Clinton frequently got into
verbal spars over his suggestive comments that Obama was running a campaign
based on race.
"They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender. That's
why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here," the
former president said while campaigning for his wife, leaving the impression
that he thought blacks would not support a white alternative to Obama.
Asked about the vote results on Saturday night, the former president offered
a curious comparison to an earlier era and contest.
"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice - in '84 and '88 - and he ran a good
campaign, and Senator Obama has run a good campaign," Bill Clinton said from
Missouri, where he was campaigning for his wife. "He has run a good campaign
everywhere. He is a good candidate with a good organization."
The resentment toward Bill Clinton's role in South Carolina was certainly
evident at Obama's Columbia, S.C., victory party, where supporters briefly
booed images of the former president when he appeared on network news being
broadcast into the room. The booing was quickly subdued as the campaign
suggested it was in bad form.
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said that it's ridiculous to try to force
Obama into the role of "the black candidate" since he got nearly 25 percent
of the white vote in South Carolina, won the minority-poor state of Iowa,
picked up 20 percent more votes than Edwards in another minority-deprived
state, New Hampshire, and carried rural Nevada.
"It would be an unfortunate spin" for others to claim Obama can only win
because of black voters, Axelrod said. "It's an attempt to marginalize that
which cannot be marginalized."
Unlike the spin out of the Clinton campaign, Obama has been unifying
candidates and attracting a broader coalition of voters, Axelrod said.
"In these contests we've won more votes and delegates than she has. I'm sure
that is a very frustrating realization for the Clinton campaign," he said.
Clinton adviser Lanny Davis told FOX News that "the Clintons didn't play the
race card" though "there were certain moments, certain phrases that I wish
they didn't use."
He said Clinton won Nevada by appealing to Latinos, blue collar and middle
class workers and women, and will appeal to a broad base on Super Tuesday,
the next contest that counts for Democrats. Tuesday's Florida vote won't
allocate delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August. But
civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton said, "Clearly a lot of
African-Americans are very upset with the characterizations" of Obama as the
"black candidate," and whether the characterizations were "intended or not,
they came off very badly."
Sharpton said nothing can discredit Obama's "tremendous victory" but "to be
fair, Hillary Clinton did get some black votes today, more than I thought
she would given the acrimony."
FOX News analyst Susan Estrich added that she's not sure a victory in South
Carolina would help Obama around the nation. "I've been sitting here for 20
minutes and I've heard the words 'race' and 'African Americans' about 20,000
times. The question is how it's going to play in the coming states," Estrich
said, watching the returns. She added that lots of hostility still remains
between blacks and Latinos in California, who also make up a large part of
the electorate there, and that could perpetuate the race factor.
"The one to win on Super Tuesday is the one who goes beyond the race issue,"
Sharpton said.
Of course, winning the Democratic Party nomination is not just about
engaging minorities but also about inspiring the electorate. Picking up a
notable endorsement on Saturday, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late
President John F. Kennedy, said she was supporting Obama because he can
inspire Americans in the same way her father once did.
Kennedy wrote in a New York Times editorial that she never knew a president
"who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them." But
Obama, she said, could be that man.
Click here to read The New York Times editorial by Caroline Kennedy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27kennedy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Clinton currently leads in overall delegates, largely because of support
from so-called superdelegates, power players in the party who can support
whomever they chose.
Axelrod said recent endorsements for Obama from top Democrats in red states
like Nebraska, North Dakota, and Missouri indicate they believe Obama can
succeed on GOP turf.
"A lot of leaders in our party who haven't chosen a candidate will be
looking for a candidate who can carry the Democratic Party forward," Axelrod
said. "The question is who can win Republicans and independents and who can
build a new Democratic majority. We think we offer that opportunity."
"Either one of these candidates are going to go down to the finish line .
and (the Democrats) will be a united party" in the general election, Davis
said.
With South Carolina Victory in Hand, Obama Tries to Avoid Being Pigeon-Holed
as 'Black Candidate'
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Barack Obama spent the better part of last year trying to counter criticism
that he wasn't "black enough"; now, following his rout of Hillary Clinton
and John Edwards in South Carolina, his detractors appear to be trying to
cast him as the "black candidate" in the race.
Obama is doing his best not to be painted by anyone else's brush, but in
South Carolina, which he won 55 percent compared to Clinton with 27 percent
and Edwards at 18 percent, in many ways he was forced by Clinton's camp to
make clear he is black.
Hoping to avoid falling into the pigeon hole created by conducting a
campaign on a single issue, Obama gave a rousing victory speech Saturday
night in which he did everything he could to transcend race while speaking
directly to the undercurrent that drove much of the South Carolina battle.
"What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces
that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent
us from being who we want to be as a nation. It's the politics that uses
religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us
that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the
categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are
apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won't cross over. The assumption
that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don't vote.
The assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate;
whites can't support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can't
come together," he said.
"But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in.
I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South
Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. . I saw what
America is, and I believe in what this country can be. That is the country I
see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire
nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against
the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling
against our own doubts, our own fears and our own cynicism," Obama
continued.
In this election of "viable" firsts - first viable woman candidate, first
viable black candidate - South Carolina voters said they are confident the
United States can look beyond race and gender.
FOX News exit polls showed that 77 percent of South Carolina voters said
they think the country is ready to elect a black president and 76 percent
said it is ready for a woman president. A large majority of voters said they'd
be satisfied with either front-runner as the Democratic nominee.
But the race, in a lot of ways, did come down to race. No one asked
directly, but if South Carolina voters based their decision on having the
same skin color as the candidate, it would explain why 81 percent of black
voters - who made up 53 percent of the electorate - chose Obama.
The polling also showed that 79 percent of black women who voted - 33
percent of the overall electorate - supported the Illinois senator over 19
percent who preferred the former first lady. Among white women, Clinton won
by 44 percent to 34 percent for Edwards and 22 percent for Obama.
Notably, the public bickering between Obama and his opponent's husband, Bill
Clinton, may have hurt Hillary Clinton. Twenty-six percent of voters said
Bill Clinton was very important in deciding their vote, and of those 46
percent backed Hillary Clinton and 43 percent Obama.
The Clinton campaign strategy had been to place Bill Clinton in South
Carolina to capitalize on his strong relationship with African-Americans in
the state while Hillary Clinton focused on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5 states. But
not only did voters want to hear from the candidate, rather than her
surrogate, in the run-up to the vote, Bill Clinton frequently got into
verbal spars over his suggestive comments that Obama was running a campaign
based on race.
"They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender. That's
why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here," the
former president said while campaigning for his wife, leaving the impression
that he thought blacks would not support a white alternative to Obama.
Asked about the vote results on Saturday night, the former president offered
a curious comparison to an earlier era and contest.
"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice - in '84 and '88 - and he ran a good
campaign, and Senator Obama has run a good campaign," Bill Clinton said from
Missouri, where he was campaigning for his wife. "He has run a good campaign
everywhere. He is a good candidate with a good organization."
The resentment toward Bill Clinton's role in South Carolina was certainly
evident at Obama's Columbia, S.C., victory party, where supporters briefly
booed images of the former president when he appeared on network news being
broadcast into the room. The booing was quickly subdued as the campaign
suggested it was in bad form.
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said that it's ridiculous to try to force
Obama into the role of "the black candidate" since he got nearly 25 percent
of the white vote in South Carolina, won the minority-poor state of Iowa,
picked up 20 percent more votes than Edwards in another minority-deprived
state, New Hampshire, and carried rural Nevada.
"It would be an unfortunate spin" for others to claim Obama can only win
because of black voters, Axelrod said. "It's an attempt to marginalize that
which cannot be marginalized."
Unlike the spin out of the Clinton campaign, Obama has been unifying
candidates and attracting a broader coalition of voters, Axelrod said.
"In these contests we've won more votes and delegates than she has. I'm sure
that is a very frustrating realization for the Clinton campaign," he said.
Clinton adviser Lanny Davis told FOX News that "the Clintons didn't play the
race card" though "there were certain moments, certain phrases that I wish
they didn't use."
He said Clinton won Nevada by appealing to Latinos, blue collar and middle
class workers and women, and will appeal to a broad base on Super Tuesday,
the next contest that counts for Democrats. Tuesday's Florida vote won't
allocate delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August. But
civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton said, "Clearly a lot of
African-Americans are very upset with the characterizations" of Obama as the
"black candidate," and whether the characterizations were "intended or not,
they came off very badly."
Sharpton said nothing can discredit Obama's "tremendous victory" but "to be
fair, Hillary Clinton did get some black votes today, more than I thought
she would given the acrimony."
FOX News analyst Susan Estrich added that she's not sure a victory in South
Carolina would help Obama around the nation. "I've been sitting here for 20
minutes and I've heard the words 'race' and 'African Americans' about 20,000
times. The question is how it's going to play in the coming states," Estrich
said, watching the returns. She added that lots of hostility still remains
between blacks and Latinos in California, who also make up a large part of
the electorate there, and that could perpetuate the race factor.
"The one to win on Super Tuesday is the one who goes beyond the race issue,"
Sharpton said.
Of course, winning the Democratic Party nomination is not just about
engaging minorities but also about inspiring the electorate. Picking up a
notable endorsement on Saturday, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late
President John F. Kennedy, said she was supporting Obama because he can
inspire Americans in the same way her father once did.
Kennedy wrote in a New York Times editorial that she never knew a president
"who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them." But
Obama, she said, could be that man.
Click here to read The New York Times editorial by Caroline Kennedy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27kennedy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Clinton currently leads in overall delegates, largely because of support
from so-called superdelegates, power players in the party who can support
whomever they chose.
Axelrod said recent endorsements for Obama from top Democrats in red states
like Nebraska, North Dakota, and Missouri indicate they believe Obama can
succeed on GOP turf.
"A lot of leaders in our party who haven't chosen a candidate will be
looking for a candidate who can carry the Democratic Party forward," Axelrod
said. "The question is who can win Republicans and independents and who can
build a new Democratic majority. We think we offer that opportunity."
"Either one of these candidates are going to go down to the finish line .
and (the Democrats) will be a united party" in the general election, Davis
said.
