Third time's the charm
Posted: Sunday, January 20, 2008 1:52 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats, 2008, South Carolina
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Rep. Fletcher Smith hopes the third time's the charm.
Smith, an African-American state representative from Greenville County, signed up to be a co-chair of Bill Richardson's South Carolina campaign in July. But as Richardson's call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq became more strident, Smith started to question the New Mexico governor's plan. In October, he switched his allegiance and endorsed Joe Biden.
But on caucus night, Biden's presidential dreams ended. And Smith became a free agent again.
As a black legislator in a state where half of Democratic primary voters are African-American, Smith's nod is a hot commodity. He's been heavily courted by the Clinton campaign and has received overtures from Obama, with whom he says he will likely meet next week before making his final decision.
Right now, Smith says he's leaning towards Hillary.
"A transition from Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton would seem to be easier for me from a national defense standpoint," says the 10-year statehouse veteran, who adds that Clinton's positions on domestic issues like health care also resonate with everyday Americans.
Smith scoffs at recent accusations that the Clinton campaign disparaged Martin Luther King Jr. by saying Lyndon Johnson's leadership was necessary for the passage of groundbreaking civil rights legislation. He says her comment was "misconstrued and taken way out of context," and that the whole flap over racially controversial insinuations earlier this week was "a red herring."
The mustachioed legislator believes that the climate of super-awareness of race issues hurts -- not helps -- political dialogue in the country. "If a white person gives some sort of criticism on an issue against a black person then that calls into question the white person's political insensitivity to the race issue," he complained of the recent scandals. That, he says, is "asinine."
As a former supporter of the now-defunct Delaware senator's campaign, Smith is familiar with the effects of potentially overblown comments about race. "They tried to do the same thing to Joe Biden," he says thoughtfully, invoking the ghost of Joe Biden's much-discussed comment that Barack Obama is "clean" and "articulate." Smith has called the purveyors of that headline "shameful."
His endorsement isn't finalized yet. Smith says he'll be meeting with Obama next week before he announces his decision. A well-presented foreign policy plan from the Illinois senator could change his mind, he says, but his list of positives for Hillary Clinton might be too long for Obama to beat.
Despite his enthusiasm now for the two historic candidacies between which he will be choosing, he hasn't always been a fan of all that Clinton and Obama represent. When he endorsed Biden in October, Smith told NBC News/National Journal that he wasn't interested in the "celebrity" aspect of the election, having chosen two less glamorous second-tier candidates to endorse rather than the two political supernovas that have dominated the Democratic race.
Now, he chuckles, "I'm stuck with what we got."
