The battle for South Carolina
Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:13 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats
With Hillary Clinton heading west for most of this week, it looks like Obama will be facing off against the OTHER Clinton in South Carolina for much of this week. "The strategic shift intensifies a new dynamic in the race: Mrs. Clinton’s campaign this week in South Carolina is essentially running Mr. Clinton against Mr. Obama. The two have been engaged in a war of words, with Mr. Clinton accusing the Obama campaign of voter coercion in the Nevada caucuses, and Mr. Obama saying on Monday that Mr. Clinton had made comments that were "not factually accurate" and that his advocacy for his wife had grown ‘pretty troubling.’” Also: “Mrs. Clinton’s advisers cautioned that she was not writing off South Carolina, which has a Democratic primary on Saturday. It is the last place where Democrats will compete before Feb. 5, when more than 20 states hold nominating contests."
The State writes, “The move could say two things: First, Clinton is not confident she has a chance to win South Carolina, where U.S. Sen. Barack Obama leads; secondly, Clinton wants to get to the Super Tuesday states, where hundreds of delegates will be up for grabs.”
The Washington Post's Robinson doesn't believe Bill Clinton's new role on the Clinton campaign is very becoming. "For Obama, it's clearly an added burden to have to fight two Clintons instead of one. But at the same time, there may be benefits in having Bill Clinton take such a high-profile role in his wife's campaign that the missteps and disappointments of the Clinton years are inevitably recalled along with the successes. Whatever the net impact, there appears to be no plan for Bill Clinton to tone it down -- not with the nomination still in doubt. The Clintons don't much like losing."
Robinson concludes, "There's a battle to be fought against an upstart challenger who has the audacity to suggest that maybe the Clinton presidency, successful as it was in many ways, didn't change the world -- and that he, given the office, could do better. Some things, I guess, just can't be allowed. Bill Clinton obviously has decided that history can wait.”
Before last night’s food fight, there were quite a few remembrances for MLK in Columbia. "[W]hile Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were on hand to make speeches at the rally, only Obama arrived in time to march through the streets of this Southern capital. And in a sign of how the once-cordial Democratic contest has become twisted by a debate over race, some African Americans in the audience took Clinton's absence as a snub."
More: "Even the most routine stops on the campaign trail now are taking a combustible air. Clinton's aides said she had been delayed by ‘confusion’ over the time her plane was to leave for South Carolina, but some in the audience said the senator from New York should have marched in the parade, joining Obama."
Obama told editors at the Columbia State that “one of the biggest frustrations of his presidential bid is dealing with national media that he says doesn’t correct inaccuracies about his candidacy and his record. Some of those, he said, are pushed by the campaign of Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is locked in a tight race with Obama for the party’s nomination.”
