Race is real in South Carolina
Posted: Friday, January 25, 2008 6:19 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Despite Bill Clinton’s scolding of the media for asking him race-related questions, race is very much an issue on the ground here in South Carolina. Overwhelmingly, black voters are backing Obama, according to the MSNBC/McClatchy/Mason-Dixon poll (and others). They like his policies, yes, but they also say it’s a great feeling of possibility to have a viable African-American candidate, something Bill Clinton, himself, has acknowledged.
On the flip side, Obama is getting just an astoundingly low 10% of the white vote in the Mason-Dixon poll -- despite winning in lilly-white Iowa and his broad message. Edwards, the only viable white male on the Democratic side and native South Carolinian, has surged among whites. He, in fact, now leads among the trifecta of candidates, 40%-36% over Clinton. Obama’s support among whites has been slashed in half since the last time the poll was conducted.
At a well-attended, Clinton event this morning at Benedict College, a historically black college, almost all of the attendees were African American. One white woman in attendance said she had been for Hillary since she began running. This gregarious woman ticked off reason after reason for why she’s for Hillary. When asked what she thinks of Obama and Edwards, she replied only, “I like John Edwards.”
She was content to leave it at that, but after a five-second pause, this reporter asked, “What about Obama?”
She stopped, raised her eyebrows, and suddenly this once-engaging woman was looking around, over her shoulders at this room filled with African Americans. Then she got very quiet, leaned in, shaking her head and very quietly said, “I just don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” I prodded after a moment.
"I don't know," she said.
“Is it experience?”
“No -- could be. No,” she said.
“Is it electability?”
“No. I don’t care if other people will vote for him.”
“So…?”
“I just don’t know,” she said, shaking her head and again looking around as if she were being followed. “I just don’t know.”
