<font size="5"><center>
God and race divide parties in key
battle for the soul of the South</font size><font size="4">
Barack Obama has to win over both black and white
Democrat voters to see off Hillary Clinton: the
Republican hopefuls are more worried about religion </font size></center>
The Guardian
Paul Harris in South Carolina
Sunday January 13, 2008
The Observer
The Back Porch Cafe in downtown Columbia was full of staff and supporters from John McCain's campaign in South Carolina. When news of McCain's victory in New Hampshire blared from the bar's TV set, they cheered and clapped.
Now it was their turn in the spotlight as America's dramatic presidential race turned to the South. It is a region where race and God will enter the battle as never before. It will be fierce.
As they digested their candidate's win, a group of four McCain supporters drank beer and contemplated the imminent arrival of black Democratic hopeful Barack Obama. 'You know what Barack Obama's middle name is?' asked one. 'Hussein,' he said, answering his own question. The sharp intakes of breath by his companions said more than words.
South Carolina is the state where black voters will, for the first time in this contest, play a significant role. In a race that is seeing the most viable presidential run by a black candidate, that could make a big difference to the Democrat nomination. Yet things will not be simple in South Carolina. Obama is basing his appeal on a 'post-racial' image, far from the traditional tactics of previous runners such as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Nor can he count on unquestioning black support. He is coming up against Hillary Clinton's formidable machine, which has long-standing ties with black America. Their battle here will set the tone for the contest for America's entire black vote.
On the Republican side, the 'Southern effect' will be felt by the impact of South Carolina's large, powerful - and mostly white - evangelical population. Gods, guns and gays will dominate much of the race as former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee tries to upset McCain. It is also likely to be a dirty fight. South Carolina's politics are notorious for foul play and negative tactics, which have earned it the nickname of 'The Swamp'. This 'Southern Front' is a far cry from the cornfields of Iowa and the white picket fences of New Hampshire. 'It all changes once you get to the South,' said Professor Monika Alston, an expert in race issues at South Carolina's College of Charleston.
Helen Murray knows all about that. A 67-year-old retired black nurse, she was born at a time when South Carolina did not allow most blacks to vote. Yet last week she stood in a racially mixed crowd of 5,000 people in Charleston and watched a black man ask them for their support in his bid to win the White House. In the historic port city, whose elegant streets are lined with antebellum buildings, Murray nodded and smiled as Obama outlined his vision. But she insisted she was not thinking of race when she said she would vote for him. 'I love him for his message. I believe in what he stands for. People just want a better life. It's not racial,' she said.
Obama's vision of a 'post-racial' future seemed present in the crowd itself. Blacks and whites, young and old, all crammed into a grassy park in the centre of town. Hundreds more gathered outside, peering through the railings. One student wore a Kappa Alpha T-shirt, meaning he was from a college fraternity society who consider Confederate general Robert E Lee as a spiritual founder. 'Now that is an amazing sight at an Obama rally,' said one stunned local journalist.
It is with this magic formula that Obama is hoping to win South Carolina, cementing black support in an alliance with independent and 'soft' Republican whites. As well as the support of Helen Murray, he wants the vote of people like Dan Cortes, a 21-year-old white student soon to join the army. 'I am more open to what he has to say than other candidates, but I am not decided yet,' Cortes said, his buzz cut showing his recent graduation from the local Citadel Military College.
If Obama can unite black and white Democrats in South Carolina, it could give him a crucial win after his second place in New Hampshire. At the moment his support among blacks seems solid in a state where they make up 50 per cent of registered Democrats. He has energised black voters like Tajamul Abdulkhaliq who went to see Obama campaign with Oprah Winfrey. 'It moved me to tears. I didn't care about Oprah, but what Obama said made me register to vote,' he said.
But Hillary Clinton might win here. The newspaper that Abdulkhaliq was reading as he waited at a bus stop in Columbia had a picture of Clinton plastered over its front page. She was celebrating her remarkable comeback in New Hampshire. Her campaign, all but written off a week ago, is now flush with fresh cash and retooled with a new, more open message. Only last week her top advisers were preparing a shakeout of senior staff. Now they are taking on extra manpower and will be pushing for a victory.
Experts think the battle here will be close, despite recent polls putting Obama comfortably ahead. Such surveys can be misleading, especially when it comes to black candidates. Polls have often overestimated their support, as white voters have told pollsters they will vote for them, only to switch in the privacy of a voting booth. In South Carolina, so laden with its racial past, that phenomenon could easily surface. 'I would say it could go either way at the moment. It is running about even now,' said Alston.
If it goes Obama's way, it is likely to be because of wavering voters like Cortes. Cortes was still undecided, not least because his career in the military makes him wary of the Democrat message on Iraq. 'I don't want to vote for someone who just says it's all awful over there,' he said. 'I have not made up my mind yet.'
For the moment, Obama's post-racial vision looks as if it can carry South Carolina, but it is not a certainty. 'I think we are at the stage where people want to move beyond race, but we are not at the moment where we actually have moved beyond race,' said Alston.
Race in the Republican contest, however, is a different matter. Here it is defined by absence, not presence. At rallies for presidential hopefuls like Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and John McCain, the audiences are overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, white. Here the debates are not about forging a post-racial consensus, but the old fights about religion, abortion and the military.
At a rally in the South Carolina town of Spartanburg, Huckabee addressed a crowd in a hotel ballroom that was remarkable both for its whiteness and religious fervour. While Huckabee took the stage to the strains of 'Mustang Sally' and had an endearing line in homespun humour, his supporters were of the evangelical right. 'I am leaning towards him,' said Benjamin Estep. 'He is a Christian. If we depend on God for our leadership, then we can't go far wrong.'
That is probably true when you are looking to win the Republicans' South Carolina primary. You definitely don't go far without mentioning God a lot. Evangelicals will make up between 40 and 60 per cent of Republican voters and they are totally behind Huckabee, with his core policies of anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and scepticism over evolution. He has also now thrown in a strong dose of economic populism, including abolishing income tax, that could easily win widespread support in a state where job losses have hit the white working class.
If he does win, it could deal a huge blow to McCain's campaign. The Arizona senator had a disastrous experience in South Carolina in 2000, when his bid for the presidency was derailed by a brutal dirty tricks campaign in support of George W Bush.
Now, eight years later, McCain is back in the state that once destroyed him. Once again, he is fresh from a shock win in New Hampshire. But this time he is playing it carefully. He has lined up the state's political establishment behind him, with endorsements by local power players. 'We are going to get organised and deliver South Carolina for John McCain. It all depends on us,' said Henry McMaster, the state attorney-general.
Last week McCain held a rally at the Citadel in Charleston, marking his return to South Carolina near a parade ground littered with tanks and hardware from American battles all over the world. He addressed a crowd of veterans, soldiers and the solid white middle class and gave them the sort of patriotic Republican red meat they were looking for.
When talking about the threat posed by al-Qaeda, he sounded every bit as fear-mongering as his main rival, ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. 'They are implacable, they are unpardonable. They will commit any evil,' he said.
It's tempting to think that McCain might have used similar words to describe the political enemies who beat him in South Carolina in 2000. But he is not taking any chances this time around. His staff had set up a 'truth squad' to stamp on any underhand tactics as soon as they appear.
Such care is justified: McCain cannot afford to lose South Carolina. In recent history, the winner has always gone on to be the Republican nominee. For McCain and Huckabee - and the current outside bets of Mitt Romney and Thompson - the stakes could not be higher.
Yet there are signs that the battle will be different from previous contests. The racially mixed crowds thronging to see Obama are evidence of that. But so, too, are leaflets put out by McCain. They feature prominently a picture of his daughter, Bridget, who is from India. In 2000 the Bush campaign's dirty tricks fanned rumours that the girl, who is adopted, was an illegitimate love child. Now such racist tactics would be decried as soon as they appeared.
Indeed the South - and South Carolina - are changing fast. The region is one of the fastest-growing areas of the US. Its racial politics are fading away with demographic change, greater wealth and the emergence of a black middle class and a new generation of black leaders whose background does not spring from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Even its politics are getting cleaner. Or at least a little bit less dirty.
Some nasty incidents still occur. Just ask Traci Wallace, a student in Spartanburg. As she waited for Huckabee to appear, she confessed she had recently received an email describing Obama as a secret Muslim. 'If that's true, I would certainly want to know about that,' she said with a flash of concern. But then she paused for a moment and added: 'But I don't know. I suspect it's probably just some nonsense off the internet.' In the South, old habits often die hard. But, in the end, they do die.
<font size="3">The New Black Generation: Rising Stars</font size>
Across America a new generation of black leaders have taken positions of power that have little to do with the more traditional, often church-based, activism of the past.
Cory Booker
The popular, young mayor of Newark, New Jersey, has carved out a national reputation for progressive , activism in one of the toughest cities in America that was once a byword for urban strife.
Shirley Franklin
The mayor of Atlanta is one of the most powerful black women politicians in America and heads an economic power house that is the spiritual home of the New South. She does so with widespread support from the business community and is tipped as a future governor of Georgia.
Deval Patrick
The first black governor of Massachusetts, and currently the only black governor in America, Patrick is a black success story in a part of the country long famed for its extensive and long-standing Irish-American political machine.
Adrian Fenty
At only 35, Fenty is already mayor of Washington DC. Like Obama, he is the son of a black father and white mother.
Harold Ford
He is a Tennessee politician who was narrowly beaten in a Senate race in the state in 2006. The contest was mired in racially tinged attack ads, and Ford won much national support.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2240148,00.html
