WILMINGTON (NNPA) - Now it’s South Carolina’s turn.

Several of the latest polls show Sen. Barack Obama, who stunned the world by winning the Iowa caucuses a week ago by a convincing eight-point margin, has a solid lead heading into the Jan. 26 Democratic presidential primary there.

And key to that lead is the African American vote.

The Illinois Democrat will need it, especially since his chief rival, New Hampshire primary victor Sen. Hillary Clinton [D-NY], is also making a strong bid for Black support in the Palmetto state.

The two-term New York Democrat has the support of several S.C. Black elected officials, ministers and Jacqueline Jackson, wife of Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Clinton shocked all of the pollsters and pundits this week by erasing a 13-point deficit in the polls to defeat the front-running Obama 39 to 36 percent in the New Hampshire contest Tuesday, thanks, in large measure, to almost 50 percent of Democratic females breaking her way literally at the last minute.

In both New Hampshire and Iowa, Blacks made up less than 3 percent of each state’s population (Blacks were 1 percent of New Hampshire’s 2004 Democratic primary voters).

The surprise Clinton win was a wakeup call to the Obama campaign that despite all of the positive press and massive voter support, it can’t take anything for granted.
Not even the Black vote.

The Michigan caucuses on Jan. 15, and the Nevada primaries on January 19, are actually the next tests for Clinton and Obama. But South Carolina’s 51 percent Black Democratic voter population – 40 percent of whom are Black females – will be the first time that a state primary with a significant African American population gets to weigh-in.

Last weekend in the afterglow of the Iowa caucuses’ victory, Obama supporters fanned out across South Carolina, telling African American voters that the verdict is in – Obama has proven he can attract millions in White money, and Iowa proved he could turn out White voters at the polls.

Thus, he can win the presidency, they say.

That puts a stake in the heart of a December CBS News poll that showed 40 percent of South Carolina Black voters believed that White America was not ready to elect a Black president (only 34 percent of SC whites polled agreed).

But even before that CBS poll, the push for Obama in South Carolina’s Black community was on.

“South Carolina is a key state for the campaign,” Yvonne Robinson, State Chapter Director of South Carolina’s Black Women for Obama, says. “About one-third of all the voters in the South Carolina primary will be African American women. Having Black Women for Obama chapters around the country to assist us in reaching these women will mean a great deal to our ability to get the word out about our candidate and win the state.”

That effort will still be needed.

Thanks to the popularity of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in the Black community, Sen. Clinton enjoys strong support in South Carolina, even on the college campuses.

“I like Hillary. I like her a lot,” Shay Mack, a nursing student at historically Black South Carolina State University, told the Dallas Morning News Dec. 21. “She has the experience. She’s been in the White House before; she’s in the Senate now. And I like Bill.”

Another SCSU student, Emil Douglas, 19, told the paper, “I don’t dislike Obama. But right now I just think Hillary is the stronger candidate.”

Some older Black SC citizens have also expressed hesitancy to support Obama, primarily because they are afraid for his safety, believing that while much has changed in America’s racial attitudes since they were young, racism is still alive and well.

And some S.C. Black elected officials were downright blunt in their rejection of Obama’s candidacy.

“Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he’s Black and he’s top of the ticket,” Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford, a Clinton supporter, told the Associated Press shortly after Obama announced for the presidency in February 2007.
Sen. Ford was forced to apologize for that errant remark shortly afterwards.

Clinton’s main attack against Obama is his relative lack of national experience.

“Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not,” the former First Lady has told voters.

In contrast, Obama has inspired both Black and White audiences with soaring words of hope and change, saying that a new generation of electorate, tired of business as usual in American politics, want real answers to nagging problems like healthcare and a crippled economy that veteran politicians like Sen. Clinton have failed to adequately address.

Whites see Obama as invoking the legacy of President John Kennedy and his brother, Robert, who are seen historically as change agents who brought people together.
Blacks appreciate that vision, but also see Obama as an accomplished Black man they can be proud of who is the embodiment of all that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed about.

“We’re just excited, fired up and ready to go and take our country back,” Lucy Oakes, an Obama supporter, told the Myrtle Beach Sun News. “No black, no white, no red, no blue - just one America.”

To be clear, while Blacks in South Carolina overall may feel a little better about Sen. Obama’s presidential chances, several key Black elected officials remain unconvinced.

State Rep. Fletcher Smith Jr., a Democrat from Greenville, SC, supported Sen. Joe Biden’s weak presidential run before he bowed out after the Iowa caucuses. Now that Biden’s gone, Smith says Obama’s sudden success doesn’t mean he automatically deserves Black support.

To me, it’s not a question of race,” Rep. Smith told The New York Times. “It’s a question of who’s going to be the one to unify the country. I think that both of those candidates have the potential of doing it in a very dignified, professional way. I’m not going to vote for Sen. Obama simply because he is a Black candidate who happens to be the front-runner.”

That point of view may be eroding fast, however.

Nationally, Sen. Obama is leading Hillary Clinton among African Americans by a growing margin. A Pew Research poll taken just before the Iowa caucuses had Obama over Clinton 47 to 45 percent.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey published January 7 has Obama with a double-digit lead in South Carolina overall among Democrats 42 to 30 percent over Clinton, with Obama garnering 58 percent of the black vote, an eight-point increase from December.

That same poll in December saw Obama and Clinton tied at 33 percent among S.C. Democrats.

But S.C.’s White voters aren’t to be forgotten.

According to Rasmussen, Obama has a 17-point lead among Democratic men and eight-point lead with women over Clinton.

The New Hampshire victory for Clinton could definitely tighten those numbers, making the contest for SC’s Black voters extremely crucial.

“We’re going to have to dig deep into our souls, confront our own self-doubt,” Michelle Obama, the candidate’s wife, told a predominately Black audience in Orangeburg, SC recently. “Let’s prove to our children that they really can reach for their dreams. Let’s show them that America is ready for Barack Obama.”

The biggest endorsement in South Carolina belongs to U.S. House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D), the most powerful Black Democrat in Congress.

He backed John Edwards in 2004, but Clyburn is already on record as saying he will not endorse any candidates in the 2008 primary.

One factor that can’t be ignored is the third Democratic primary candidate in the race, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

In his first bid for the presidency in 2004, Edwards, who was born in South Carolina, won the S.C. Democratic primary 45 percent to Sen. John Kerry’s 30 percent, and Rev. Al Sharpton’s ten percent.

Though Edwards came in a weak third in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, given his strong ties and support in SC, he could be a spoiler for either Obama or Clinton by siphoning off key Black voter support.

Whatever happens in South Carolina on Jan. 26, it all leads up to a true super showdown on Tuesday, Feb. 5, when 22 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and New York, all have primaries that may definitively decide which candidate has the nomination sewn up going into the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado in late August.

This story comes to NNPA from the Wilmington Journal.