Dems in S.C. Day Two

Posted by Mark Silva at 3:45 p.m.

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A crescendo of applause for a promise of better schools fills the crowded gymnasium where Sen. Barack Obama campaigns, but when Obama promises affordable health care for all by the end of his first term as president, the house comes down.

"What's missing is leadership, and the capacity of all of us to work together, regardless of race, regardless of region,'' Obama said Friday, in a booming, amplified voice. "We need to unify the United States of America… We need to bind ourselves together, not push ourselves apart… That's what this campaign is all about.''

Obama had stepped into the center ring of a high school gymnasium set for political theater in the round: Standing in a circle of a well-mixed crowd of whites and African-Americans seated on plastic chairs arranged on a blue vinyl mat covering the wooden floor of Burke High School's gym flanked by bleachers. Nearly 2,000 filled the gym, many lining up for over an hour under a baking mid-afternoon sun.

Seated in the heart of a historic, yet segregated neighborhood of Charleston gradually growing gentrified, Burke High has struggled with failure.

Here in the storied state that will stage the first presidential primary election in the Old South, the January vote is more than a test of which Democrat might run well in a solidly Republican-voting region. It's also a test of support among a core constituency of the Democratic Party, African-American voters – who will account for at least half of the vote in South Carolina's primary.

Two Democrats, Illinois' Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have found strong support among black voters here, according to a recent survey for Columbia-based WIS-TV conducted by pollster Peter Hart. The April 9-12 survey of 801 likely Democratic primary voters – 53 percent black – found that Clinton is favored among 40 percent of the state's black voters, Obama 35 percent.

And among all likely primary voters, the poll found, the contest at this admittedly early stage is a virtual tie between Clinton and Obama – 31 percent supporting or leaning to Clinton, 28 percent Obama.

"The United States is ready for a change,'' said Auriel James, 19, a sophomore at South Carolina State. "You have Hillary Clinton, a female, and that would change the world right there. And Barack Obama – that would just shock the world… With either of them, that would be a good thing.''

This is a state still debating a Confederate flag flying on the grounds of the old state Capitol in Columbia – though it was pulled from its pole atop the dome in 2000 and moved to the side of a monument to Confederate soldiers. A monument to the history of African-Americans also stands on the Capitol grounds, with a tableaux ranging from slavery to the Civil Rights movement to seats on the Supreme Court.

Obama is drawing big crowds here. When he asked for questions or comment from the crowd Friday, this is the first comment he got: "Obama, Obama, you the man.''

"I don't want all the questions to be that tough,'' joked Obama, allowing that he hadn't been in top form the night before in the premier presidential debate. "I was a little nervous, not so much because it was my first presidential debate, but because there was a 60-second time-limit on answers… My wife says it takes me 60 seconds to clear my throat.''

Clinton, a native of Park Ridge, Ill., long lived in Arkansas, has taken some ridicule for donning a Southern accent in appearing earlier this year in Selma, Ala, and at a more recent address to a civil rights group led by the Rev. Al Sharpton in New York. But her accent is a virtue, she suggested here in South Carolina.

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president,'' Clinton said Friday, campaigning at a charter school in Greenville.

The relentless racial issues here lent additional import to the first of the televised presidential debates this week, staged on the campus of historically black South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.

The flag was certain to come up, and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) articulated his way around the question, when reminded that the NAACP has asked tourist groups and sporting events to bypass South Carolina until the flag is removed from the Capitol grounds and asked if he agrees with that.

Noting that Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), an African-American and majority whip of the House, had sponsored this debate at his alma mater, Biden said: "I think it's better to show off the incredible capability of an historic black college and all these incredible students here than it is to walk away from that opportunity.''

Obama, for his part, attempted to delve into the deeper issue behind a symbolic debate.

"The Confederate flag should be put in a museum,'' Obama said. "But we've got an enormous debate that's taking place in this country right now… We have poverty in inner cities and rural communities all across the country. And we've got to engage the American people and the people of South Carolina in that debate.''

Both Clinton and Obama have eclipsed John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who was born in South Carolina and carried this state's presidential primary in 2004, according to the WIS poll.

And Edwards, a mill-workers' son who became a wealthy trial lawyer and has campaigned on a promise to bridge the divide between the rich and poor in America, now finds himself fighting for his claim to his own humble roots – with the debate featuring a question about his $400 haircut.

"If the question is… whether I live a privileged and blessed lifestyle now, the answer to that is yes,'' Edwards said. "But it's not where I come from, and I've not forgotten where I come from.''

Among African-American voters here, however, Edwards claims a small share of support – just 9 percent in the WIS poll. And among all voters, the poll shows, he stands 10 points behind Clinton.

Like Edwards and Obams, Clinton is courting voters who feel disenfranchised.

"This administration and corporate America today don't see middle-class and working Americans,'' she said in debate here this week. "They don't understand that if you're a family that can't get health care, you are really hurting. But to the corporate elite and to the administration and the White House, you're invisible.''

Still, observers say, it's early in this exceptionally early campaign for the White House.

"Usually, this stuff doesn't start until the fall of the odd year,'' says Brad Coker, director of Mason-Dixon Opinion Research. "At least on the Democratic side, there's only three players in South Carolina now, and where they stack up is irrelevant.'' The three are Clinton, Obama and Edwards, he says, but "this thing is so early, you can take a poll now and it will be meaningless in another two months.''