Obama Smackdown!



Political Commentary


By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

--- He was raised by his white mother and his white grandparents and only spent a short period of time with his black father when he was ten years old as the young "Barry" Obama grew up in a white world, but on Saturday, the 47-year-old senator from Illinois managed to win 80 percent of the vote of black South Carolina Democrats in his quest to beat former First Lady and Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.   Clinton left the Palmetto state about an hour before the polls closed and was in Nashville hosting a huge rally of supporters for the Feb. 5th super Tuesday battle at which about half the states will make decisions.  
While the media went to great lengths to worry about the role of President Bill Clinton's pitched battle in the past week as he defended his wife's honor, the Clintons were wildly successful in making the issue about Obama being the candidate of the blacks, a position he tried for the past six months to avoid.  Obama has been very successful in winning support across all racial and ethnic groups of the Democratic Party and after his caucus win in Iowa, Obama began to really worry the Clinton strategists.
Thus, Bill was sent out to artfully craft the route for Obama to take and he and his top campaign advisors fell for the Clinton strategy hook, line and sinker. After black Democrats in South Carolina saw that one of "them", the guy who grew up in a white world, could be elected, they moved to him in droves and thus the Clinton's new strategy was developed, the first stage was to beat him in New Hampshire, which they did.
Next, the expected loss in South Carolina was soon spun to be unavoidable as blacks were overcome with glee at being able to put one of their own forward.  Obama had no choice but to try to win South Carolina but he should have simply planned on winning it and instead struck out across the country working on Super Tuesday states.
Bill Clinton pointed out to a reporter that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and in 1988 and now Obama wins the state's primary for the third time, accomplished by a black candidate. 
Obama better get some better campaign strategists than what he has if he expects to beat the Clintons.  Hillary and Bill succeeded in moving Obama from being a fresh new candidate with broad support to being the black candidate, who will now head into dozens of states which don't have significant black populations but do have delegates.
Obama's victory speech was uplifting and inspiring and in ways was reminiscent of Ronald Reagan but he also dropped into the sing-song of a black preacher, wonderful stuff for blacks and wondering stuff for whites.
Who would have thought the biggest campaign story for the past two weeks would be about race-baiting charges among the Democratic candidates campaigns and Bill Clinton.
Nobody is tougher or more adept than the Clintons and all of the events of the past few weeks have made Hillary a better campaigner.  Women are being told not to tell anyone who they are supporting so as not to Hillary identified as the "women's candidate" just like Obama has now become the black candidate. 
The women are good at keeping secrets, except for one who told me, and you can bet the women are going to put a woman in the White House if they can, and they have been at this for a long time.  And why not, they couldn't screw things up as bad as the guys have over the years. 
Edwards will stay in the race and try to become a power broker at a close convention by continuing to keep racking up delegates.
With Gov. Charlie Christ's endorsement of Sen. John McCain in the Republican Florida primary on Tuesday, watch for McCain to keep riding a wave which will carry him to the nomination. Maybe. The conservative Republicans are starting to flow towards Gov. Mitt Romney in a big way and these cats still have misgivings about McCain.
Three major newspapers in Florida have endorsed McCain in the last few days before that state's primary, combined with the support of the Governor and Sen. Martinez, McCain will have a close win over Romney. 
A silly clash on Saturday over a statement of Romney's from last spring showed that the Republicans can be as clueless as the Democrats. 
Unless, of course, the fracas over a Romney answer on Good Morning America to a question about timetables for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq was designed to undercut him with conservatives, which, of course, it likely was, then, there is a point. But who could accuse the Republicans of being as smart as the Clintons?