Dwayne Green is now running for a state senate seat that isn’t just any seat, it’s Robert Ford’s seat, a Democrat who has represented Charleston County since 1993 and is one of the most prominent black leaders in the state.
Why mount a primary run against a popular sitting senator? Green, who is a lawyer, objected to the comments Ford made a year ago that Obama’s nomination would “doom” every other Democratic candidate on the ticket. “We'd lose the House, the Senate and the governors and everything. I'm a gambling man. I love Obama. But I'm not going to kill myself,” said Ford.
So Green threw his hat in the ring. “I thought it was terrible that a black elected official would attack the most viable presidential candidate we’ve ever had.”
So while Ford was professing to look out for the seats of fellow Democrats, he managed to put his own in jeopardy. The primary is June 10 and Green hopes to raise $100K for the run; he just passed the $50K mark according to his own calculations. Anecdotally, folks around here tend to think Green has a fighting chance. Obama's candidacy seems to be pushing change one way or the other.
Incidentally, gays and lesbians here say Robert Ford has really stuck his neck out for the LGBT community – introducing a series of pro-gay bills after SC voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2006. “Ford, to his credit, has been very supportive of gays and lesbians,” says Green, adding, “In me, the community would not be losing anything.”
Here's the poster that graced the door to an Obama event at the YMCA today. Clinton may have taken Nevada tonight, but the momentum I'm feeling on the ground in Charleston right now is Obama's -- I'm seeing more functions, more canvassers, etc. (Most polls in the last couple weeks also have him up by anywhere from 6 to 13 points... to be taken with a grain of salt, of course.) That said, Charleston is also a natural fit for Obama. While surely old South, it also homes a lot of transplants and is the most progressive part of the state by most counts, which is part of the reason that one of the state's most active LGBT rights orgs, the Alliance For Full Acceptance (AFFA), is based in Charleston rather than SC's capital, Columbia.
As WNYC commentators say, the following statements are "thoroughly unscientific," but here is what I have found in the field. All of the African American folks I have spoken with thus far either support or lean Obama, without exception. Almost all of the white gay folks I have interviewed support Clinton -- and clearly McClurkin helped to seal the deal on that. I know a couple Edwards supporters, but even they admit that they are in the minority in terms of the LGBT community, most of whom have gone with either Obama or Clinton.
The last line of an Obama radio ad today offered, "It's your world on Saturday the 26th, let's change it." Many in the black community have clearly begun to believe that change is within reach -- along with the white folks and others who made up about 70% of his event at the YMCA today.
Keith Riddle is the president of the newly formed Stonewall Democrats chapter here in Charleston, the only in the state. Folks here had been working to get the chapter up for about 2 years, according to Riddle. That is, until Donnie McClurkin, an anti-gay ex-gay, took center stage on Sen. Obama's gospel tour aimed at wooing African-American religious folks. Once McClurkin's views on gays and lesbians came to light, the Obama campaign chose to keep him on the tour rather than removing him. (Obama maintained in an interview with The Advocate, that McClurkin wasn't thoroughly vetted.)
The McClurkin incident blew up in October 2007, incensing the LGBT community across the state. On Dec. 13, Stonewall had their first official meeting here in SC. "McClurkin really got things going," says Riddle. "For both gay Republicans and Democrats. I have encountered members of the gay community who were never really interested in politics that are just passionate about it this time." (Just FYI, the deep South has a history of sweeping 'unpleasantries' under the rug. A common M.O. here in SC regarding being gay is what people refer to as "don't ask, don't tell." To some extent, that appears to be changing. And full disclosure, I lived in SC for 6 years, so I am working with some perspective.)
At the Stonewall meeting, representatives from Obama's campaign said they knew they had made a mistake (reps from Hillary's campaign were present too). Still, Riddle says McClurkin comes up in "every conversation" he has with other gay folks about politics. "Obama never really apologized for that. I do believe that sometimes, it's time to move on," says Riddle. "But people just don't move on that quickly."
In Monday's debate, Riddle, who is a Hillary supporter but also likes Obama, says he hopes to see Obama address "how he's going to encourage the African American church and communities to embrace the gay and lesbian community." Riddle is still trying to get a ticket to the debate in Myrtle Beach. "I was expecting that one of the campaigns would reach out to GLBT
leaders to make sure they would be at the debates," he says. "But that
hasn't happened."
Stonewall is holding a debate primary viewing party on Jan. 26th at a local joint here in Charleston (Vickery's) where Riddle expects about 100 to 150 people.
Admittedly, my main focus here isn't on the GOP, but the Republican primary is today. Conventional wisdom says that rain is good for Huckabee, bad for McCain. The evangelicals make it out to vote rain or shine. Could rain really matter? I mean snow I understand, but really... a little rain?
Yes, really. Case in point, the gentleman I just met with, Keith Riddle, his mother lives in Myrtle Beach, is a a die-hard Republican voter and recently settled on McCain as her choice. She told him last night, if it was raining today, she wasn't going to the polls.
"'I called her this morning and said, 'You up? Okay, get in the car and go vote,'" says Riddle.
If you're interested in learning more about Huckabee, here's some stuff we dug up. He's been tacking even more conservative here in SC, calling for constitutional amendments not just to ban gay marriage but also abortion.
The National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization dedicated to supporting LGBT people of color, is co-sponsoring Monday’s debate along with CNN and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.
NBJC executive director and CEO, Alexander Robinson, said that while issues that impact African Americans will be the main focus of the debate, his organization has suggested some gay-specific questions to CBCI.
“Ultimately, the questions asked will be determined by CNN producers and Wolf Blitzer,” Robinson said, noting that Edwards, Obama and Clinton have all addressed questions in previous debates about same-sex marriage/civil unions, ending "don't ask, don't tell," and HIV/AIDS funding.
“What we haven't heard is just how they might differ in their approaches to achieving equality and justice for LGBT people or what, if anything, they believe and understand about the special challenges faced by black LGBT people -- in particular, recent news reports that young black gay men are experiencing significant increases in new cases of HIV, and the epidemic of homelessness in our communities.”
Certainly, it will be interesting to see if a question about LGBT issues makes it into the mix on Monday.
Just to give you a taste of being on the ground here in Charleston, SC, I started my day to the sound of Maya Angelou reaching out to me from a radio station that seemed geared toward African-American listeners.
"Let me tell you about my girl, Hillary Clinton," Angelou said in an ad. "As a child, Hillary Clinton was taught that all God's children are equal. So as a mother, she understood that her child wasn't safe, unless all children were safe." Angelou concluded with, "I am inspired by Hillary Clinton – a daughter, a wife, a mother, my girl."
Emphasis on the word "inspired" here, from a woman who tends to sound as though every word she utters has come direct from a higher power. This radio spot had far more religious overtones than any Democratic ads I heard or saw in Iowa. Remember, we're in the buckle of the Bible belt now, and religion plays to both sides, Democrats and Republicans. Photo: Getty Images
In order to get our bearings in South Carolina, Dr. Scott Huffmon, a professor who specializes in southern politics at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, gives us a quick look at the demographics of South Carolina.
African Americans make up about 30% of the entire population of South Carolina but, as has been widely reported, they will account for about 50% of the Democratic primary voters. Huffmon sees these numbers alone as reason enough to keep the Palmetto State at the front of the pack in terms of primaries.
“One of the reasons why South Carolina is important for Democrats as an early primary state is, it’s the first real test of a sizable African-American population,” he notes. “And we’re important for the Republicans because it’s the first real test of traditional conservative Republicans and Christian evangelicals.”
Perhaps more interestingly in terms of demographics, black women reign supreme here. Huffmon says they make up anywhere from 30 to 33% of voters in the Democratic primary, whereas black men account for between 17 and 20%.
Winthrop conducted one of the largest polls of African Americans in South Carolina in August and September of last year.
“A few months ago, the largest block of still undecided voters were African-American females, and they became the real battleground,” Huffmon says.
That’s around the time that Sen. Obama started his beauty shop campaign, visiting popular grooming spots around the state. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign deployed Bill. “When we asked people, ‘Why do you support Hillary Clinton?’ The number one answer for many women among African Americans was Bill Clinton,” says Huffmon.
As for white Democrats last fall, he adds, “Hillary was number one by a long stretch. Edwards was number two back then, and Obama was number three.”
Today, Huffmon thinks the number of black ‘undecideds’ has decidedly shrunk, likely in Sen. Obama’s favor. “By last September, he had taken the lead among African Americans,” he says, adding that Clinton was second, and Edwards had only about 3% support among black voters. “There’s a good bet that the vast majority of folks here in South Carolina have made up their minds and tend to be less like New Hampshire voters where 3 days out, they’re still undecided – we’re not New Hampshire,” he says.
If you’re wondering why we’re harkening back to a poll from last fall, Huffmon says it was one of the only polls, if not the only poll, to use a statistical sample large enough of both blacks and whites to be broken down by race.
The polls that are coming out now may yield a percentage of voters who are still in a state of quandary, but they are not reliable predictors of who exactly those voters are. “So you can look at the ‘undecideds,’ but you would not be able to tell undecideds by race because there would not be enough of a sample size to do that,” says Huffmon.
When it comes to indicators for how African Americans are leaning, Huffmon is looking toward the MLK day rallies this coming Sunday and Monday. A big rally to honor Dr. Martin Luther King will be held at the state’s capitol dome in Columbia on Monday afternoon. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama are all scheduled to appear there before marching to Myrtle Beach, SC, where they will participate in the CNN/Congressional Black Caucus debate – also being co-sponsored by the gay rights organization the National Black Justice Coalition.
But Dr. Huffmon isn’t looking to the highly publicized “Rally at the Dome” for intel on black voters. “Its’ not the rally that we need to pay attention to, it’s the tiny little gatherings among smaller groups of less than 100 or so of African Americans around the state,” he says. It’s at those gatherings where African Americans might rehash Sen. Clinton’s recent comments about it taking President Lyndon Johnson to pass legislation in order to make Dr. King’s dream a reality – which some blacks saw as diminishing the role that Dr. King played in the civil rights movement.
“They’re going to talk about that – it’s going to kind of go underground. It’s maybe not going to be talked about on Meet The Press, but it’s going to be talked about at prayer breakfasts honoring Dr. King around the state of South Carolina and that can only be bad for Hillary Clinton,” says Huffmon. “If that happens, that’s what I’m going to be looking for.”
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