Why Hillary? 'She doesn't need a tour of the White House'
Richland County, where the South Carolina capital sits, is the home of several universities, and it is one of the few staunchly Democratic counties in the state. Plus South Carolina, which has a population about half the size of the Chicago metropolitan area, is the first Democratic southern primary, and it is a state that is beginning to turn a little more purple as liberal-minded boomers move from the North to golf communities. It is why Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards will make many stops here on the money-raising, vote-getting trail.
Jackson says, "Obama is impressive," but he's known Hillary longer, first meeting her in 1992 when Bill Clinton came to Columbia to campaign. "Obama is warm and engaging," he says, "but the vast difference between Hillary Clinton and Obama is that she has the Rolodex, and she doesn't need a tour of the White House." Poor Edwards, at this point it looks as if it's going to be a schlep uphill for him to win the state where he was born.
Most other African Americans in Columbia aren't as involved yet as Jackson. Kay Patterson, serving his last year in the South Carolina Senate, notes: "It's too damn far out, and all of them are running. I'm not going to get involved in presidential politics a year out."
There seems to be a lack of confidence -- a disbelief that a black man can become president. "It's a slim possibility for him to get the nomination, but then everyone else is doomed," state Sen. Robert Ford told the Associated Press last week, plunging his foot into his mouth. "Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose --because he's black and he's top of the ticket. ..."
There will be more stones like this, more questions about Obama's days in college and his drug use and his work in Chicago. Obama will need to bite his lip and muddle through.
South Carolina Democrats say they want to see if he has the right stuff. If not, they're going with Hillary.