Obama Says South Carolina Win Turns a Page
01.28.08 -- 6:24 AM
Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that his landslide win in South Carolina's presidential primary marks a turn in political history, showing that a black candidate can appeal to voters of all colors and in all regions.
The Illinois senator told a raucous crowd of more than 9,000 here that his big victory Saturday disproved the old notion "that if you get black votes, you can't get white votes," and vice versa.
"We're going to write a new chapter in the South, we're going to write a new chapter in American history," he said during his 64-minute speech to a capacity crowd at the University of Alabama at Birmingham basketball arena. The crowd was roughly two-thirds black and one-third white.
Earlier Sunday he made a similar argument, responding to comments by former President Clinton that some interpreted as an effort to diminish Obama's win Saturday over Hillary Rodham Clinton. Bill Clinton noted that Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina primary in 1984 and 1988. Jackson never became the party's presidential nominee.
Obama, speaking during a television interview, said "there's no doubt" that Jackson set a precedent for blacks seeking the presidency. But he noted that was two decades ago.
"I think that what we saw in this election was a shift in South Carolina," he said, with implications "all across the country. I think people want change. I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past."
Obama resisted being drawn into a spat with the Clintons, even though he suggested they are part of a political past the country is ready to leave behind.
"I think that Bill Clinton did important work back in the 1990s," he said. "The question is, now we're in 2008, and how do we move it forward to the next phase?"
"I think that in the '90s, we got caught up in a slash-and-burn politics that the American people are weary of," Obama said.
"Now, that is not the Clintons' fault," he said on ABC's "This Week.""It is all of our faults, in the sense that we've gotten into these bad habits and we can't seem to have disagreements without being disagreeable."
Later, speaking with reporters during a flight from Georgia to Alabama, Obama said, "I think the country wants to look forward, and that has always been the central thesis of our campaign."
He said Hillary Clinton will have an advantage in the sprawling race on Feb. 5, when Democrats vote in 22 states, because of her nearly universal name recognition. "It presents more of a challenge for us," he said, because he needs time for voters to get to know him.
Obama declined to directly condemn Clinton for urging that Democratic Party officially recognize delegates awarded to the winner of Tuesday's largely ignored Democratic primary in Florida. The national party has said it will not sanction Tuesday's results because the state insisted on scheduling its presidential primary too early in the year. Clinton said she will travel to Florida on Tuesday.
"All the candidates made a pledge that we would campaign in the early states and we would not campaign in Florida and Michigan," Obama said. "I will abide by the promises I made."
As Obama campaigned in Georgia and Alabama, party officials confirmed that Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy planned to endorse him Monday in Washington. Obama was endorsed during the weekend by Caroline Kennedy, the senator's niece and daughter of the late President Kennedy.
In Macon, Ga., Obama spoke for about a half hour to about 1,000 people at the interracial and interdenominational Harvest Cathedral. He talked about how he became a committed Christian as a young man in Chicago after rarely attending church as a child.
On his first visit to the church he now belongs to, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Obama said, "I was introduced to Jesus in a way I had never been before."
Part of his mission as a politician, he said, is "to go out and do the Lord's work."
Recounting the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, Obama said, "Our commitment cannot rest so long as we are still divided by race" and have homeless veterans, poor schools, uninsured people and unemployed workers.
Georgia and Alabama are among the 15 states holding Democratic primaries on Feb. 5. Seven other states hold Democratic caucuses that day.
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