If Bernie Sanders the Democratic hopeful has any chance of drawing away African-American voters from his biggest competitor Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary in South Carolina February 27, his best opportunity is amongst the younger voters.
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Clinton sought solidarity with Obama at every turn during Thursday’s debate in Milwaukee, referring to herself as a “staunch supporter” of his health care law and praising him as a role model on race relations.
“He was never a Democrat”.
“In my view, the government of a democratic society has a moral responsibility to play a vital role in making sure all our people have a decent standard of living”, Sanders said. He accused Sanders of “dismissive and disrespectful behavior toward the president”.
“We’re going to emphasize education, jobs and housing”, said Clinton, who was endorsed earlier in the day by the political action committee of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Seeking to stem Sanders’ momentum, Clinton’s campaign has argued that his appeal is limited to the white, liberal voters who make up the Democratic electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Sanders also repeated his accusation that Clinton is too beholden to the Wall Street interests she once represented as a US senator from NY, noting her Super PAC received $15 million in donations from Wall Street. “His record on guns is very troubling”.
Sanders, addressing about 4,000 activists at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner in St. Paul, the nation should be “proud of the accomplishments of the Obama and Biden administration”.
“I think she’s still in a position to get plenty of support from women in this contest, especially relative to men”, said Geoffrey Skelley of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
At one SC university that is historically black, potential voters seemed split during the week over whom to support. Sanders said he had been an Obama ally in the Senate even if he did not always agree with him.
Clinton, who has eagerly embraced Obama’s legacy, said Sanders had called Obama weak and a disappointment, and “that goes further than saying we have our disagreements”. “I was not that candidate”. But he also stressed that Sanders respects Obama and was not suggesting that race relations have gotten worse since 2009. “I do not expect it from someone seeking the Democratic nomination”, Clinton said in a sharp exchange near the close of the two-hour debate in Milwaukee. Sanders said the problem wasn’t confined to race but investments in poor communities were “long overdue”.
“He’s not socially connected, I would say, to the black community”, she said.
Sanders responded sharply: “Madam Secretary, that is a low blow”.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, an influential writer on racial issues, drew attention to the issue recently in an Atlantic Magazine essay entitled “The Case for Reparations”.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of Sanders” top black surrogates, suggested the senator was the right successor to Obama, asking the audience if they had voted for Obama eight years ago “because what he told you was not possible?
“That’s what’s happening right now”. And he noted that Clinton was the only one on the stage who ran against Obama in the 2008 presidential race.
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“When we saw children coming from these horrendous, horrendously violent areas of Honduras and neighboring countries, people who are fleeing drug violence and cartel violence, I thought it was a good idea to allow those children to stay in this country”, said Sanders.
