Sharp words and fast food in final heave for votes
By Leonard Doyle in Columbia, South Carolina
We are waiting for the polls to close in South Carolina and all day the candidates have been buzzing round trying to get as many people as possible out to vote. On a warm winter’s day, it looks like its going to be a huge turnout thanks to the excitement among Democrats – who are mostly black – at having an outstanding black candidate with a crack at the White House. Race is never far from the surface in South Carolina. In the grounds of the elegant Statehouse, the Confederate flag blew in the breeze. In the morning Barack Obama visited at a Baptist church at Benedict College, a largely black university in Columbia (the last holdout for segregation in higher education in the US, it was finally ended by the courts in South Carolina 1963).
A little later Obama dropped into Harper's restaurant and met Scott Boyd, a surgeon, who told him he had always voted Republican primary, but did not vote in last week’s primary just so that he could vote Obama today. "There is a charisma about him. He seems to represent change. He's an aggregator, he pulls people together," Boyd said in words that could have been scripted by the Obama press office. Perhaps they were.
Hillary Clinton and Chelsea meanwhile were out meeting voters first at Shoney's and then the Victory restaurant. A huge media octopus followed the candidate as she lifted babies and squeezed herself into booths for a chat with people tucking into their "short stack" of pancakes. How is it that these events always seem to turn up the right kind of voter for the press? At Shoney’s MJ Hassell, 66 and white said she agonised over her vote but finally came down on Clinton's side. "I did like Obama's stand on being against the war from the start. But Hillary's got the experience we need," she said.
At another diner stop in Columbia, Bill Clinton had his favourite Southern breakfast: corn grits, coffee and three helpings of eggs. He could not help but take another swipe at Obama. "Since 100 per cent of medical malpractice is committed by doctors, next time you need surgery, go to an electrician," the ex-president said.
They are the kind of remarks he is becoming known for uttering whenever the cameras are around. A number of old friends and senior democrats have asked him to back off but to no avail. Here’s what his and Hillary’s old law school friend Robert Reich said after witnessing similar undignified antics: "Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic Party. While it may be that all is fair in love, war and politics, it’s not fair – indeed, it’s demeaning."
John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, was also on the café trail. He recognises that his prospects for winning here are slim but to the frustration of Clinton and Obama he is vowing to stay in the race. After the bickering of this week between the Obama and Clinton camps he says he wants to represent the "grown-up wing of the Democratic party". White votes in South Carolina seem to agree and they have been deserting Obama – or so the polls were saying. Lets see what happens.
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