The New York Times-20080126-A Stress-Filled Week Shows Obama With a Blend of Humor and Fire
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A Stress-Filled Week Shows Obama With a Blend of Humor and Fire
On the fifth day, Senator Barack Obama chose humor.
When I was 20 points down, I was a fine young man. The Clintons couldn't say enough nice things about me, Mr. Obama said, that familiar wide smile spreading across his face. Suddenly you win Iowa, and the knives come out. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton found her voice with a victory in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama often seems to have been searching for the proper pitch in South Carolina, with the weight and scrutiny of the Clinton political machine fully upon him.
This week, some of the challenges and complexities facing Mr. Obama's candidacy came into sharp view, with racial discord, ideological divides and cutthroat politics testing his candidacy as never before in his yearlong campaign. (Or his political life. )
For all of the sunny self-assurance that has propelled him to this juncture in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Obama grappled to find a balance between defending himself against accusations he called distorted and promoting a message of hopeful change in a state that is essential to his bid for the presidency.
When asked the other day whether former President Bill Clinton was rattling him, Mr. Obama turned his smile quickly to a snarl.
No, he said, berating his questioner as the television cameras rolled.
It was a week that provided a glimpse into how Mr. Obama operates under what may well have been the most stressful week of his campaign.
One day he seemed angry, another day he seemed flustered, another day he seemed frustrated and, finally, he resorted to humor. It is a range of emotions that may well be unfamiliar to Americans who have watched this normally easy-going, sure-footed politician.
On the eve of the primary here, Mr. Obama seemed once again to wear that smile as he dashed across the state on Friday to campaign appearances in the Low Country, the Upcountry, the Pee Dee and the Midlands. Each region of South Carolina holds its own prospects -- and peril -- for his candidacy.
So Mr. Obama deliberately worked to move on after a bruising week that began with the most combative debate of the campaign and was quickly followed by a head-to-head competition with Mr. Clinton. Aides acknowledged that he had spent enough -- and probably too much -- time dwelling on his rivals. (In a speech to several thousand people here on Friday, Mr. Obama did not mention the former president once.)
As the Obama campaign looks beyond South Carolina to the obstacle course ahead, one question is the most worrisome to his strategists who have worked to calibrate a race-neutral candidate: Will Mr. Obama emerge identified -- and, by extension, constrained -- by his race?
Mr. Obama, of course, says no. Seldom a city went by on his tour of South Carolina, though, where the question of his race did not come up. It was asked by black and white voters alike.
I know that there are some people who I've been hearing say, 'Well, you know, he can't do it. He's too young or African-Americans can't do it or he's got a funny name or Clinton is too strong.' There's always some reasons why, Mr. Obama told a predominantly black audience in Sumter. But I'm one of those people when you tell me I can't do something, that's when I decide I'm going to do it.
But while Mr. Obama seeks to transcend race, his campaign cannot avoid the politics associated with it. A new poll on Friday, conducted by MSNBC/McClatchy Newspapers, showed that Mr. Obama was winning support from 59 percent of black voters in South Carolina but only 10 percent of white voters. The majority of the white voters are splitting their support between Mrs. Clinton and John Edwards, the native son.
Of course it's going to be a racially polarized race. It just is, said Inez Tannenbaum, a longtime party official here who is supporting Mr. Obama and was traveling along with him on Friday. That's the beauty of Barack Obama. He appeals to people from all walks of life and every background as well as every ethnicity.
The outcome of the South Carolina primary could reveal something about the country. And for Mr. Obama, the weeklong campaign in the South has revealed something to voters about him.
A glimpse of a short temper emerged, along with a tenacious side that had stayed bottled up -- in public, at least -- for the last year. After he unloaded a barrage of criticism on Mrs. Clinton on the debate stage in Myrtle Beach on Monday night, many of his advisers were relieved that he showed a fight that they had been previewing for months.
Yet for a brief period, through a daily back-and-forth with the Clintons, did it threaten to overtake his message and consume him?
If so, it did not seem to be at the top of his mind when he arrived shortly before 8 p.m. Friday in Florence. Mr. Obama could be seen sloped down in the seat of his campaign bus, chewing on a snack, watching television.
Politics? No.
On the night before the voting here began, Mr. Obama was settling in to catch a few minutes of the Orlando Magic and the Detroit Pistons. He had two more campaign rallies ahead before his day was finished.
[Illustration]PHOTO: Senator Barack Obama listened to the concerns of women Friday at a round-table meeting at a deli in Charleston, (PHOTOGRAPH BY S.C. DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES)