Voters Not Swayed by Racial Politics

Even as voters in South Carolina headed to the polls Saturday to deliver a beat-down to Sen. Hillary Clinton for Sen. Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton continued to stoke the racial fire, hoping an ember would ignite his wife's campaign and lead it to victory.

As reported on Jake Tapper's ABCNews.com blog, at a stop in Columbia, S.C., the former president was asked to respond to Obama's comment that it "took two people to beat him."

Instead of answering the question, he said, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Tapper said no one asked about Jackson. His name never came up. Yet Clinton had no problem invoking it. Isn't the reason obvious?

The ridiculously called first black president didn't mention his win in 1992 or that of Vice President Al Gore in 2000 — or even then-Sen. John Edwards' win in 2004. He decided to bypass all of these gents and link Obama with Jackson, who is beloved in black America but stirs hatred among many whites.

I'm sure some of you are saying, "Oh, Roland. Stop reading race into everything!" But what we all have learned over the years is that race is a hot commodity, and it has been used effectively by all kinds of candidates to stir people up along racial lines.

Since Richard Nixon implemented the "Southern strategy" in 1968, which was intended to get Southern whites to side with the GOP because of their anger at the Democrats for passing civil rights legislation, it has been a staple of American politics, especially down South.

It has been used largely by the Republicans over the years, and Democrats always have blasted it as race-baiting. So the idea that a former president — a beloved Democrat, especially among African-Americans — would do such a thing to help his wife was considered nonsense.

During CNN's coverage Saturday night of the South Carolina Democratic primary, commentator Carl Bernstein called it "unthinkable." But it really isn't. Clinton has used race when it suited him over the years. (Check out Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s book, "A More Perfect Union," where it's covered on six pages.) And a top adviser to the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton admitted to Ron Fournier of The Associated Press in a report published Friday that it was the campaign's intent to turn Obama, who has avoided the race issue deftly, into "the black candidate." Based on the results in South Carolina, it backfired badly.

The jury is still out as to whether it hurts Obama in the nearly two-dozen state Feb.

5 contests, but what the voters in South Carolina made clear is that they won't reward candidates who play the race card.

And basking in the glow of a 28-point win, with more votes than Clinton and Edwards combined, Obama stressed his inclusive campaign during his victory speech: "What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.

"It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won't cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote. The assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate; whites can't support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can't come together.

"But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. I saw shuttered mills and homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from all walks of life, and men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be."

Sure, Obama received one-fourth of the white vote and won an overwhelming percentage of the black vote. But when you look at those white voters, he really scored well among those between the ages of 18 and 29. That is the generation who grew up with hip-hop, and they are less likely to be hung up about race.

They don't respond to racial appeals because they didn't know Jim Crow. They don't have any understanding of busing. If you say white flight, they'll look at you with a quizzical look. Bottom line: America has tired of playing the race game and is looking increasingly for people who see others for who they are, not their little niche. Obama isn't naive to believe racism will disappear if he's president. He told me that after his win in Iowa.

But at least Saturday, in the state where the first shot was fired nearly 150 years ago to kick off the Civil War, the voters of South Carolina told their fellow Southerner, Bill Clinton, and his wife, Sen. Clinton, that the tired political games of the past should remain there. Then, and only then, can we recognize one another as what we truly are: Americans.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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