Obama Needs Black People

Sully talks to the elephant in the room:

"Whatever the polls say now, he'll likely sweep the African-American vote in the Democratic primary. Mark Kleiman explains here. Newsweek recalls history:

"Even though polls show that blacks still have doubts about Obama, he weathered similar skepticism in the 2004 Illinois Senate primary before winning nearly all of their votes. "He soared with elites initially," says Mark Blumenthal, who polled for Obama's chief rival. "But it took until the last week of the campaign for blacks to decide." If they break his way again, says Blumenthal, Obama could ride a new black-upscale majority to the nomination.

"In South Carolina, that could be critical. If Obama rivals Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire and then wins South Carolina, he could catapult to victory."

I don't think the black vote is a giveaway to Obama. A younger generation of blacks may not vote for him simply because they don't want to feel obliged to vote for the black guy. Especially the black guy who they perceive as a 'cooler looking Urkel' and who doesn't seem to have that many differences to his white counterparts. But it is refreshing to hear someone talk about the black vote and Obama, a situation that the left (in my opinion) has ignored. This is sad because, as Sully correctly states, in order for Obama to stay close in this race he MUST pull down SC, and to do that the Obama supporters on the left, both white and black, can't assume that he's automatically going to get the black vote. Nor can they assume that they can sell him as any generic white candidate. Beyond their little NAACP debate, Obama's got to get out there and prove to blacks that he's one of them and will look after their needs. So far he's been silent about this, and while I understand his tactics so far (addressing national security and foreign policy), he might be putting the horse before the cart.