The news channels are reporting record turnout and everything appears up in the air. I was just canvassing a heavily African-American area in downtown Charleston. It’s the kind of neighbourhood where Obama has been banking on 75% support but he’ll get nothing like that. Many voters were returning from the polling station but still wanted Hillary stickers. It also became clear that a number of young supporters who shouted Barack’s name at us were not actually registered to vote.
Meanwhile, Republican areas are also reporting strong turnouts. There’s a rumour going round that these are actual Republicans rather than swing voters who are voting Edwards as a spoiler. Certainly the native of South Carolina is looking strong in the latest polls (which wouldn’t surprise given that he’s spent more here on TV ads than the other two combined).
Some other nuggets:
- the rain has held off which may favour Obama
- age and gender seem to be a much better predictor of voting intention that race - this may favour Clinton
- there’s a lot of tactical voting with Obama and Clinton supporters backing Edwards to keep him in the race
This is meant to be the the age of apathy. Politics is meant to be so managerial and technocratic, and the public so materialistic, that political participation has become the domain of the eccentric. Yet in Charleston last night - a city the same size as Crawley or Colchester - Hillary Clinton was able to attract an audience of well over a thousand at just a day’s notice. The “line” began two hours before the event: families, pensioners, students, some straight from the office giving up their Friday evening plans.
Clinton was introduced by her husband and flanked Chelsea and an impressive array of supporters including prominent Representative Charlie Rangel and former-mayor of New York David Dinkins. She spoke for 45 minutes with a positive message high on policy detail. Lines about bringing the troops home from Iraq and introducing healthcare got the crowd going. She rarely alluded to Obama but did at one point describe herself as a “workhorse not a showhorse.”
The crowd had plenty of time at the end for autographs and pictures, and they lapped it up. These politicians really know how to work a room. The polls this morning give Obama a ten-point lead but he is haemorrhaging support from whites. As with New Hampshire and Nevada, I expect a number of voters will switch from Obama or Edwards to Clinton in the privacy of the polling booth. The rain may also assist. Either way, it’s going to be close and the turnout will, once again, be on the rise.
Much ink has been spilled the positive impact of democracy on growth, peace and wellbeing. Less has been written about the perverse incentives created by universal suffrage such as the desire of political activists to traipse wind-swept streets, knock on doors (only to have them slammed back in their faces) and open themselves up to various grades of verbal abuse. Collecting information on voters is the meat and potatoes of political campaigning, since it ensures that you can direct your propaganda at the undecideds as well as returning to those who have said they plan to back you on election day to make sure they turn their promise into a vote. The problem, however, is gathering the information.
Phone calls can help with pensioners and housewives (or househusbands) but many people are only at home in the evening—when telephone canvassers like to be at home too. Saturday afternoon door-knocking is therefore a tried and tested technique in both Britain and US. I was hoping that South Carolina’s combination of partisan registration process (so you know you’re only knocking on the doors of Democrats) and warmer temperatures would make the experience all the more pleasurable. Charlestonians, however, pride themselves on making you feel at home, and this weekend, a week before the Democratic primary, it absolutely poured.
No one can explain what makes some members of society actually enjoy knocking on strangers’ doors in the rain. But somehow if the company is good and you get a handful of voters who seriously engage, the experience is worthwhile. The real jackpot for me this weekend was in the Charleston suburb of Ladson. One woman came to the door with the slightly cynical expression that canvassers come to know so well. She revealed that she had switched from Clinton to Obama, and back to Clinton, and was now intrigued by Edwards’s message on poverty. We spoke, and she heard, our views on Clinton’s experience, and we said a traditional farewell through the passing of campaign literature. Out of the blue she called after us and asked how her daughter could become a Clinton volunteer. It turned out that she was the grand-niece of President Taft (1909-13) and had thoroughly enjoyed her own political education working on Nixon’s ‘68 campaign. Despite her rich Republican heritage, she wanted her daughter to get the same experience with the Democrats. Americans really are crying out for a change.
USA Today’s front cover yesterday featured an upbeat piece stating that by two to one, voters are more enthusiastic than usual about this year’s election. Meanwhile, here in South Carolina, The Post and Courier, Charleston’s 205-year old local rag, goes with, “Candidates woo state’s undecided voters.”
The public’s enthusiasm is hardly surprising. There are still eight realistic candidates for president (nine if you include Ron Paul, who some are now tipping to win the Republicans’ Nevada caucus on Saturday); there is a palpable desire for change that almost all the candidates are attempting to invoke; and the compressed primary season means that this time the post-Iowa, pre-”Super Tuesday” period operates in different ways compared to previous primary seasons.
But especially for the Democratic candidates, the indecision seems surprising. Clinton, Obama and Edwards—on paper at least—represent the identity politics of gender, race and class. Yet despite this and the recent (primarily media-distorted) controversies surrounding Obama’s “you’re likeable enough, Hillary” comment and her discussion on the relative contributions to the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King and President Johnson, voters refuse to be pigeonholed. While I’ve been in Charleston, I’ve spoken to well over 200 voters. This has included African-American men voting for Hillary, poor white pensioners voting for Obama, both those demographics going the other way, a heap of undecideds, and a single John Edwards supporter.
Yesterday evening I attended a local Democratic party meeting. At first glance it didn’t seem so different from a local political meeting in Britain: thirty-odd people in a room fit for twice that number; various notices for local fundraisers and fetes; the odd petition being passed around at the back of the room. But it was subtly different too. In the same way that Americans don’t stand for office, they run, chairpeople don’t sit at a table next to a green ink-wielding secretary, they stand at a podium and keep a steady pace to proceedings. There wasn’t even a single point of order.
A representative from each of the three main Dem candidates addressed the congregation. A senior official from Bill Clinton’s administration spoke first, providing his personal perspective on Hillary’s humanity and experience. Next was a young Edwards supporter who offered eloquent views on his candidate’s fight against poverty and vested interest. Finally, Obama’s local organiser explained that his man made you “feel good inside” and, with slightly cultish overtones, suggested that something was happening that we all had to be a part of. My fear is that if Barack does get into the Oval Office, he’ll leave a generation of voters disappointed and distrustful as the “audacity of hope” turns into a series of unfulfilled struggles to cope with the machinations and deal-making of life in DC.
With news of Mitt Romney’s win in Michigan filtering through yesterday evening, for the Republicans it was three primaries down, three winners, nothing resolved. On my way to South Carolina I sat next to a McCain volunteer. He was confident that McCain would take Michigan, followed by Nevada and South Carolina at the weekend. That scenario would in all likelihood have wrapped things up for McCain by the night of Super Tuesday (a welcome relief for his cash-starved campaign). But it now looks as though both the GOP and Democratic race will run well beyond “super-duper Tuesday” on 5th February.
As for Charleston, South Carolina, it’s just as you’d imagine: warm yet breezy, laid-back, friendly. When canvassing on the phone, the response, if you ask for the person who picks up, is “This is she” (”she” to rhyme with “day”). Most I’ve spoken with are courteous; they intend to vote and many have already made up their mind. For the Republicans it is likely to be McCain or Huckabee (despite the many Fred Thompson posters skirting the roads from the airport). Meanwhile, John Edwards is unlikely to repeat his victory of 2004, when he picked up 45 per cent of the vote. Instead, we will see the resolution of part IV of Clinton vs Obama.
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