Alarmed by her loss of support among first-time voters and younger women in the fierce battle for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is relying on people such as Charlotte Rayford and Wanda Tutt for political salvation.
During a visit by Clinton to a school hall in the impoverished rural town of Denmark, South Carolina, the two elderly black women praised the former secretary of state for her understanding of how to tackle poverty and racism while her socialist opponent Bernie Sanders had appeared wildly unrealistic.
“Bernie is saying what the young people want to hear,” said Rayford, who views Sanders’s “Feel the Bern” message with distaste.
“But if you get anything, whether it be better healthcare or education, taxes will have to be paid.”
Tutt said it was “time for a female president”.
Such older black voters are seen by Clinton as her “firewall” against Sanders as the battle for the Democratic nomination shifts to South Carolina and other southern states. They have become all the more crucial amid signs that younger black voters - like their white counterparts - could be peeling away.
Justin Bamberg, 28, a Democratic state representative in South Carolina, recently switched his support from Clinton to Sanders. The Sanders campaign hopes it is a trend.
“Hillary Clinton is more a representation of the status quo when I think about politics or about what it means to be a Democrat,” Bamberg said.
“Bernie Sanders on the other hand is bold. He doesn’t think like everyone else. He is not afraid to call things as they are.”
Meeting Sanders had convinced him. It was “not a presidential candidate talking to a state representative or an old white man talking to a young black guy,” he said, but “a man talking to a man about things they are passionate about”.
Sanders is wooing influential black figures. The rapper Killer Mike, who endorsed him “after smoking a joint and reading his tweets” has appeared with him at campaign events.
Last week Sanders had breakfast in Harlem, New York, with Al Sharpton, the veteran civil rights activist, and Ben Jealous, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
Clinton still enjoys a substantial 62 per cent-32.5 per cent lead over Sanders in the South Carolina primary, due to take place on February 27.
But her share of the vote is slipping and she risks alienating centrist voters in November’s general election by presenting herself as Barack Obama’s heir and stalwart ally.
Dogged by questions about her honesty and her use of a private server to handle classified emails, she is also cloaking herself in the mantle of her husband, the former president Bill Clinton, who is revered by most older black voters.
“He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for taking our economy from the ditch the Republicans dropped us in,” Clinton told an overwhelmingly black crowd in Denmark - part of a county that is 61 per cent black and has nearly a third living below the poverty line.
Her argument is that Sanders’s Wall Street-bashing ideas are better suited to Scandinavia than South Carolina - and that she has supported Obama while Sanders has criticised him for being not left-wing enough.
Sanders says Clinton is controlled by big-money donors and represents the past when voters are clamouring for change and for a “rigged” system to be overturned.
Clinton is calculating that the background of Sanders, 74, a Jew from New York who represents Vermont, which has a 1 per cent black population, will halt the surge that gave him a 22-point victory in New Hampshire, which is also overwhelmingly white.
She leads him by an average of 30 points in polls in the state but New Hampshire showed she was vulnerable. A loss or a narrow win would damage her further, especially if Hispanics fail to turn out for her in Nevada, where Democrats vote on Saturday.
“Sanders has captured the imagination of young folks,” said Gerald Wright, 72, the mayor of Denmark. Like Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, “he’s presented himself as someone who’s going to shake things up and change the system”.
Wright hinted he might be wavering even though it would be a bonus to have Bill Clinton, with his experience, back in the White House: “I’m leaning towards her [Hillary] but I’m still waiting to hear Bernie Sanders a few more times.
“He is going to win a significant number of voters. I already know some.”
This article was first published in theaustralian.com.au.
