NC: Race still influences voters, polls find

[gateley]

Race still influences voters, polls find
The issue has toppled other black hopefuls. Obama may not be immune

RALEIGH - Sen. Barack Obama entered the presidential battle a year ago as the byproduct of dual worlds, someone who captured idealists by saying Americans can push beyond the barriers that have haunted humanity for generations. He wanted to be the candidate beyond race.
Yet two days before crucial primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, those very divisions now threaten to overshadow the battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Here in the Tar Heel state, where issues involving race helped sink the prospects of candidates from Terry Sanford to Harvey Gantt, some white Democrats tell pollsters they still feel less comfortable putting a black person in the White House, and Obama gets huge support from blacks. In the past week, amid a new flare-up involving Obama's former pastor, it's clear that race is again involved in a statewide North Carolina political battle.

snip

To be sure, both candidates get support across racial lines. And yet the undercurrents are evident across the state, in the faces that congregate at Obama or Clinton rallies, in the advertisements clogging the airwaves, in the way some voters won't always elucidate their opposition to the other candidate.

snip

A tumultuous history

Racial issues have shaped North Carolina politics since the Reconstruction era. In 1880, The New York Times detailed county-by-county violations of white Democrats keeping black Republicans from voting. In Wilmington in 1898, whites rioted and forced blacks from their homes after a local election, the only known political coup in U.S. history.

more -- very interesting article: http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/1060378.html

[meow mix]

1. clintons are polishing up thier dog-whistles

reliable tactic for them

[adoraz]

2. yeah, this was the front page story in the paper

I didn't even bother reading it. The title though makes you think "no shit". Its obvious that race influences some voters, that wasn't going to change.

[TheDoorbellRang]

3. That guy who wrote that is a classic concern troll

"Oh, here's all the reasons folks may not want to vote for this guy." And he goes all the way back to reconstruction days to get some ammo. Good Lord.