Columbia, South Carolina — I went to Barack Obama’s rally here, on Sunday night, with a Republican friend who had never seen the Illinois senator in action before. Watching the crowd of more than 3,000 fill up the convention center, watching the people send up waves of energy to Obama, and watching him play off that energy in a speech that was one of the best political performances anyone has seen this year, my Republican friend said, simply, “Oh, s—t.” He recalled the scene from Jaws, in which the small seaside town’s sheriff realizes how big the shark he’s tracking truly is, and says, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” What my friend didn’t have to say was that he was deeply worried that Republicans just don’t have a bigger boat.
Drawing 3,000-plus supporters is no big deal for Obama, although it would be a very big deal for a Republican candidate. What was different about the Columbia rally was that, unlike Obama rallies in Iowa or New Hampshire, this one drew large numbers of black voters, who are virtually nonexistent in the other states, but make up about half the Democratic electorate here. Months ago, polls showed blacks in South Carolina supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton. Today, the situation has changed dramatically, with blacks heavily supporting Obama; on Sunday night, the crowd was perhaps 75 or 80 percent black.
Something else changed from Obama’s performances in Iowa and New Hampshire: he has had to incorporate into his stump speech a response to attacks by Bill and Hillary Clinton. “The status quo in Washington is pushing back,” he told the crowd. “That’s what they do — not just the Republican status quo, but the Democratic status quo. They push back.” Now Obama is pushing back, too, but at the convention center he was able to devote significant time to doing so without appearing dragged down into a fight. Instead, he approached it as a comedian would — relentlessly mocking his rivals while making himself seem the only honest, sane, and reasonable person in the race.
“You notice that people who’ve been in Washington too long, they don’t talk like ordinary folks,” Obama began. “We had this debate in Las Vegas, and somebody asked me, ‘What are your weaknesses?’ So I said, ‘Well, you know, I don’t keep track of paper that well, I’m always losing paper, my desk is a mess.’ And then they asked the next two candidates. And one candidate says, ‘Well, my biggest weakness is I’m just so passionate about helping poor people.’ And then the other one says, ‘I’m just so impatient to help the American people solve their problems.’ So then I realize well, I wish I’d gone last and then I would have known.”
Pausing for a moment while the crowd burst into laughter and applause, he continued: “I’m stupid that way, I thought that when they asked what your biggest weakness was, they asked what your biggest weakness was. And now I know that my biggest weakness is I like to help old ladies across the street.”
As the cheering continued, Obama hit Hillary Clinton as someone just too steeped in Washington to be straight with anyone. “People don’t say what they mean when they’ve been in Washington too long,” he said, with a look of mock amazement. “You know, Senator Clinton, during that same debate, somebody asked her about the bankruptcy bill. She voted for a bankruptcy bill in 2001, that the credit cards and the banks had been pushing, that made it more difficult for folks who have been trapped in these unscrupulous loans, where you get zero interest and then suddenly it pops up to 30 percent. And the credit card companies, even though they are sending these things in the mail constantly every day they don’t want you to get out from under that debt. So Tim Russert or somebody asked Senator Clinton, ‘Why did you vote for that bill?’ And she said, ‘Well, I voted for it, but I hoped it didn’t pass.’ What does that mean?”
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