I'm writing from Florence, South Carolina, a town of about 30,000 halfway between Charleston and Columbia that has received more than its usual share of attention from the Democratic campaigns this cycle. The Clinton and Obama campaigns have offices here, and Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, and Chelsea Clinton have all included Florence in their recent itineraries.
"There's been a steady stream at the local college," said Madie Robinson, president of the local NAACP chapter, who credits Florence's growing visibility to the candidates' focus on young people.
It's also worth pointing out that Florence is approximately 45% African-American. Obama is likely to win Florence County, but it would be a coup if Clinton could pull it off.
Marguerite Willis, the First Lady of Florence, and the Women for Hillary group certainly hope so. Ms. Willis was hosting a reception at the mayor's mansion this evening for local Clinton campaign staff and volunteers. They'd been out all day, visiting sites that Ms. Willis said "followed Hillary's life in politics": a community center that provides beds and meals, a housing project and beauty parlors (It was unclear whether the Women for Hillary group intended to commemorate Clinton's contribution to hair in politics.)
About two dozen women--ages twenty to seventy, black and white, attired in everything from jeans and t-shirts to skirts and stockings--were gathered around the mayor's kitchen bar, nibbling sandwiches and talking in clutches of three and four. Mary Wilson, the former Supreme (if such a thing is possible: once a Supreme, always a Supreme?), was perched by the sink, looking terrifically glamorous. A pair of aging yellow labs creaked around the supporters' feet. What would de Tocqueville say? This, then, is democracy in America: at once intimate and elite.
As if to offer further evidence for this theory, someone interrupted the party to announce that former President Clinton was on the phone. He was holding a conference call for volunteers around the state, and the ladies (plus a few men) put the landlines on speaker and hushed so they could listen. As it happened, President Clinton wasn't yet available. While the hold music played, the First Lady improvised a little dance.
The moments in limbo also provided an opportunity to talk about more than partisan politics or campaign strategy. The theme of these next few days' blog is What Is the President For? It's the question candidates and voters are answering, but it's not one often explicitly asked.
Dave Fouchey, whose wife is a Woman for Hillary, answered, "To provide a vision; to execute the office of what's basically a large corporation; to represent what's best about America to the world."
Mayor Frank Willis, who's presided over Florence since 1995, said the president is "the one person who can define where we go in the future and who can guide us in the pursuit of what we think is the proper direction for this country."
Mayor Willis also described the role of the president to change depending both on the direction the individual intends to lead the country, as well as the direction Americans determine we want to go.
Campaigns are part of the process by which we as a nation determine our foremost priority, Mayor Willis suggested.
In this election season, which after all is still quite early, that priority may not yet be articulated. What does Mayor Willis think we will eventually settle on?
There was a long pause before he concluded: education.
Viva Hillary!!!
Peace
Dave