The News

Clinton Overcomes; Obama Overwhelmes

(New York Times photo)

Presidential hopefuls and Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stole the show this Sunday, when the two met in Selma, Alabama, along with a team of Black leaders and supporters, to commemorate Blacks’ bloody march to Montgomery for civil rights in 1965, the New York Times reported today.

It was the first side-by-side appearance of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 presidential campaign, and the political theater of the two campaigns overlapped repeatedly, but with a polite tone that contrasted with their political skirmishing of recent weeks. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton spoke at services on the same street, three blocks apart, and the lines of worshipers were so long that they nearly intermingled. Both candidates paid homage to the same civil rights leaders, and both concluded the services by locking arms with worshipers and swaying to “We Shall Overcome.”

Many herald this historical meeting of these two very likely, minority candidates at the table of our country’s turbulent racial past and present. But it remains to be seen whether or not Obama and Clinton will “stay awake,” on issues of racial inequity and keep marching like Mrs. Clinton said this Sunday.

Some things aren’t so assuring.

Mr. Obama relayed a story of how his Kenyan father and his Kansan mother fell in love because of the tumult of Selma, but he was born in 1961, four years before the confrontation at Selma took place. When asked later, Mr. Obama clarified himself, saying: “I meant the whole civil rights movement.”

Posted at 8:02 AM, Mar 05, 2007 in News | Permalink | View Comments