A historically
diverse field of Democratic presidential candidates --
a woman, a black, an Hispanic and five whites --
denounced an hours-old Supreme Court affirmative
action ruling Thursday night and said the nation's
slow march to racial unity is far from over.
''We have made
enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not
good enough,'' said Sen. Barack Obama, the son of a man from
Kenya and a woman from Kansas.
Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton, the first female candidate with a serious
shot at the presidency, drew the night's largest cheer when
she suggested there was a hint of racism in the way
AIDS is addressed in this country.
''Let me just put
this in perspective: If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause
of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there
would be an outraged outcry in this country,'' said
the New York senator.
In their third
primary debate, the two leading candidates and their
fellow Democrats played to the emotions of a predominantly
black audience, fighting for a voting bloc that is
crucial in the party's nomination process.
One issue not
raised by questioners, the war in Iraq, dominated the past
two debates. Queries about AIDS, criminal justice,
education, taxes, outsourcing jobs, poverty and the
Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina
all led to the same point: The racial divide still
exists.
''There is so
much left to be done,'' Clinton said, ''and for anyone to
assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the
reality in front of our very eyes.''
While the first
two debates focused on their narrow differences on Iraq,
moderator Tavis Smiley promised to steer the candidates to
other issues that matter to black America. In turn,
the candidates said those issues mattered to them.
''This issue of
poverty in America is the cause of my life,'' said John
Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee.
Said Obama: ''It
starts from birth.''
Obama criticized
President Bush's No Child Left Behind program. ''You
can't leave money behind ... and unfortunately that's what's
been done,'' he said.
Clinton spoke of
her efforts in Arkansas to raise school standards,
''most especially for minority children.''
Delaware senator
Joe Biden urged people to be tested for the AIDS virus,
noting that he and Obama had done so. Cracked the Illinois
senator: ''I just want to make clear I got tested with
[my wife] Michelle,'' Obama said, drawing
laughter from the predominantly black audience.
The debate was
held at Howard University, a historically black college in
the nation's capital.
Black voters are
a large and critical part of the Democratic primary
electorate, making the debate a must-attend for candidates
seeking the party's presidential nomination.
A half century of
desegregation law -- and racial tension -- was
laid bare for the Democrats hours before they met. In
a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court clamped
historic new limits on school desegregation plans.
Clinton said the
decision ''turned the clock back'' on history, and her
competitors agreed.
The conservative
majority cited the landmark Brown v. Board of
Education case to bolster its precedent-shattering
decision, an act termed a ''cruel irony'' by Justice
John Paul Stevens in his dissent. The 1954 ruling led to the
end of state-sponsored school segregation in the
United States.
Obama, the only
black candidate in the eight-person field, spoke of civil
rights leaders who fought for Brown v. Board of
Education and other precedents curbed by the high court.
''If it were not for them,'' he said, ''I would not be
standing here.''
Biden noted that
he voted against confirmation of Chief Justice John
Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion. He said he was
tough on Roberts. ''The problem is the rest of us were
not tough enough,'' he said, seeming to take a jab at
fellow Democrats. ''They have turned the court upside
down.''
All the
Democratic candidates in the Senate opposed the confirmation
of conservative Justice Samuel Alito, another of
President Bush's nominees. Clinton, Biden, and Obama
voted against Roberts; Sen. Chris Dodd voted for his
nomination.
New Mexico
governor Bill Richardson, the first major Hispanic
candidate, said race is about more than passing new
laws and appointing new justices. ''The next president
is going to have to lead,'' he said, vowing to do so.
Dodd said ''the
shame of resegregation in our country has been occurring
for years.''
The nomination
fight begins in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with
relatively few minorities. But blacks and other minority
voters become critical in Nevada, South Carolina, and
Florida before the campaign turns to a multistate
primary on February 5.
About one in 10
voters in the 2004 election were black, according to exit
polls, and they voted 9-1 for Democrat John Kerry. In
some states, blacks make up a bigger share of the
voters. In South Carolina, for example, blacks made up
about 30% of the electorate in 2004 but were more than
half of the voters in the state's Democratic primary that
year.
Massachusetts
governor Deval Patrick, the country's only black governor,
introduced the candidates with a warning that a dispirited
GOP ''is not enough to elect a Democratic president,
nor should it be. We need to offer a more positive and
hopeful vision ... to run on what we are for and not
just what we are against.''
Ohio
representative Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska senator
Mike Gravel also debated. (Nedra Pickler, AP)