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By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog, both also at the top in Black digital news in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com |
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA- The 10th Democratic Primary Debate, the last one before delegate-rich Super Tuesday, which is March 3, took place in at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina on Tuesday as the Feb. 29 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary nears, Black issues center stage at the event on public policy matters ranging from stop-and-frisk to disparities regarding housing, public education, criminal justice reform, women's employment rights, and institutionalized racism.
Private prisons were debated as were the crime bill, health care, gun control, unemployment in the Black community, and the litany of Democratic agendas commonplace to the 2019-2020 debate forums.
Taking to the stage were candidates Joe Biden, former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Sen Amy Klobuchar, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sanders just this month stealing the front-runner status from Biden, the former vice president under Barack Obama.
No Blacks participated in the debate as none are in the race for president, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris quitting in December, and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker suspending his campaign in January, both in response to falling poll numbers and difficulty raising money.
Hosted by CBS News with Gayle King as the lead moderator, the 10th Democratic debate comes as Democrats work to unseat President Trump from the White House and following an impeachment trial in the Senate earlier this month that resulted in the president's acquittal on two articles of impeachment, abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress
It was not a coincidence, sources said, that the venue for Tuesday's debate was Charleston where the Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) occurred in 2015 , a mass shooting by a since convicted White supremacist in which nine African Americans (including the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney) were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
In short, Black people, were the focal point, an indication, said political pundits, that the Democratic National Committee and White candidates wanting to be president are becoming somewhat more sophisticated on race and presidential elections, and on courting the Black vote, regardless of whether they truly understand the phenomenon of institutional racism.
A state with 63 delegates (54 of them pledged delegates) and some 5 million people that is roughly 30 percent Black, and a state that incumbent Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016, South Carolina is a swing state, and as the state where the first African descendants were brought on South Carolina shores as slaves by wealthy white planters from Barbados, it has history, and was pivotal during the Civil War.
Likely the most aggressive debate, the gloves finally came off Tuesday, Sen Warren the most vocal on race and gender, and even Biden doing well.
Warren accused Bloomberg, a billionaire like Steyer, of everything she could on women and race issues and on what she says is his soft approach to redlining, the systemic denial by local, state and federal agencies to Blacks of governmental services.
Bloomberg also took heat from Warren over the New York stop-and-frisk policy he supported as New York's mayor, which he now dismisses as bad policy, his naivete on race evident as he downplayed redlining and simplified his responses to claims of bad policies detrimental to Blacks when he was mayor with mere apologies.
The seasoned U.S. senator said public dollars should go to public schools while Bloomberg pushed public and non-public charter schools.
Warren, who likely has the better understanding of all of them on race, said her opponents, all six of them, were ignorant on race.
Facing falling poll numbers Warren said that Bloomberg, who, like Sanders, has stolen Black votes from Biden, is untrustworthy, and that "the core of the Democratic Party will never trust him."
All seven of the candidates said racial injustice is a problem in America.
Biden was more self confident, pundits said, and won the debate, some Blacks polled said, though Warren was good too, female CNN pundits adding that Bloomberg, who is under fire for his treatment for women on the job and off, at times came across as arrogant, particularly when saying he can afford to toss his billions around at liberty,
Biden advocated for a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme, a nine -member court with one Black male, conservative leaning anti-Black Justice Clarence Thomas.
There has never been a Black woman on the nation's high court, and whoever becomes president is poised to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice, and maybe sooner as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a liberal appointed under former president Bill Clinton, battles recurring cancer.
Biden, 77, leads in the polls for Saturday's South Carolina primary, followed by Sanders, also 78, Steyers, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
Pundits said the needle did not move much at all following Tuesday's debate as Sanders, who took criticism during the debate as a socialist Democrat who cannot beat Trump in November, still leads the pack.
A Feb 19 Quinnipiac University poll has Sanders leading the national race for the Democratic nomination was conducted after his first place showing in New Hampshire and his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses a week earlier behind Buttigieg. The poll has him with support from 32% of Democratic voters, a 16-point lead over Biden, who is at 16% and continues to struggle to regain his front-runner status.
In third place nationally is Bloomberg at 14%, followed by Warren at 12%, and Buttigieg, who won the Iowa caucuses, at 8 %.
Sen Klobuchar is at 7% nationally, with the remaining five candidates polling at less than 3%.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
