Black voters treating Hillary like a Republican

Houston Chronicle:

Hispanic voters may be a swing factor in next week's Democratic presidential primary, but an energized black electorate could decide this cliffhanger race.

In state after state, exit polls show the Sen. Barack Obama wave has wiped out Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from getting even close to the black electorate: 87 percent of the black vote in Georgia, for example.

Here in Houston, the city with the nation's fifth-largest black population, there likely will be no exception. In fact, the only question political analysts now are asking is how big of a boost he will get from this potent voter bloc on March 4.

"People should pay attention to the black vote because that's where all the action is," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein. "But everyone is fixated on the Hispanic vote because that is where Hillary Clinton may be able to hold the line — but the black vote means a whole lot more."

Although blacks accounted for 19 percent of the state's registered voters in the 2006 general election, compared with 25 percent for Hispanics, Stein said, Hispanics haven't been able to capitalize on that advantage in the Democratic primary. Stein predicts blacks will represent 30 percent of the vote Tuesday, while Hispanics may account for 25 percent.

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Black voters exercise a disproportionate influence on the Democratic primaries in Texas. Party rules benefit districts that had high turnout in the last presidential and gubernatorial races. The senatorial districts of Rodney Ellis, of Houston, and Royce West, of Dallas — mainly black bases — had high turnout in those two elections.

In the two districts alone, Obama could gain 13 delegates. In two South Texas senate districts that had low voter turnout, seven delegates are at stake.

And it all wasn't supposed to happen this way. Last year, many blacks were not even hot on Obama, initially viewing Clinton — namely her husband — as a hands-down favorite. Some even questioned whether the freshman senator was "black" enough.

After the Iowa caucus showed that the Illinois senator had mainstream appeal, people started changing their minds, a validation that he can get elected, said Christine LeVeaux-Haley, a professor of American government and black politics at the University of Houston.

"They now got it," she said. "They woke up from their slumber and realized that now is the time they can have an impact."

But blacks say they are not supporting Obama because of his race, which has not been raised as an issue in his campaign.

"I think Clinton's platform is too narrow, and I think that Obama has a more broad platform that speaks to everyone," said Cherrelle Stokes, 23, a business major at Texas Southern University. "He's going for bigger changes than just relying on the (female) and the Latino vote."

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Yeah, right. And they vote for Democrats for the same reason in the same numbers against Republicans. They may not want to admit the tribal influence of voting for their own race, but it is there. The black vote has been as dependable for black candidates as the Hispanic vote has for Hispanic candidates when both are running against whites. Obama is winning because he is splitting the white male vote. They are apparently the only group that is not following a tribal voting pattern among Democrats.