COLUMBIA, S.C. — Volunteers for Barack Obama's presidential campaign fanned out into black neighborhoods over the weekend with new instructions: Tell undecided voters that Obama "proved the cynics wrong in the Iowa caucuses."
The message about Obama's decisive Iowa victory Thursday is familiar to those who have heard his theme of transcending old-style politics. But for many black voters, the warning against cynicism carries a special and somewhat different meaning: Let go of old fears that white America will never elect a black man to the presidency; Iowa has proven doubters in the black community wrong.
The fear that Americans will not accept a black president has loomed as a persistent obstacle to Obama's chances in South Carolina, where blacks are expected to account for at least half of the voters in a crucial Jan. 26 Democratic primary, and in other states with large black populations.
A survey taken late last month for CBS found that nearly 40% of black voters in South Carolina believed the country was not "ready to elect a black president," compared with 34% of whites -- a sentiment that Obama aides viewed as a far greater impediment to his election than flat-out racism among those who would never vote for him anyway.
The campaign has spent months trying to address these fears, using surrogates such as Obama's wife, Michelle.
"Now, I know folks talk in the barber shops and beauty salons, and I've heard some folks say, 'That Barack, he seems like a nice guy, but I'm not sure America's ready for a black president,' " she told a black audience recently in Orangeburg, S.C.
She asked the crowd to "cast aside the cynics," and urged: "We're going to have to dig deep into our souls, confront our own self-doubt. . . . Let's prove to our children that they really can reach for their dreams. Let's show them that America is ready for Barack Obama."
For much of last year, surveys showed most black voters in South Carolina supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, whose husband, former President Clinton, is popular among blacks. Several new polls show Obama has closed that gap and leads among blacks in the state, suggesting that the campaign's outreach efforts have begun to work.
Now, Obama and his team have their most potent argument yet to counter black fears: Election results in which Obama has won support from tens of thousands of whites in an overwhelmingly white state, and the likelihood that on Tuesday he will do well in mostly white New Hampshire.
