Obama Picking Up Support in Harlem

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2966

Standing in front of the Harlem office building where Bill Clinton has his post-presidential office, Audrey Quantano said she has supported the former president and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton “for a very long time.”

But Quantano has a problem.

“I am tossed between Hillary and Obama,” she said Monday. “I’m split right now. … I’ve got my list of pros and cons with both of them.”

New York’s Democratic presidential primary Feb. 5 was once considered a cakewalk for Clinton, who has represented New York since 2001.

But after Sen. Barack Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses and his close second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary, some see him as a viable candidate here as well.

And then a spat broke out between Clinton and Obama over the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The former first lady was quoted as saying King’s dream was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Obama took issue with the remark.

Clinton said Obama was distorting her statement.

She said King was one of the people she most admired, and that her point was that his record of activism stood in stark contrast to Obama’s.

Whatever the case, some Harlem voters said they were unhappy with Clinton’s remark.

“I was offended,” said Charlene Hines, an Obama campaign volunteer. “I said, ‘There’s white entitlement again.’ It was agitation that brought it to that point.”

http://www.newsmax.com/politics/democrats_harlem/2008/01/15/64392.html

2008-01-15