http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2923
By Edward Luce
Barack Obama’s emphatic win in Iowa 10 days ago was widely portrayed as a historic moment in America’s political story. The fact that a black American could win in the overwhelmingly white state of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2893 was seen as a tipping point. But that may prove to be a premature – as well as historically glib – judgment of what took place.
First, it has happened before. Jesse Jackson, who was a much more overtly African-American candidate in 1988 than Mr Obama is now, won 11 primary elections in his ultimately losing bid for the Democratic nomination, including the largely white state of Vermont.
Others, notably Douglas Wilder, the first black governor of Virginia, which was headquarters to the Confederacy during the civil war, flirted with a presidential run in 1992. And in 1996, 80 per cent approval ratings suggested that the White House was Colin Powell’s for the asking. Mr Powell turned the offers down (but not because he believed his skin colour would prevent him from winning). More importantly, though, the Iowa-breakthrough narrative has already been put into question by what has happened since then. Many attribute Hillary Clinton’s surprise comeback in New Hampshire last week to her emotional interlude in a diner, which some believe helped bring women voters out in droves the following day. Certainly Mrs Clinton won many more female votes in New Hampshire than Mr Obama (46 to 34 per cent) having lost that gender battle to him in Iowa five days earlier.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d84185f6-c1f6-11dc-8fba-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1