In South Carolina, will Clinton’s expected victory shift momentum?

In South Carolina, will Clinton’s expected victory shift momentum?

Courtesy: Anne Gearan and John Wagner –www.washintonpost.com

The Democratic presidential contest moves to South Carolina on Saturday, a primary that serves as two starkly different milestones for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sander

Hillary Clinton is looking to her expected victory here to prove her strong support among African American voters — and to cement her status as the presumptive front-runner heading toward Super Tuesday three days later, when six of 11 Democratic contests will take place in Southern states with large populations of black voters.

Hillary Clinton began a barnstorming tour of South Carolina on Tuesday. She and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, crisscrossed the state on separate itineraries, hitting a total of about a dozen events over three days, speaking to predominantly African American audiences of a few hundred in cities and small towns. Each drew on decades of experience with the powerful church- and civic-based black voting turnout machine.

The nature of the events and the supporters who attended them illustrated how hard it will be for Sanders from Vermont to break a bond with black voters forged first by Bill Clinton.

“Hillary has done a lot for us, and her husband has done a lot for us,” Marshall said. During her tour, Clinton billed herself as a unifier who would address the problems of South Carolina’s impoverished and under­educated. She name-checked local issues, trashed the Republican governor and wrapped her arms around locally prominent African American leaders.

A black pastor welcomed her to his church. A black woman in braids warmed up the crowd at an appearance to which Clinton arrived very late. The black mayor of Columbia introduced her at an event Wednesday and starred in an evocative television advertisement for Clinton, done in the form of a letter to his young daughters.