FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
I'm Farai Chideya. And this is NEWS & NOTES.
We've got our weekly Reporters' Roundtable, and we're hitting politics and more with Ron Claiborne, a correspondent for ABC News, and Leroy Chapman Jr. He's the government and politics editor for The State newspaper here in South Carolina.
Welcome, guys.
Mr. LEROY CHAPMAN JR. (Government and Politics Editor, The State Newspaper, South Carolina): Hello.
Mr. RON CLAIBORNE (Correspondent, ABC News; News Anchor, "Good Morning America"): Hey. How are you?
CHIDEYA: So, Leroy, you're sitting with me in the studio right now and we've descended, out-of-town media, on your city and state. How do you, who have been covering South Carolina from inside, relate to us? I mean, and what happens, you know, when folks descend on a city and a state?
Mr. CHAPMAN: Well, I think a lot of our history tends to come back because when people think of South Carolina, they think of many things. Race certainly is a factor, and it's a factor in our coverage, too, because, you know, we live in a very diverse state.
If you look at this primary to the other primaries, I think the racial diversity here is pretty stark and evident. So I think the national media, though, they come, and there are a couple of stories that I think sometimes South Carolinians, wince when they see. One of them probably is the Confederate flag because that's one, I think that our folks who live here sometimes I think tire of, so when the national media comes, it inevitably comes up.
CHIDEYA: Now, Ron, you have been following John McCain and as you follow him around, how does he seem to interact with the local politics of the places he goes?
Mr. CLAIBORNE: Well, certainly, as Leroy can tell you, in South Carolina, he came armed with endorsements this time in 2000, where he was - well, it's widely accepted that he was smeared - he was the victim of a smear campaign, which may have cost him that fate eight years ago.
This time, he had the foresight and the strategy to line up a lot of endorsements from presumably influential state politicians. So if you're Lindsey Graham, Bobby Harold, the speaker of the legislature there, and Attorney General Henry McMaster were his constant companions in South Carolina. So he had the, I think, the foresight and learned the lesson of 2000 and came armed this time and narrowly won over Huckabee as we saw.
CHIDEYA: Now, here at NEWS & NOTES, we talk a lot about walking the line between serving our target African-American audience and, you know, black folks are overwhelmingly Democrats and providing balanced coverage of the political playing field.
So, Ron, how do you think journalists should cover the issue? It's something that, you know, it's a tough decision.
Mr. CLAIBORNE: Well, you're talking about the Republican campaign?
CHIDEYA: Well, yeah, the balance. I mean, when you are looking at really dealing with a primarily African-American audience, there has not been a lot of love, a lot of participation from the Republican side in African-American forums and debates. How do you deal with that and still try to bring up the issues as you report from, you know, a very objective standpoint?
Mr. CLAIBORNE: Well, look, the reality is the Republican race is thus far - and for the foreseeable future - are involved white voters. I think in South Carolina, 97 percent of the Republican vote was white.
There was an attempt to have a debate with the Republican candidates in Baltimore that Tavis Smiley was trying to organize and PBS. Virtually, none of the front-runners in the Republican field bothered to show up. In private conversations, I have spoken to John McCain about the future of the Republican Party if it remains a white party. Now, he said - he claimed that, you know, the reason most of the people who show up at his rallies and his events not just his but Romney's and the Giuliani's, in the early going states were white was because of these states were overwhelmingly white.
Well, that's factually accurate but it's also, I guess, a bit misleading because the implication is that in a more heavily African-American state that his audience is, the Republican candidates' audiences, would reflect the composition of those states and that's - I think we all know that's simply not the case.
And when I talked to McCain privately about this, he says that the Republican Party cannot prosper and exist in the future if it remains an all-white party. But if you look at the issues and the rhetoric and the language that the Republican candidates are using in 2008, I mean, it's clear that there's no obvious effort to attract the votes of African-Americans and certainly, the stance of many of these candidates on the immigration issue has pushed the Latinos away from the party where they had made inroads in recent years.
CHIDEYA: Let me get Leroy in here. This is not a state without black voters. You have plenty of black folks in South Carolina. So was there any love when the Republicans came to town, in terms of visiting African-American communities, trying to get out the vote, sway some independent voters who are black to the Republican side?
Mr. CLAIBORNE: One candidate visited what we would call in South Carolina the black belt. We have a band of majority of black counties in South Carolina.
John McCain did that. He went - he visited South Carolina State University. In that visit, there was a little bit of an exchange there, but it was extraordinary. He wrote a story about it. He went there, but I guess the theme was military. And South Carolina State has an ROTC unit that is renowned in the country. And they also boast about the fact that they produce more black generals than any other institution in the country at South Carolina State. They're pretty proud of that.
And he came and he did talk to students. But he is the only one. The rest of the Republicans spent most of their time in the upstate of South Carolina, which is very white. That's where I was born and raised. They - so they were there. They were on the coast, where there are a lot of white voters and lot of money.
CHIDEYA: Let's move on to an issue that's been raising a lot of static. A Long Island newspaper called The Independent recently published an op-ed written by one, and I'm quoting here, "YoMama Bin Barack." The Democratic presidential candidates have sparred in code about race.
But this article said, quote - and this is obviously written under a pseudonym - "my wife AliBama said, why don't you cut out the president expletive and get a real job and make some real freaking money? But I explained I have plenty of money because bleeding heart Democrats from all across this vast country have felt it in their hearts to send a contribution."
Now, the publisher has apologized for a lapse of judgment, taking the op-ed off of the paper's Web site. But the debate isn't over. What I want to ask you, Leroy, is that there is racial code and then, there is a straight-on attack. Do you expect, as this campaign continues, that there will be more issues that really spark things straight on?
Mr. CHAPMAN: Sure. If you look at South Carolina - and I don't know if this is a prelude to what's going to happen, but race was certainly an issue here. And there are some political watchers who think that some of it was deliberate, I know that's been discussed about whether or not making Barack Obama a blacker candidate makes him a less electable candidate.
But this is the first state where there were African-Americans when we go into February 5th on Tsunami Tuesday, as it's been touted. There will be other states where there will be black populations. And certainly, those issues are going to be raised from the grassroots as they were here. So it's - so certainly, I expect that to happen.
Here, in South Carolina, sure, there were, you know - there is always murmurs of people who wonder about a black candidate who is electable. They questioned our media coverage, wondering if it's tough enough. Even the president wondered if it's tough enough, if he's getting a pass in the media because he is African-American, if we're in love with a story of having an electable seemingly African-American candidate.
CHIDEYA: Now, Ron, when you have been on the campaign trail - and I'm not speaking so much about Senator McCain here, although if you've heard something, let us know. But how do people at rallies and so on talk about the prospect of going head to head with a potential black Democratic nominee? Do they even talk about it?
Mr. CLAIBORNE: Well, you know, here is an interesting thing, and maybe this is just New Hampshire. But I would talk to people in the - in this case, the McCain, at their event, at their rallies, and when you ask them have they made up their minds for who they were going to vote for, they would say, it's between McCain and Barack Obama.
Now, that is astounding if you think about it. I mean, one is, obviously, a very liberal Democrat and the other is a conservative Republican. I think the results in New Hampshire show that if these independent voters, which is what they were, ended up casting the ballot, they tended to go for McCain.
But in New Hampshire, at least, you saw people entertaining the idea of Barack Obama or John McCain. And I think the appeal to them - when ideologically, they seem so different - is that McCain is perceived as outside the mainstream in so far as he will speak frankly and openly, and take unpopular positions. And Barack Obama is clearly the fresh face. So on the face of it, these two have very little in common, and yet, they seem to have - be appealing in some cases to many of the same voters.
CHIDEYA: Leroy, is it a wrap for black folks - and what I mean is, black folks have been flavor of the week, of the month here in South Carolina - folks bringing attention to the black vote. Is it all going to disappear after your primary?
Mr. CHAPMAN: I think so. In terms of presidential election, after tomorrow, I think South Carolina is really not in play at all. Obviously, the state trends Republican and it will continue to, look at who shows up.
CHIDEYA: What about the whole idea of talking about black issues? Is that going to diminish after this black primary?
Mr. CHAPMAN: You know, maybe so. I mean, we've got some - one of the things about South Carolina being diverse - there is diverse leadership here. But one of the things I think is - Democrats, especially as a party, one wonders if there is going to be a bit of a rift that continues after this.
There were, obviously, black political leaders lined up on both sides of this - of either Clinton, Obama, some Edwards. And there are people who wonder out loud whether or not there is going to be a rift there that continues after the candidates leave, after the signs are trashed, and after they've gone on to other states. So I think that is an issue.
CHIDEYA: All right, gentlemen, we're going to have to let you go, but we appreciate it. Thanks.
Mr. CHAPMAN: Thank you.
Mr. CLAIBORNE: Farai, thanks.
CHIDEYA: We have been speaking with Leroy Chapman, the government and politics editor for The State newspaper. He joined me here in the studios of South Carolina Educational TV. Plus, Ron Claiborne - he is a correspondent for ABC News, and he joined us from ABC Radio in New York City.
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