As he campaigns in the Lone Star State, Barack Obama has mostly stuck to his standard stump speech about the economy, health care and Iraq. But when he spoke before a mostly black audience in the coastal, working-class town of Beaumont, he talked about Popeyes fried chicken and individual responsibility.
“I have a nine- and a six-year-old daughter, so I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly,” Obama told the audience of about 2,000 as he broached the subject of health care at a town hall-style meeting Thursday. “But I also know that if we are, if folks are just letting kids drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do. Or you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch or Popeyes for breakfast — ya’ll have Popeyes down in Beaumont? All right. I know some of you all, you get that cold Popeyes out for breakfast! I know! That’s why you all laughing. I caught you out. You can’t do that! Children have to have proper nutrition.”
The audience, many of whom waited in line five hours or more for a chance to see Obama, cheered, laughed and gave thunderous applause to the remarks, which he peppered with phrases straight from a Texas Southern Baptist church.
“Can I get an amen here?” Obama said to the cheering crowd as he compelled them to turn the TV off at home and make sure their kids hit the books.
But these riffs did not resurface later at a rally in Fort Worth, where the audience was decidedly more racially mixed and in a higher income bracket. Gone was the preacherlike cadence. He talked about health care and education, but only made a passing reference to individual responsibility.
Political analysts say Obama is using a dual approach to win Tuesday’s primaries in Texas and Ohio and the Democratic nomination beyond that — a race-neutral, rousing stump speech for most audiences and a sermonlike dialogue reserved for lower-income black audiences.
“I call it a two-track strategy,” said University of Maryland political science professor Ron Walters, who has written extensively about blacks and politics. “This requires two different kinds of politics and Barack Obama has been able to synthesize both of them.”
Political analysts say in order for Obama to win the nomination and ultimately the presidency, he must appeal to white voters while keeping his strong base of black support energized enough to go the polls.
This strategy is particularly critical in Texas, where voters must participate in both a primary and a caucus. Polls show Obama slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton here, but she has held on to her lead in Ohio.
Clinton is trailing Obama in the delegate count, and her campaign has acknowledged she must win Texas and Ohio to remain viable.
