New Poll Has Barack Obama Leading Hillary Clinton
cbs2chicago.com
Jan 18, 2007 4:58 pm US/Central
Are Voters Ready For A Woman Or African American In The White House?
(CBS) CHICAGO Sen. Barack Obama's popularity is growing since he announced that he's exploring a presidential run. A new poll now has Obama leading Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery talks about the battle between senators Obama and Clinton with one of America's most distinguished historians.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills thinks Obama would be a good president, even though Wills has never met the senator.
He has met and says he likes Clinton, but although she has more of what Wills called “book experience,” he predicts Obama will ultimately garner more votes for president because of Obama's personality.
"They talk about 'judicial temperament ,' somebody who's able to weigh things fairly, I think he probably has that, perhaps more than she does," Wills said. "She has, a reputation anyway, of having very strong emotional reactions to people."
Political consultant Eric Adelstein has worked with Clinton and has a different perspective.
“She's not someone ever to be underestimated. And I think whether you love her or hate her, she's someone who knows how to win,” Adelstein said.
After a lifetime studying America and American politics, Wills believes that Americans are more likely to elect an African-American president than a female president.
“In some ways, people are more afraid of feminism than of blacks,” Wills said.
Wills, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University, argues that in one form or another civil rights for blacks has been a political issue in America for two centuries. By contrast, he argues, feminism is much newer and the impact of its agenda affects men and women in much more intimate ways, some of them very unsettling.
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