The night-walkers of Uganda

Clinton and Obama
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
What do you know?
2
Read the article quickly and answer the questions.
1. Which Clinton is the article about? Bill, Hillary or Chelsea?
2. Who is John Edwards?
3. What’s Barack Obama’s wife called?
4. Who is leading in the polls?
5. Which US state is not mentioned in the article: Nevada, North Carolina, California?
276

---

Clinton and Obama
Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg in 
Washington
January 14, 2008
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met face-to-
face on January 15 for the first time since the 
controversial matter of the race issue.
After Obama’s victory in Iowa and Clinton’s in 
New Hampshire, the two candidates are each 
hoping to win in Nevada or in South Carolina.
The bitter and ugly exchanges over race show 
how important it is for both of the candidates 
to win in South Carolina, where about half the 
Democratic voters are African-American.
The Obama team accused Clinton of trying to 
make him look bad.
The Clinton team had to defend themselves over 
remarks that some people thought sounded a bit 
racist. The most controversial was a comment 
from Clinton about Martin Luther King. The 
Clinton team said Obama was distorting
the remarks.
Meanwhile, Bob Johnson, one of Clinton’s 
most well-known African-American supporters, 
talked about Obama taking drugs when he was 
a teenager. Obama wrote about drugs in his 
autobiography, Dreams From My Father.
Johnson later said he was talking about Obama’s 
work as a community worker in Chicago “and 
nothing else”. The Obama team demanded
an apology.
Bill Shaheen, a New Hampshire Clinton 
campaign official, resigned last month after he 
said that Democrats should be careful of voting 
for Obama because of his past drug use.
On the other side, Michelle Obama, campaigning 
for her husband in South Carolina, also 
mentioned race. In a talk to African-Americans, 
she reminded them that Iowa, which is mostly 
white, voted for Obama. “Ain’t no black people in 
Iowa,” she said.
This remark might lose Obama some white 
votes and the comment is also wrong – there are 
75,000 African-Americans in Iowa.
Democrat John Edwards, who is in third place at 
11%, supported Obama in the race issue. Many 
people now think that Edwards wants to become 
Obama’s vice presidential running mate.
In Nevada there is also a race issue, with Obama 
and Clinton both trying to get the support of 
Latinos, who make up about a quarter of the 
state’s population.
A poll for the Washington Post-ABC News 
today showed that Obama is closing the gap 
nationwide, with Clinton on 42%, down 11% 
since last month, and Obama on 37%, up 14%. 
But a national New York Times-CBS News poll 
showed that Clinton is on 42% and Obama
on 27%.