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 His success or failure will help decide his party's presidential nomination, and could strongly influence the fall general election if he prevails over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Blacks comprise large portions of the Democratic electorate in Deep South states, and they could help Obama win a handful of primaries, including Saturday's in South Carolina. But the more Obama is seen through a racial lens, the more it might hamper him in other states, especially those where voters are unaccustomed or unwilling to support black candidates.
Obama's aides acknowledge the dilemma, saying it is inevitable for the first viable black presidential contender. They hope he can benefit from black voters' enthusiasm while also highlighting the many votes he has drawn in states such as Iowa, where he won the Jan. 3 Democratic caucus.
Former President Clinton addressed the racial dynamic this week in Charleston, where he mixed praise and rebukes of Obama. He suggested his wife will lose South Carolina because many blacks understandably will vote for Obama, even as many women will vote for Sen. Clinton.
Clinton campaign strategists deny any intentional effort by Bill Clinton, his wife or even surrogates like Bob Johnson
-- who referred to Obama's admitted youthful drug use -- to stir the racial debate. But they say they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as "the black candidate," something he has worked to avoid.
A new McClatchy/MSNBC poll holds warning signs for Obama. He leads overall in South Carolina, but his support among white Democrats fell in one week from 20 percent to a mere 10 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who is running third, appeared to pick up the white support Obama lost.
Obama addressed racial issues Thursday when a reporter asked if he feared the Clintons were trying, to his detriment, to depict him as the black candidate.
He replied that he has run his presidential campaign and public career "based on the idea that we're all in it together, and that black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all of us share common dreams, common fears, and common concerns."
That approach, he said, won him votes "across the board" in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and will elsewhere.
"I'll let the Clintons speak to what their strategy is going to be," Obama said coolly.
Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, must juggle race-related matters that sometimes seem to conflict. He must convince blacks that America is ready to elect someone like him, so their votes for him will not be wasted and their hopes dashed. At the same time, he says voters can embrace him without regard to color
-- as if he had "polka dots."
An exchange Tuesday with a black woman at Winthrop University in Rock Hill illustrated the two-step dance. The woman said her father, 77, was reluctant to back Obama because he feared "an African-American candidate won't be able to do what he needs to do in Washington to get change done."
Obama, before a crowd of 900, said he was "absolutely convinced" that Americans "don't care whether you are black, white, brown or green."
"If I came to you and I had polka dots," he said, "but you were convinced that I was going to put more money in your pockets and help you pay for college and keep America safe, you'd say,
'OK, I wish he didn't have polka dots, but I'm still voting for him.'"
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 If the racial minefields are worrisome, they don't keep Obama from having fun with the heavily black audiences here. The Harvard Law School graduate sometimes playfully breaks into a black vernacular, which seems to amuse him and his audiences greatly.
"I need you to grab Cousin Pookie to vote," he told a crowd in Kingstree on Thursday. "I need you to get Ray-Ray to vote."
At a similar rally in Dillon, Obama said Clinton was ducking the need to shore up Social Security. "There are some things that aren't right," he said, "and some things that just ain't right. And that ain't right!"
He chuckled, the crowd laughed and cheered. "In Washington," he added with another big grin, "that's how they do."
James Thrower, a federal government employee from Sumter, is among those black voters charmed by Obama this week.
"In the beginning of this campaign, I didn't think America was ready" to elect a black president, Thrower, 50, said after an Obama rally. "Now I do."
"This country needs some fresh blood," he said, and he will pick Obama. "We don't need Clintons back in control."
But both Clintons, campaigning separately, have wooed black and white supporters in South Carolina this week. An event Wednesday in Kingstree underscored the tension and suspicions animating the rivalry.
After fielding questions from an audience of about 200, Bill Clinton called on a black man standing near the stage. The man said he was a pastor and told Clinton that "black America is voting for Obama because he's black." He said Democrats are in a "dangerous position" because if Obama wins the nomination, voters will elect a Republican in November. "They're not ready for a black president," he said.
Several black audience members nodded and said, "That's right."
"I have to tell you I hope you're not right," Clinton responded.
He said that despite the "mean things" said about him "in the Obama camp this week," he would support the Illinois senator if he is nominated.
"The reason I think Hillary is more electable is not race, it's this," Clinton said. "If there is a security crisis somewhere between now and the election, the fact that Hillary" has served on the Senate Armed Services Committee and visited more than 80 nations "will make it much harder for them to spook people by saying she can't handle a national security crisis."
The self-identified pastor later refused to give his name to The Associated Press.
[Associated
Press; By CHARLES BABINGTON]
Associated Press Writer Ron Fournier contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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