Tempers rise with races up for grabs
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Unsettled fields in both parties' presidential contests caused vitriol to rise Sunday, as Republican presidential candidates left this state after Saturday's primary and Democrats moved in for their own high-stakes contest later this week.
A day before they were to join ranks for a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration, Barack Obama promised to "directly confront" former president Bill Clinton over statements that are "not factually accurate."
Obama, vying with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the lead in the Democratic contest, told ABC News that the former president "has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling." Clinton's camp accused Obama of overreacting to his loss Saturday in Nevada.
John McCain, the winner of the Republican primary here, got into a spat with Rudy Giuliani, who's counting on a win in Florida, the next GOP matchup.
South Carolina's Democratic primary is Saturday. Democratic hopefuls meet tonight in Myrtle Beach for a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.
The black vote will be crucial: African-Americans made up 47% of the voters in the 2004 Democratic primary. State Sen. Kay Patterson, an Obama supporter, says the Illinois senator's biggest challenge is overcoming loyalty to Clinton. "Bill Clinton walks on water as far as most black folks are concerned," he said. "Including me."
Republicans head to Florida, where 19% of the population is Hispanic. It's also a state where more than one-tenth of the 14 million voters were born in New York — a fact that Giuliani, an ex-New York City mayor, is relying on to help him get his first primary win.
Coming off his South Carolina win over former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, "McCain has a lot of momentum, but it's still very fluid," said Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer.
On ABC's This Week, Giuliani questioned McCain's credentials as a fiscal conservative, saying he opposed some of President Bush's tax cuts. "If someone hasn't run a primary, I can understand why they would attack the front-runner," McCain said of Giuliani.
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