The New Nation - Internet Edition

Washington diary

Suzanne Goldenberg

It is a fear that is both widespread and too painful to readily acknowledge the idea that Barack Obama, now within reach of the Democratic nomination, is at greater risk of assassination than John McCain or Hillary Clinton or any other high-profiler politician. The spectre of political violence fed the strong reactions among Democrats and in the media last weekend to Clinton's "graceless" reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

Clinton mentioned RFK in the hopes of bolstering her case for continuing her fight against Obama despite his nearly insurmountable advantage.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California, I don't understand it." Clinton told a newspaper in South Dakota.

That's not all she failed to understand. The strangely clinical reference to the killing of such a tragically glamorous and iconic figure as Bobby Kennedy produced near universal outrage. A number of commentators on cable television and on the internet accused Clinton of secretly hoping for Obama to die-so she could take his place on the Democratic ticket next November. "We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul," intoned the New York Daily News. "One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind ?"

But it's hard not to be thinking of Bobby Kennedy during this election season. This has been a spring of anniversaries. Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis in April 1968. Bobby Kennedy was killed two months later in California, as he was closing in on the Democratic nomination. His brother John F Kennedy was killed in November 1963. Malcolm X, also a champion of African Americans, was killed in 1965.

Give that tragic recent history, it is difficult to ignore the concerns for Obama's security. Over the past few months I've met a number of Obama supporters, white and black, who quietly confide that they fear for his life. The say his candidacy has left them torn between excitement and dread at his success. Yes, they are cheering him on to the White House, but they are afraid that with each step Obama takes he is putting his life in danger.

They are not alone. Opinion polls suggest that over 60% of Americans are afraid that an assassin may target Obama if he becomes the nominee. Among African Americans, some 83% said they were concerned, in a Washington Post polls last March. Those fears are not without foundation. Obama was given secret service protection more than a year ago after receiving death threats. It was the earliest juncture that any candidate has been given protection (except for Clinton, who was given extra security as a former First Lady).

After all, Obama is the first African-American candidate to come this far in a presidential contest-which could be considered a provocation to a deranged racist. It is also safe to assume that the consequences of an attack on Obama by White supremacists would be severe, exposing the old divisions again.

And the potential danger to Obama is deepened by the nature of his candidacy. Unlike Clinton or McCain, who belatedly adopted the change message, Obama predicated his entire candidacy around the promise that he would bring transformational change. That could make him more of a threat to a deranged opponent.

Many of Obama's older supporters say that his campaign is almost like a flashback to the 1960s, with its idealism and optimism. That nostalgia is a large part of Obama's appeal to an older generation of liberals. They say he reminds them of the optimism of their youth-an era of idealism and public service extinguished with assassinations of King and RFK.

The Kennedy parallels were strengthened when Obama was embraced by the clan. Caroline Kennedy said Obama reminded her of her father, John F Kennedy. The last surviving male of that generation of Kennedys, Ted Kennedy, campaigned for Obama.

So, it's baffling that Clinton ventured into that terrain. She has written in her memoirs that as a young college student she was devastated at the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Public figures generally know better than to tread on such sensitive terrain-well, some of them.

In a speech this month to a gun convention, Mike Huckabee, a former rival of McCain, joked that a backstage noise was the sound of Obama driving for the floor when a weapon was levelled at him. And a commentator at Fox television the other day said she wished Clinton and Obama would be assassinated reaching for extra laughs by calling him Osama.

But for many Democrats the spectre of assassination is too disturbing to even talk about.

-The Guardian Weekly