Debate focuses on minority issues

On a day when the US Supreme Court issued a direct challenge to race-conscious education policies, the eight Democratic presidential candidates debated issues deemed important to minority voters.

The candidates, meeting last night at Howard University, a predominantly black college in Washington, differed on HIV infection rates, Hurricane Katrina, early childhood education, and a host of other themes rarely touched on in the prior two Democratic debates.

But last night's event was also notable for how personal it was: Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico all began by noting that their mere presence was a testament to how far America had come.

"You can look at this stage and see an African-American, a Latino, and a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States," Clinton said.

Richardson, whose mother is from Mexico, then cited his Hispanic heritage, and Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, used his initial remarks to thank former Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall and others who had worked on the 1954 Brown v . Board of Education decision that ended school segregation.

"If it hadn't been for them, I would not be standing here today," he said. "It was their fundamental recognition that for us to achieve racial equality was not simply good for African-Americans, but it was good for America as a whole."

The gathering allowed the Democrats to highlight the relative diversity of their candidates compared with the 10 candidates for the Republican nomination, all of whom are white men. The GOP field will take part in a similar forum in September.

Last night's debate, moderated by prominent African-American commentator Tavis Smiley and broadcast on PBS, was more informal than the Democrats' prior meetings, punctuated by bursts of applause and Paris Hilton jokes . But it also offered the candidates a setting to explore issues that have received little or no air time up to now.

One of those issues was the high rate of HIV infection among blacks. Clinton, in one of her more forceful moments of the night, said that if the problem were affecting young white women instead, "There would be an outraged outcry in this country." The line won her big applause.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware chimed in to decry what he said was the neglect of HIV and AIDS both within and outside black communities. "No one wants to talk about it in the community, and we do not have enough leaders inside and outside the community demanding we face the reality," he said.

The US Supreme Court's landmark decision striking down race-based school-assignment plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., prompted criticism from several Democrats, including Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who called it a "major step backwards." A quality education, he said, "is the key to equal access to our society. It is something that can never be taken away from you if you get it."

Obama said the problem with the achievement gap between white students and minority students can be attributed in part to the country's attitudes toward minority children.

"Too many of us think it is acceptable for them not to achieve," Obama said. "We need someone in the White House that's going to recognize these children as our own."

But former senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, who casts himself as the truth-teller in the Democratic field, told the audience not to believe the promises they were hearing on fixing public education.

"You heard it 10 years ago, you heard it 20 years ago -- why doesn't it change?" he said. "The Democratic Party hasn't done any appreciably better than the Republican Party in solving these problems."

Also participating last night were former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who used the debate to reiterate his message about ending poverty and providing universal health care; and US Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who advocates the relocation of billions from the Pentagon into domestic programs.

The candidates were introduced by Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who declined to say whom he would endorse.

The debate took place just before the close of the second quarter, a revealing benchmark of how all the candidates are faring with fund-raising. Clinton's campaign said yesterday that she will have raised about $27 million in the second quarter, slightly more than her record-setting $26 million last quarter. Obama's campaign, meanwhile, was touting the fact that it now has 250,000 unique contributors; his campaign has not yet said what its second-quarter tally will be.

Obama and Clinton will both kick off the second half of 2007 with major trips to Iowa next week. Clinton will be campaigning with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in Des Moines on Monday night, and Obama will launch a two-day bus tour on Tuesday.