Hollings won’t endorse Obama – for some reason

This gets back to my question: just what is the Democratic Party, anyway.

‘I’m trying to stay out of that’: Hollings holds back on endorsing Obama
By Wayne Washington – wwashington@thestate.com
Former U.S. Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings twice spurned opportunities to endorse his party’s presidential nominee, Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, in remarks to reporters at the University of South Carolina on Friday.
Hollings, an icon in the S.C. Democratic Party whose public career spanned the 1940s into this century, said he has not endorsed a candidate for president. Asked if he would take the opportunity to make an endorsement, Hollings replied: “No, I’m trying to stay out of that. I’ve sort of stayed out of the endorsements and that sort of thing.”
Four years ago, Hollings did offer an early endorsement of the party’s nominee, Massachusetts U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
…
Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party and an Obama supporter, said: “In all the years I’ve known Sen. Hollings, I’ve never known him not to support the Democratic nominee, and I’d be surprised and disappointed if he didn’t this time.”
Source: The State. Columbia, SC. September 20, 2008
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/530323.html 

Hollings is a fixture of SC politics. He was elected as Governor in 1960. He beat out the Donald Russell in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 1966. With the mantle of South Carolina incumbency upon him, Hollings cannot be voted out of office much less challenged in a primary, until his retirement in 2004.

Hollings may be a retiree, but he was the national face of the South Carolina Democratic Party for 40 years. He’s a transitional figure from the old all-white party. But any party that accepts neoconfederate Bob Conley as its Senatorial nominee, when it might have run against him (with Micheal Cone on the Working Families Party) is in some way comfortable with its fundamental racism.

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Flattop Bob Conley: Republican vs Republican in SC Senate Race. Some Carolinian Blog. September 15, 2008.