Tracee Ellis Ross, one of the stars of the Emmy-nominated comedy series, Girlfriends, was the latest female celebrity to visit South Carolina on Monday, October 8, on behalf of U.S. Senator presidential candidate Barack Obama.  She spent the day stumping for Obama in Columbia and Orangeburg, and the following day, spearheaded the "Women for Obama" campaign effort in Florence, the center of the Pee Dee Region.

"Women for Obama" is the campaign's outreach exclusively to women voters, whose strength at the Democratic primaries' polls have caught the attention of leading candidates.  As part of the outreach, Tracee Ellis Ross, whose work on Girlfriends earned her the 2005 BET and 2007 Image Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress, talked to emerging female leaders at Benedict College in Columbia and headlined the opening of a campaign-centered regional office in Orangeburg.

In the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, 57 percent of the voters were women. In the general election, women were responsible for 56 percent of the vote.  On a national scale, 53 percent of all votes in Democratic primaries across the country during the 1992 elections were cast by women, and political analysts are expecting the same figure next year.

Moreover, African-Americans are expected to account for roughly half of South Carolina's Democratic primary.  A recent poll conducted by Winthrop University showed black women voted in larger numbers than black men.  The poll also revealed that while Obama leads among black male voters, he is, as of last week, in equal standing with New York Senator Hilary Clinton in terms of black female supporters.

Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays attorney Joan Clayton on Girlfriends, is not the only black female celebrity who has openly shown her support for Obama.  Television personality and media mogul Oprah Winfrey (The Oprah Winfrey Show) has also publicly pledged her support for the 46-year-old Illinois senator, while Emmy Award-winning actress Alfre Woodard (Desperate Housewives) and Jasmine Guy (A Different World) appeared in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, Obama's main competitor, Clinton, has also recruited the help of several female black personalities, including Victoria Rowell (The Young and the Restless) and legendary poet Maya Angelou, to help with her campaign.


-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Women for Obama, The State
(Image Courtesy of The CW)