A Candidate Who Mirrors Their Lives

Last month, the night of the 20th debate between the last two Democratic candidates in the race, Wiggins sat inside 18th Amendment, on the edge of a pool table with a cherry-red surface. With everyone at the Capitol Hill bar transfixed by the debate, the pool table was just a coat rack and resting place for a lone Corona, half full with no lime. Feet away from Wiggins, Jacqueline Stallworth, an Alexandria teacher, and Shane Perrault, a District psychologist, sat on bar stools. Their eyes rarely left one of the wide-screens.

Like other Obama supporters, they had learned about the debate-watch party via an e-mail from the Obama campaign. "They switched their sides up tonight," said Stallworth, 37, as she watched Clinton and Obama take their seats for the debate at Cleveland State University.

Stallworth, a transplant from Mobile, Ala., said she jumped on the Obama train early, attracted by his "confidence."

"Knowledgeable. He's a leader," she said.

But she admitted that she had her doubts. "I was pulling for him, but I was thinking about the popularity of Clinton," she said.

Perrault, who grew up in Michigan, interjected: "I never didn't believe in Obama. I didn't believe in America. This has really changed that."

He looked around at blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos and gays ordering bottles of wine and beer and gourmet pizzas in a bar so crowded that people rubbed up against one another to get in and out. There were other Obama-watch parties around the District, but, said local Democratic activist Philip Pannell, this was the place to be.

Before Obama was cool, Bill Clinton was cool. Danielle Cotten, 25, was a "Sistah for Obama" teetering on black stilettos and greeting guests at the door of Bohemian Caverns six months ago. Though she was a host of the fundraiser, she said she wasn't so sure she could turn her back on the former first family.

There was a loyalty to Clinton. As in Bill.

"I remember that late-night show," she said, smiling and recalling Bill Clinton playing "Heartbreak Hotel" on the saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show."

She was about 9 at the time and living in the District. While Clinton was in office, "he visited my high school several times," Cotten said. "My choir sang at the White House."

Hillary and Bill go hand-in-hand, she said: "To me, she actually implemented policy. I don't think black people should vote for Obama just because he's black."