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When Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards announced his bid for the White House, a constant theme was the idea of “Two Americas,” one for the wealthy and the other for the poor. It’s a message that would seem to appeal to many blacks, especially those in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward where Edwards announced his candidacy.

But despite his “Two Americas” view of the country, Edwards has found himself trailing two candidates for the black vote. A recent article on CNN.com said black voters in South Carolina, Edwards’ home state, are leaning more towards Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Edwards trails them by 20-30 percentage points.

Black voters have typically been a dependable constituency for Democratic candidates. In the last presidential election, nearly 90 percent of blacks voted Democratic. In Southern states, African-Americans make up nearly 50 percent of the electorate. That margin could help determine who becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.

Both Clinton and Obama are trying to court black voters. On Sunday, TV One, a black television network, will air an interview with Clinton. The discussion will focus solely on issues of concern to black voters. John DeSio of the New York Press says Clinton seems to be positioning herself as the candidate who will best serve African-Americans.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has been successful in his fundraising efforts among the black middle class. An article in USA Today showed Obama outraised Clinton by almost double in areas that had blacks with above-average incomes. The implications of this are important—albeit only symbolically, a point made by Bill Boyarsky of Truthdig, who says Obama’s fundraising efforts among the black middle class is “showing America a black political landscape seldom visited by journalists.”

Obama himself has acknowledged the importance of the black vote to his campaign. In August he claimed his candidacy would “redraw the political map”  and increase black voter turnout by 30 percent. But some people are a little more skeptical of this theory. In a blog posting on the Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr. and Jennifer Agiesta argued that Obama’s 30 percent solution would be almost impossible to achieve in some states. One responder agreed, posting: “Obama needs to see this election season for what it is — an introduction for his future candidacy and getting people to imagine the possibility of a Black man in the White House so that they’re better ready for him in 2016.”