The Importance of Race in the U.S. Presidential Elections

I returned to the US a few days ago after an absence for much of the summer just in time for the frenzy over Senator Obama's selection of a Vice-Presidential running mate. I was struck afresh by the expensive silliness of American presidential politics, the staleness of the endless speculation among the chattering classes, the fixation on the fluctuating polls, the puerile obsession with and anticipation for gaffes from any of the two presidential candidates and their supporters, and the relative absence of serious debate about what truly ails this beleaguered imperial country beset by mounting domestic and global challenges it can no longer wish away. Having spent most of my summer in six countries in South America, the Caribbean, and Western Europe doing research on African diasporas I was particularly struck by the absence of discussions of race in the elections, a strange silence in a society so deeply preoccupied and shaped by race, how Senator Obama's chances in November will ultimately be determined by the politics of race. The two commentaries below unmask this elephant in the room that many people and pundits prefer to ignore. PT Zeleza, Editor, The Zeleza Post.

US Election: Colour Is The Topic that Is Even More Taboo in Polite Company Than Sex By Patricia Williams

On a short flight to New York recently, I was sitting behind two white, well-dressed twentysomethings chattering loudly about going to clubs and travel plans and the possibility of living in New Jersey. Then came the question: 'So who are you voting for.

'I was for Hillary, but now ... I'm kind of undecided,' volunteered the first woman. 'Are you a Democrat?' asked the second. 'Yeah. But I think I might go with McCain. It's just that, well, I don't know.' Her voice dropped. I leant forward to hear. 'You kind of hate to say it aloud, but ...' Her voice dropped again, lost in the roar of the jet engines, and I missed whatever came next.

Let's start with this concession: I have no idea what that young woman actually said. In a perfect world, I suppose that would be the end of the story and I would go back to minding my own business. In the context of contemporary political discourse, however, it did cross my mind that, if this conversation was presented on one of those 'finish the sentence' cultural-literacy tests, then pretty much every American, of whatever creed, colour, or class, would have exactly the same guess as to how the woman completed her thought.

There's some consensus, in other words, about the one thing in America we really 'hate to say' aloud. Yet by refraining from saying audibly that-which-must-not-be-spoken, was the young woman's political choice rendered rational, neutral, pure? Conversely, if I were to spell it out here, would I be the one accused of 'playing the race card'?

Everyone knows that race matters to a greater or lesser degree; few of us want to admit it. Indeed, race is the one topic that's probably even more taboo in polite company than sex.

Barack Obama predicted this phenomenon and attempted to expose it to the anodyne of common sense: 'They're going to try to make you afraid of me. "He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" ' The not altogether surprising backlash from John McCain's campaign is a deflection, an expression of deep discomfort. The reflexive accusation that Obama was playing the race card has a certain resemblance to the juvenile retort one gets when the science teacher tries to explain the human reproductive system: 'Oh! He said a dirty word!' In this way, the opportunity for thoughtful public analysis sinks, once again, below the sound of the audible. Yet the fear of race rolls on, pantomimed in palpably influential and consequential ways.

At the same time the civil rights movement has given us a moral conscience that was not as prevalent when The Birth of a Nation was made. Today it's fair to say that the overwhelming majority of white Americans 'hate to say it aloud' because they also hate to think of themselves as racists. Yet the tendency to turn the commitment to racial liberalism into sheer denial is strong. 'I don't see race' becomes 'I don't see racism'. While some of us are listening to the soothing tones of National Public Radio, a far larger audience is listening to the right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh singing about subterranean fears of 'Barack, the magic Negro', or to shock jocks cackling about 'jigaboos'. Not that any of them mean it in a racist way. Hey, lighten up. Don't you have a sense of humour?

Then there are the very real disparities that burden the lives of the majority of blacks, people of colour and the poor in this country: from the still unrepaired wake of Hurricane Katrina to the greater infant mortality rate and lesser life span, to near double-digit rates of unemployment, to the fact that blacks in New York are eight times more likely than whites to be stopped for marijuana possession, to disproportionately high rates of foreclosures and homelessness among blacks, Native Americans and Latinos, to the almost complete resegregation of schools across the land, to a war on drugs so shockingly racialised and so aggressively executed that our rates of incarceration place us first in the world.

We rejoice in the warm symbolism of interracial bliss, particularly in the idealised and thoroughly mythic sphere of celebrity existence. At the same time, there is a terrible ambivalence on the ground. Does one really want 'the race card' living next door, or being your boss? Do you really want your child marrying outside his race? I've had conversations with white friends who are rattled when a black pupil has bested their child in the class rankings and can't let go of the feeling that the mere presence of blacks in the school must be bringing down the test scores.

Similarly, it's interesting to review the evolution of media commentary, from TV to the blogosphere, trying to fit the thoroughly unfamiliar Obama into familiar boxes. For a while, he was depicted as not having any 'racial baggage'. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was transformed into someone who could be demonised with all the well-practised repertoire of insults reserved for the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan and armed revolutionaries.

Obama's comeback, his eloquent speech about race, showed that he wasn't exactly the same person, not by any means. So in yet another twist, he is now so uppity he needs bringing down, defamed as too famous, categorised as uncategorisable, displaced as unplaceable. Yet the truth is that more is on the record about every step of Obama's life than possibly any candidate on the planet, and so this particular brand of demonisation has been accomplished by the insinuations of erasure.

If you took away his 'pretty words', he'd be nothing. If you took away his race, he'd be nothing. If only he didn't have a brain, he'd be nothing, nothing, nothing. It's a circular, nonsensical mantra - magical thinking, wrapped in the fiction of 'but really, I never see race'. This kind of denial masquerading as colour-blind idealism cannot be our compass at this exciting and potentially transformative moment.

Patricia Williams is a professor of law at Columbia University and a regular columnist for the Nation magazine

From The Observer, October 24, 2008

US Elections: Why Has Obama Stalled? No One Mentions Race By Paul Harris

On the eve of the Democrats' convention in Denver, Barack Obama finds himself struggling against a resurgent John McCain. Why isn't Obama doing better in the polls? There is one answer no one wants to hear. Paul Harris reports on how race has become the great unspoken issue in the campaign for the white House--and why it may be the decisive factor.

Standing next to his street stall of glassware in downtown Denver, Jim Butcher was delighted that Barack Obama and the Democrats were holding their convention in his city this week.

He hoped to make a killing selling his wares to the 50,000 visitors, including 15,000 journalists, who are descending on Colorado's state capital. But Butcher, who is a registered independent, did not intend to vote for Obama in November.

'I think, at the moment, I am going for [John] McCain,' he said. Asked if there was anything Obama could do this week to persuade him to change his mind, Butcher quickly replied: 'Not really. Not much chance of that.'

The reason, he said, was Obama's lack of experience. When asked, he said his decision had nothing to do with the colour of the candidate's skin: 'I don't care about his race.' Then he added a rider that will dismay those who watch with mounting anxiety as McCain steadily gains ground on his Democratic rival for the White House: 'There might be some people who do.'

This week's events in Denver are fast turning into a critical moment in Obama's bid to be America's first black President. What was once seen as an anointing of his candidacy is becoming a chance to right a campaign facing a series of unexpected crises.

The Democrats are starting to struggle in a presidential race which they should be dominating. America is beset by economic troubles, mired in an unpopular foreign war and facing an unpopular Republican party. A stunning 80 per cent of Americans think that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Yet Obama and McCain are virtually tied in the polls. The possible explanations are multiple. The Democratic campaign is being daily assaulted by withering Republican attack ads. At the same time, there are still deep scars in the party left by the ferocious battle between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton.

And then there is the issue of race. It gets much less attention than the battle with Clinton, or the daily barbs traded with McCain, or Obama's struggle to rise in the polls. Yet it might provide the key to understanding the strange inability of the Obama campaign to achieve lift-off in the polls.

'The question of this election is race. The answer we are looking for is, how much will it matter?' said Professor Shawn Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside. America will soon find out. When Obama speaks on Thursday to more than 80,000 people in Denver's football stadium he will also reach a television audience of millions of Americans. They will look into the face of a man who could be their next President and for the first time it will be a black face.

By the end of this week, America will finally be facing up to the question that might truly define the 2008 presidential race: is America ready to elect a black President to the White House?

Obama's speech will take place in the most historic of circumstances. On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous 'I have a dream speech', delivered at the height of the civil rights struggle, Obama will face an adoring crowd to whom he will preach a message of unity and change. 'It is hard to overstate the historic nature of this speech,' said Professor Seth Masket, a political scientist at Denver University.

There is no denying Obama's campaign resembles King's lofty ideals. King spoke of a dream where '... my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.' Certainly, Obama has consistently portrayed himself as 'post-racial'. His bid for the presidency has avoided race unless forced to do so. That happened once, when comments made by Obama's former pastor Rev Jeremiah Wright threatened to derail his campaign. Obama responded with a well-received speech on race in Philadelphia that was an attempt to lay the issue firmly to rest.

Afterwards, the campaign redoubled its efforts to portray Obama in the terms of America's history as a melting pot of different ethnicities: black and white, and everything in between. That is going to be writ large at Denver in a carefully packaged message. Each day has a 'theme' designed to appeal to the middle ground. They range from 'One Nation' to 'Renewing America's Promise'. At key moments, Obama's life story will be fleshed out with an emphasis on his bi-racial history, such as having a white grandfather who fought in the Second World War. During his final speech, Obama will be surrounded by 10 ordinary Americans he met during his campaign. Denver will paint an all-American picture of Obama as an everyman figure, defying pigeonholing.

That is a laudable aim and politically astute. It is also difficult. For the fact of race is always present. It is hard to imagine the Obama phenomenon if he were a white politician. Then he might just be another one-term senator from Middle America with a gift for oratory and little experience. But Obama's mixed racial background and its deeper meaning propels him to a different level. It also makes it harder for him to avoid addressing the issue of race.

But America itself is often engaged in the same experience; not talking about race even though everyone is thinking about it. The polls certainly seem to suggest that some white Americans do have a problem with Obama.

His popularity is huge among blacks and strong with Hispanics and young white voters. Yet his support struggles among older white voters, including many Democrats. Among Clinton Democrats, one fifth say they are backing McCain rather than Obama. It may be these voters care about 'experience' or other issues more than black or Hispanic or young voters. Or it might be that they are simply resistant to voting for a black man to be President, whether they know it or not. Whatever the truth, securing a decent percentage of the white vote is going to be fundamental to Obama's hopes.

In research published in New York magazine, the pollster Thom Riehle, who founded the AP/Ipsos survey, calculates that even if the black turnout were to rise by 25 per cent from 2004, with Obama gaining a 92 per cent share, and significantly more Hispanic voters and under-50s voted for Obama than voted for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, he would still need to win 40 per cent of the white vote - just one point less than Kerry got. As Riehle points out: 'This is a daunting task as the first black candidate for President. To get there, he's got to win roughly the same proportion of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents that all other Democrats get. If he doesn't he's in a world of trouble. He can't win it just by changing the electorate.'

The polls themselves may be unreliable. In the past, support for African-American candidates when Americans actually cast their votes has often failed to reflect what voters told the pollsters. Most notoriously, former Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley, in his unsuccessful bid for the governorship of Los Angeles, came up short in a manner no one could have predicted having followed his poll ratings. American pollsters now talk about the Bradley effect.

There is little doubt that race is going to play a starring role in this election after the convention season. 'It has not been too much of an issue so far. Or, at least not talked about. But that is not going to last,' said Bowler. It is already getting a lot of play on conservative talkshows and in books. Rush Limbaugh, the 'shock jock' who is hugely popular with white conservatives, has stepped up race-baiting on his broadcasts. He recently claimed Democrats chose Obama as a sort of 'affirmative action' programme. 'I think it really goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy,' he told his millions of listeners. Warming to his theme a few days later, he said: 'You can't criticise the little black man-child.'

Slightly more subtly has come a series of anti-Obama books. The most strident, and most popular, has been The Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi, who helped mastermind the Swift Boat campaign that derailed Kerry in 2004. Corsi described Obama as having Islamic links and a Muslim past. He wants him to be seen as a scary 'Other', just like some black leaders have always been portrayed. Even the title of the book has that effect: said quickly 'Obama Nation' rapidly becomes 'abomination'. That is not likely to be an accident.

Obama frequently warns against such attacks, acknowledging they are covertly linked to his skin colour. 'What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me ... You know, he doesn't look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills,' he told one rally. Obama is right. Nor are such attacks going to let up. Many Republican strategists believe the Wright controversy will reassert itself. Though Obama has disavowed Wright, the preacher's black nationalist theology is still going to be fodder for anti-Obama ads. They may not come from the McCain camp itself, but from shadowy groups allied to the Republican cause. Either way, the effect will be the same.

No matter how much Obama - and millions of other Americans - seek to take race out of the election, there will be others wanting to bring it back. McCain's campaign has even accused the Obama camp itself of playing the race card, thus cleverly injecting the issue right back into the debate.

It was a tactic that even some on Clinton's campaign sought to use. Leaked memos from her campaign revealed that her top strategist, Mark Penn, tried to get Clinton to paint Obama as un-American. 'I cannot imagine America electing a President during a time of war who is not at his centre fundamentally American in his thinking and his values,' Penn wrote in one memo. Penn is likely to have meant Obama's father's Kenyan background. But it is hard not to see some, perhaps unintentional, subtext of race. Would he have written such words if Obama's father had been Irish, and not black African?

Clinton did not take Penn's advice, but Democrats still bear the wounds of the battle Clinton and Obama fought. That divide will be on full display in Denver. Clinton herself has been given a prime speaking slot. More controversially, so has her husband, Bill Clinton, who still damns with faint praise when it comes to Obama. Then there is the fact that Clinton's name is going to go forward in a symbolic first roll call on the convention floor. Delegates and superdelegates will be asked for their vote and estimates vary about how many will vote for Clinton. It could be as high as 1,200. This piece of political theatre was an olive branch by Obama's campaign as a way of appeasing Clinton's passionate backers. It is intended as a visible way of uniting the party. That may work. Or not.

Larry Johnson, an intelligence consultant, runs a pro-Hillary blog. Even now, he pulls no punches when it comes to Obama. 'It is becoming clearer that he is the wrong candidate at the wrong time,' he said.

Even if the party is healed, there are other minefields ahead in Denver. First off are the legions of protesters. They range from anti-war marchers, to environmentalists, to anti-globalisation organisations. The Denver police are also taking no chances. A complex of special holding cells - dubbed 'Gitmo on the Platte' after Denver's South Platte river - has been constructed. For a candidate desperate to ease the concerns of middle America, any violence would be a PR disaster. It would also be a moment for the Republicans to pounce and they, too, will be in Denver. Just a few blocks away from the convention hall, they have set up a media war-room, serving up stars of the Republican firmament such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Nothing, it seems, is going to be easy in Denver this week.

The Denver convention has gone from a coronation to a challenge. 'This is tricky. He wants to leave the convention with the party as united as possible,' said Larry Haas, a political commentator and former aide in the Clinton White House. Polls last week showed Obama's lead over McCain narrowing to just a few points. One, a Reuters-Zogby survey, even had McCain with a lead of five per cent. McCain, with his new aggressive strategy, is now settled into the 'happy warrior' mode. He is the insurgent underdog taking chunks out of a more favoured opponent. Yet such an analysis is unfair to Obama. A study of the electoral coalition shows just how narrow Obama's margins of victory are. His levels of support among blacks, Hispanics and young voters are already squeezed close to their likely maximum.

In order to win in November he undoubtedly needs to persuade white, working class and elderly Americans to back him in much greater numbers. McCain needs to keep them away. That alone will ensure that the issue of race cannot remain underground. For, in the heat of the fight ahead, it could actually become the main battlefield itself.

From The Observer, August 24 2008