Is the US ready for a black president?
Amando Doronila | Saturday, 7 June 2008
At the beginning of the primary elections for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in January, the American people faced a deeply disturbing issue: Were they ready to elect the first black president or the first woman president in the history of their 230-year-old republic?
Last Tuesday, the Democrats settled the issue when Sen. Barack Obama passed the threshold of 2,118 delegates needed for the nomination to become the first black presidential candidate ever fielded by a major party. This eliminated Sen. Hillary Clinton from the race.
Obama clinched the magic number at the end of five months of fiercely fought Democratic primary battles. With this breakthrough, Obama made history as the first black man to make a credible run at the American presidency. It confronts the American voters with an explosive race issue: whether the United States is ready for a black president. That confrontation is only a step away from the end of the Democratic primaries. In the primaries, the issue was simmering just underneath the surface, but its ugly aspects started to emerge and were glossed over in public debate. The American voters cannot avoid coming to terms with the issue they don't want to talk about.
Kirsten Powers, Fox News political analyst, writing in USA Today, says the Democratic primary "has ripped the scabs off two of the biggest 'isms' around sexism and racism." Maybe sexism, with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, but not so with racism, which (to change metaphors) is poised to explode in full force in the face-off between Obama and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate.
In an editorial, USA Today said that history would record Obama's primary victory "as both a monumental political upset and a dramatic statement from a party that was just shaking off its segregationist wing when Obama was born some 46 years ago."
It added: "Obama's success is testament to the remarkable success in American society since that Jim Crow era-progress paved by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, by black achievers in the world of business, sports and entertainment; and presidents who appointed African-Americans to increasingly important positions, including two secretaries of state."
In claiming the nomination last Tuesday, Obama told a cheering audience of 17,000 in St. Paul: "Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another-a journey that will bring a new and better day to America." He continued: "America, this is our moment. This is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past."
Obama will be asking for the vote of the white majority in the demographic map in which the 38 million African-Americans in the United States make up only 12 percent of the population. The New York Times has pointed out that "the challenge of Obama is to prove that Americans of all persuasions will judge a person by his or her policies and not by skin color." The Times noted that Senator Clinton was quick to point out that it was she, not Obama, who had won the important and predominantly white working-class states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Hampshire and South Dakota. The first two are states that a Democratic nominee must wrest from Republicans to win office.
The Times reported that exit polls confirmed that white Americans without college education had deep reservations about Senator Obama. According to the exit polls, when Clinton voters were asked who they would vote for if she was not the nominee, as few as 45 percent in some states said they would switch to Obama, but the rest said they would either not vote at all or vote Republican.
Obama is also perceived by white working-class voters as an elitist because of his university degrees from elite schools, such as Harvard Law School, and his penchant for up-market boutique suits. After the defeat of Clinton, who is reported to concede either today or tomorrow, in the interest of rebuilding party unity fractured by the bruising primary battle, Obama now needs to seek the support of disgruntled Clinton voters. Obama has done poorly with working-class whites and Hispanics, getting only about one in three of each group's votes.
He has to win over white Democratic women who have remained fiercely loyal to Clinton, whose hopes of becoming the nation's first female president were dashed by Obama's primary victory. The most explosive issue through which Obama has to navigate delicately is the question of race. Exist polls have found that one in seven Democratic voters said that race was important in choosing their candidate. Two-thirds of these voted for Clinton, but nearly six in 10 said they would rather vote for McCain or stay home than support Obama.
A CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that two-thirds said the United States was ready for a black president, but whites were a bit likelier than blacks to say the country was ready. Blacks backed Obama overwhelmingly against Clinton, giving him nearly nine in 10 of their votes. But while they were about one in five votes in the primaries, they were just one 10 in the 2004 presidential election, raising the question: Can Obama increase black turnout? The same can be asked about voters under 30, six in 10 of whom have backed Obama, but historically they are a notoriously difficult group to bring to the polls in November.
The race issue, together with the support of the white-working class and women voters, puts Clinton in a critical role to help Obama rebuild his coalition in order to win the general coalition. His victory in November is uncertain. What's certain is that American racism will be tested in the crucible of the electoral process.
Last Tuesday, the Democrats settled the issue when Sen. Barack Obama passed the threshold of 2,118 delegates needed for the nomination to become the first black presidential candidate ever fielded by a major party. This eliminated Sen. Hillary Clinton from the race.
Obama clinched the magic number at the end of five months of fiercely fought Democratic primary battles. With this breakthrough, Obama made history as the first black man to make a credible run at the American presidency. It confronts the American voters with an explosive race issue: whether the United States is ready for a black president. That confrontation is only a step away from the end of the Democratic primaries. In the primaries, the issue was simmering just underneath the surface, but its ugly aspects started to emerge and were glossed over in public debate. The American voters cannot avoid coming to terms with the issue they don't want to talk about.
Kirsten Powers, Fox News political analyst, writing in USA Today, says the Democratic primary "has ripped the scabs off two of the biggest 'isms' around sexism and racism." Maybe sexism, with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, but not so with racism, which (to change metaphors) is poised to explode in full force in the face-off between Obama and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate.
In an editorial, USA Today said that history would record Obama's primary victory "as both a monumental political upset and a dramatic statement from a party that was just shaking off its segregationist wing when Obama was born some 46 years ago."
It added: "Obama's success is testament to the remarkable success in American society since that Jim Crow era-progress paved by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, by black achievers in the world of business, sports and entertainment; and presidents who appointed African-Americans to increasingly important positions, including two secretaries of state."
In claiming the nomination last Tuesday, Obama told a cheering audience of 17,000 in St. Paul: "Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another-a journey that will bring a new and better day to America." He continued: "America, this is our moment. This is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past."
Obama will be asking for the vote of the white majority in the demographic map in which the 38 million African-Americans in the United States make up only 12 percent of the population. The New York Times has pointed out that "the challenge of Obama is to prove that Americans of all persuasions will judge a person by his or her policies and not by skin color." The Times noted that Senator Clinton was quick to point out that it was she, not Obama, who had won the important and predominantly white working-class states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Hampshire and South Dakota. The first two are states that a Democratic nominee must wrest from Republicans to win office.
The Times reported that exit polls confirmed that white Americans without college education had deep reservations about Senator Obama. According to the exit polls, when Clinton voters were asked who they would vote for if she was not the nominee, as few as 45 percent in some states said they would switch to Obama, but the rest said they would either not vote at all or vote Republican.
Obama is also perceived by white working-class voters as an elitist because of his university degrees from elite schools, such as Harvard Law School, and his penchant for up-market boutique suits. After the defeat of Clinton, who is reported to concede either today or tomorrow, in the interest of rebuilding party unity fractured by the bruising primary battle, Obama now needs to seek the support of disgruntled Clinton voters. Obama has done poorly with working-class whites and Hispanics, getting only about one in three of each group's votes.
He has to win over white Democratic women who have remained fiercely loyal to Clinton, whose hopes of becoming the nation's first female president were dashed by Obama's primary victory. The most explosive issue through which Obama has to navigate delicately is the question of race. Exist polls have found that one in seven Democratic voters said that race was important in choosing their candidate. Two-thirds of these voted for Clinton, but nearly six in 10 said they would rather vote for McCain or stay home than support Obama.
A CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that two-thirds said the United States was ready for a black president, but whites were a bit likelier than blacks to say the country was ready. Blacks backed Obama overwhelmingly against Clinton, giving him nearly nine in 10 of their votes. But while they were about one in five votes in the primaries, they were just one 10 in the 2004 presidential election, raising the question: Can Obama increase black turnout? The same can be asked about voters under 30, six in 10 of whom have backed Obama, but historically they are a notoriously difficult group to bring to the polls in November.
The race issue, together with the support of the white-working class and women voters, puts Clinton in a critical role to help Obama rebuild his coalition in order to win the general coalition. His victory in November is uncertain. What's certain is that American racism will be tested in the crucible of the electoral process.