In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s strong victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary, where he garnered 55% of the vote, including 80% of the black vote, male and female, but only 24% of the white vote, questions are being raised anew about the role and significance of race in this year’s presidential election. Should race matter? Does race matter? I offer some of my thoughts.
The Clintons, Bill in particular, are being accused of “playing the race card” in South Carolina, trying to marginalize Barack Obama by polarizing voters around race and characterizing him as “the black candidate” while then suggesting, directly or indirectly, that a black candidate cannot win the presidency. None other than Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton but one of his and Hillary’s most savage critics for the last many years and a frequent guest on Fox Cable News, has suggested as much and others, far less partisan and not necessarily critics of the Clintons, have also expressed concern. An ABC correspondent, Jake Tapper, indicates that after Obama’s victory in South Carolina Bill Clinton compared it to Jesse Jackson’s victories when he ran for president without being asked about Jackson, presumably to again suggest that Obama, like Jackson, was a black candidate rather than a candidate who happens to be black.
I have not been entirely pleased with Bill Clinton’s presence on the campaign trail these last several weeks despite having supported him during his presidency and beyond. His larger than life persona tends to dwarf his wife’s presence and voice and he has tended toward making sweeping comments that have been extremely harsh about Obama. There may be large kernels of truth in a good part of what Bill Clinton has said, in terms of Obama’s voting record on Iraq and his inexperience, but the way Clinton has worded things has come across as demeaning, harsh and mud-slinging, not only not traits most Americans wish to associate with a former president but in a delivery style that has tended to repel a good number of African-American and young voters and, on occasion, me.
But let us not be so naïve as to think that race, as well as gender, are not important factors in the Democratic nominating process, and one of those factors will be very significant in the national election. This would be the case no matter what Bill Clinton has been saying. Interestingly, in the South Carolina Democratic primary, Hillary won a majority of white women voters, Edwards won a majority of white male voters, and Obama won 80% of black voters, male or female. And it isn’t as if Obama or his supporters haven’t taken advantage of the fact that he is black and is seen as the first “mainstream” African-American candidate to have a real chance at the nomination in his campaign.
As many remarked, Obama’s victory speech after the Iowa primaries was laced with phrases (“‘it’ couldn’t be done”) that alluded to his being African-American without ever uttering the word. After his defeat in the New Hampshire primary when polls taken only a day before the voting had him winning, more than one Obama supporter referred to the “Bradley effect” in suggesting that many white voters may well have voiced support for Obama in polls but secretly voted against him because of his race. Was invoking the “Bradley effect” an attempt by some Obama supporters to shame white voters into voting for an African-American as a way of disproving any racist sentiments? And, surely, Obama played up his own African-American heritage in front of black audiences in South Carolina. That is not necessarily to say Obama should not do so or that it is unfair of him to do so. After all, Hillary Clinton has referred to her gender in inviting support from female voters. But it is to question the assertion that the Clintons have injected race into the primaries and that Obama and his supporters have completely resisted any such approach.
I was bemused by Obama’s response during the South Carolina debate to the question asked him about Toni Morrison’s famous statement that Bill Clinton was "our first black president, blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime." Obama remarked: "I have to say that, you know, I would have to, you know, investigate more of Bill's dancing abilities. You know, and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was in fact a brother."
“A brother” seems a particularly African-American expression of relatedness (Jews might talk about being “a member of the ‘tribe’”) and I’m sure that’s exactly how Obama meant it to sound to the heavily African-American audience. But how does it play to non-blacks? The other night Obama presented Letterman’s famous top 10 list, this time Obama’s top 10 campaign promises. Promise number one? Obama said: “Three words.” No, the three words were not his current campaign slogan “Yes we can.” Rather, they were “Vice President Oprah.” Well, there’s no missing the fact that Oprah is a black woman, one whose appeal clearly surmounts and surpasses her race. Was this Obama once again reaching out to an American black icon with whom to identify and hopefully have others identify him with?
I just watched a video of Obama’s victory speech after the South Carolina primary. Unlike any of the others seeking the Democratic or Republican nominations, Obama seems to prepare primary victory speeches as if they were presidential inaugural addresses or at least akin to his address to the Democratic Convention several years ago. More credit to him perhaps but they certainly lack any spontaneity or have much peculiarity to the specific primary venue in which he delivers them. In any case, apropos of my discussion here of the race issue, I was struck by what a commentator had stated yesterday: the audience directly behind Obama that tended to be captured in the camera during close-ups of the candidate was almost entirely white. There were a few black faces among a sea of white men and women. Clearly this was intentional; but the group surely was not a random sample of those in attendance, let alone of those who supported his candidacy in South Carolina. Again, a permissible campaign tactic but not one devoid of calculations of race; quite the contrary.
It is evident then that race and gender are important factors in this election and religion, at least when it comes to the Republican contest, is also at play. Americans are quite capable of discerning that Hillary would be the first female president and that Obama would be the first African-American president. (I should acknowledge here that there may be some who feel that since Obama is the offspring of a black father and a white mother that to speak of him as “African-American” or black is not entirely accurate and may itself be a racist statement. But Obama’s own comment in response to the Morrison question suggests he identifies himself as an African-American.) Further, Republicans and others are aware that Mitt Romney is a Mormon and Mike Huckabee an evangelical Christian.
Democrats, hungry for victory in the general election, no doubt will consider whether Obama’s race or Hillary’s gender may affect either of their chances to win that election. Are those “unfair” factors to take into consideration? Is one automatically a racist or a misogynist for thinking about those factors? Should a Democrat considering how to vote or to whom to make a campaign donation disregard Obama’s race and Hillary’s gender and how either may affect a final election in making those decisions?
I think that a voter should not take a candidate’s race, gender or religion into account in evaluating how “good” a candidate is (evaluating “on the merits”) – what kind of leader he or she will make; what policies he or she will advocate; how capable he or she will be in inspiring Americans to work together and productively; how able he or she will be to confront America’s problems in light of his or her experience and track record. But I even have difficulty crafting this statement because the race, gender and/or religion of a candidate may be relevant in various ways.
I believe that a voter is entitled to take into consideration how those factors – race, gender, religion – may affect other voters and the outcome of elections (the electability of a candidate) in making his or her own decisions. Might that be a subtle distinction that a biased person could use to justify his or her own discriminatory animus? Yes. But it’s still a distinction that I believe is important. (While issues of race, gender and religion were not relevant, this distinction between first making one’s own voting choice “on the merits” but then taking into account how others may vote before finally deciding how to vote may be illustrated by reference to the 2000 election. I wish more Naderites had considered Nader’s electability more and the implications for the country of not voting for Gore in 2000.)
Further, I believe a voter is entitled to consider how a candidate’s race, gender or religion may affect the candidate’s ability to lead the country and the candidate’s own choices of policy and personnel. Were a female (or male) candidate to demonstrate a leaning toward women that a voter found unfair and inappropriate or were a candidate of a particular religious persuasion to demonstrate a leaning toward the role of religion in American public life that a voter found repellant and inappropriate, it might well be perfectly appropriate for that voter to vote against such a candidate (assuming the voter’s own perceptions were not mired in and skewed by discriminatory animus).
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when confronted with defining “obscenity” in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), wrote: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
For some it may be easy to clearly and analytically define what role race, gender and religion should or should not play in a national election or in politics in general. I am not in that group. I think it is difficult to define with specificity when race, gender and religion have a legitimate place in making voting decisions and when they do not. But, when talking about the inappropriate use of race, gender and/or religion in this election, I am comfortable borrowing from Potter Stewart to say I know it when I see it. I’ll let each of you judge whether you’ve already seen it. Suffice to say I am concerned.⌂
