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March 20, 2008

Race Gets in the Race

By Steven Stark

For much of this election cycle, the assumption has been that foreign policy, specifically Iraq, would be the dominant issue on the campaign trail. Then, for a while, immigration had voters fixated, and in recent weeks, the economy has taken center stage.

But if Barack Obama ends up the Democratic nominee, the issue on which the election may well turn is one that few initially expected to arise: affirmative action, which, of course, means race.

Affirmative action continues to be among the most divisive issues in America -- no wonder, since our country's tragic racial history is complex and the issues surrounding its legacy are far from simple. As Slate blogger Mickey Kaus recently noted, affirmative action was the issue that handed the closely contested 1990 North Carolina Senate race to Jesse Helms. Helms ran an ad against Harvey Gantt, his black opponent, which featured a close-up shot of two hands holding a letter and then crumpling it as a narrator said, "You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority."

Ever since, in nearly every instance voters have been given the chance to eliminate affirmative action, they've taken the opportunity -- in referenda in states from California to Michigan. So we should have expected that, when a black candidate started winning presidential contests, the issue would rear its head.

In many respects, it's unfair to Obama's candidacy that this is even an issue. As the candidate himself has said, "If you were going to get a handbook on what's the path to the presidency, I don't think that the handbook would start by saying, 'Be an African-American named Barack Obama.' " And one doesn't get to be the president of the Harvard Law Review, much less a senator, by virtue of special favors.

But because Obama is black, the issue is out there. It doesn't help that it's being raised by mainstream pols, like former vice-presidential nominee and Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro, who said, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," the position being ahead in the race.

It's also sport for discussion because of Obama's consistently weak showings among white, working-class voters. To at least a sizable number of these voters, fair or not, Obama appears to be a candidate who's getting special treatment because of his race. According to polls, affirmative action is particularly unpopular in the Latino community, which is one reason why Obama may be faring so poorly with that constituency. And it's not going to help electoral matters, as far as he's concerned, that a conservative group hopes to put the issue of banning affirmative action on the ballot in November in at least five more states, including the swing states of Colorado and Missouri.

Path of least resistance

Part of the problem here is due to Obama's meteoric rise. The Illinois senator simply doesn't have the experience in the trenches of someone who working-class voters would likely think of as a commander in chief. If Obama had spent, say, a decade in the Senate, the hunch here is that most of these suspicions wouldn't arise. Similarly, if he'd taken a route more familiar to these voters -- say he'd been a star college athlete, worked his way out of the projects, or served in the military -- he'd better fit the image of what they see as the path to upward mobility.

To Obama's supporters, his quick ascendancy by a brand-new path is due to his once-in-a-generation talent and a fresh definition of what constitutes upward mobility in post-civil-rights America. In contrast, his detractors appear to feel that, because of his race, Obama has simply been handed too much too fast -- acceptances to good colleges and grad schools, a national prime-time keynote address, and now a shot at his party's nomination after less than four years on the national scene.

Put another way, to many Americans, rightly or wrongly, Obama appears never to have paid his dues. He's so talented and has made it look so easy that the only way they can understand his narrative -- and that of his wife, Michelle -- is through the prism of racial affirmative action.

What complicates matters is that even Obama would admit that race is part of his appeal. Just as John F. Kennedy attracted the largest percentage of Catholics ever to vote for a Democrat, Obama has emerged as a forceful magnet for African-American voters.

And being part of an historic movement that could well elect the first black president gives many voters (both black and white) an enormous sense of community. When Obama proclaims, "Yes we can," what he's implicitly saying is, if this nation can take the historic step of electing a black president, anything is possible (including putting aside partisanship, setting up national health insurance, etc.).

The media, too, have been caught up by these emotions. Yes, the press has fallen for many a charismatic candidate before, from Teddy Roosevelt to JFK and beyond. But when Obama receives similar adulatory treatment, the suspicion among some traditional Democrats is that it's due to race.

Fortunately for Obama, he has time to deal with these impressions. What he needs to do, really, is use his rhetorical skills to construct a new narrative for himself, one that quietly places his story and ideals in a setting and motif that better resonates with working-class whites. His stump speech is brilliant in its appeal to some Independents and the young, and he did well Tuesday dealing with the issue of race in Philadelphia. But it's only a start, and his large crowds and pulpit style reminiscent of protest rallies may now be alienating many voters that he has to reach to win.

The truth is, to get where he is today, Obama -- in Winston Churchill's words -- has had to expend a lot of blood, toil, tears, and sweat. But unless voters can picture that very traditional American struggle for themselves, he will have a terrible time trying to get elected.

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