[T]he country hungers for a black president. Not all the country, but enough that, on balance, race would be an asset.
So writes Charles Krauthammer, ensconced as he is in the Imperial City. Is this really true? Racial attitudes are certainly less hostile than they were, say, in the 1970s. In numerous races, ranging from J.C. Watts’ in Oklahoma to Ray Nagin’s in New Orleans, whites vote for blacks, and blacks vote for whites . But are there really all that many voters out there, particularly white voters, that are “hungering” for a black president? I don’t think so.
For starters, while I don’t think significant numbers of Americans are racist per se, most do have negative prejudices against black politicians based on the specific behavior and tendencies of such people. Most black politicians in this country have been singularly unimpressive and demagogic. Think Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
Even those that aim to be broad-minded and to govern well–and this would include Ray Nagin, for instance–have shown themselves to be easily cowed by black interests within the Democratic Party, even when the right course would be stand up for the common good. Furthermore, most of America’s black-run cities are either hell holes–like Detroit or Gary, Indiana–or they are severely misgoverned, as in New York under the Dinkins administration.
Obama, of course, is cut from a different cloth. While he has been a successful politician, he is also a great orator and highly educated, who speaks in a very American idiom of optimism and inclusiveness. He thus has very personal experiences with multiple constituencies. His background is both multicultural and multiracial; he is half-white and his black father was from Africa. Another asset is the content of his rhetoric. He speaks the language of hope, optimism, and American patriotism–all very useful for a national campaign–though his shtick is distressingly short on specifics and all-too-vague on our current foreign policy challenges. His slickness and inexperience may not fly in this dangerous era.
That all said, this country is not made up of media elites and coastal journalists and lawyers. Proposition 187 and other anti-affirmative-action measures have passed with flying colors. Americans want immigration reform and a no-nonsense approach to the war on terror. The electorate includes mechanics, prison guards, soldiers, secretaries, truck drivers, and others who, while very much in favor of American meritocracy, are skeptical of black politicians. They are skeptical because these folks seem as a class to look out for group interests, including the group-interest of affirmative action and government set-aside contracts. David Dinkins, a decent man and a natural centrist, was frequently boxed in by his view that he could not “sell out” his black supporters by taking sides in controversial incidents like the boycott of a Korean grocery store, engineered by Sharpton. I think black Democrats today are justly viewed in much the same way as Catholic Democrats were 50 to 100 years ago: alienated, somewhat corrupt, politically immature, and frequently hostile to traditional American values such as individualism and free enterprise.
Even liberal-minded Americans equate black politicians with ethnic pay-offs and the pursuit of parochial group interests. For Obama, far from being an asset, his status as a black Democrat is a liability that he will have to overcome, just as JFK had to overcome the burden of his Catholicism. It would be one thing if Obama were a true moderate, who is more appealing the more well known his views are, but he’s not. He’s extremely liberal: pro-abortion, pro gay-marriage, championing gun control as a wedge issue when he was in the Illinois Senate. He has never taken a major public stand against liberalism during his public life; he’s never had his Sister Souljah moment.
The first black president likely will be a black Republican who gets to appeal to Republicans who are weary of being called racists and, to a limited extent, will appeal to black group pride in seeing one of their own propelled to such a high office. In an Obama campaign, Obama’s apeal would have to overcome private views on race that are excluded from the media–including a specific prejudice not against blacks but against liberal black politicians. These views fly underneath the radar of the media and will lead to disappointing results that they cannot easily make sense of, other than by resurrecting the familiar charge of across-the-board anti-black racism. Such a diagnosis would be wrong and insulting to the American people, who may harbor a stereotype against black politicians, but this heuristic is no less reasonable than black captivity to the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Obama’s loss and the diagnosis as stemming from anti-black prejudice would lead to greater alienation of liberals from the American mainstream.
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Krauthammer’s been inside the beltway bubble for too long, and the innumerable setbacks in Iraq have addled his mind.
Colin Powell is the most viable black presidential candidate in America. A black Ronald Reagan (don’t laugh, in politics anything is possible) might just get elected. Obama won’t. He offers limited appeal to those Americans who have grown weary of the racial stalemate in America, where blacks and whites occasionally become friends, and usually tolerate each other, but sometimes don’t. That’s the reality of black-white relations in America. But Obama’s not going to change that; his appeal is largely symbolic, meaningful only to a small and dispirited audience of black and white liberals, and that’s not enough to get elected.
The 60s era visions of racial harmony and black-hand-in-white-hand progress now seem antiquated and unrealistic. Most Americans realize that the black civil rights movement has just sort of petered out into a cash-for-calm scheme, and there’s probably not that much that can be done to revive this flagging cause. Today, hispanic immigration is probably the more potent racial issue anyway.
I think journalists in Washington, even bright journalists like Krauthammer, lose sight of the fact that most American voters have a low opinion of politicans in general, consider both parties to be more or less corrupt, and think about explicitly political issues maybe three to five minutes a day. If they listen to talk radio. These people don’t expect healing, or reconcilliation, or redemption from their politicans. A little representation would be enough.
I wonder if this is kind of like the Oprah phenemenon: voting for a viable black candidate is a way for white people to have a tromp l’oeil virtual black friend. I think such factors actually do play into how people, especially apolitical people, vote. People are identity voters, but part of the identity they’re expressing is who they wish they were–in this case, an expression that they are a person who is comfortable with blacks.
That said, the ghose of Sharpton and company looms large. I think Krauthammer and others who are bullish on Obama don’t appreciate fully how people’s sense of politics is distinct from, say, their taste in music, television, or other less threatening areas of the culture.
I agree with your statement on the Sharpton’s and Jacksons. Oddly enough, politically, when a black politician opens his mouth (or hers) I tend to shut my brain off. It took a few years of living in Oklahoma to even start to pay attention to what J.C. was talking about.
But to be honest…that dude was popular because he was a Sooner. We will not be able to have a solid black candidate until one earns the respect of this entire country on their own. J.C. got the white vote bacause life in Oklahoma begins and ends with OU football. Gen. Powell gets his political nod (and could have made a serious run at the whitehouse) because of his time in Green.
Until a black politician comes up, honest, representing the people regardless of color, and does so on his or her own (void of any organization like football or the military) we will not really have an idea of how the American people will react, or what we are “Hungry” for…
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Most white Americans believe that a black candidate can be packaged attractively and avoid racially divisive positions ââ¬â but once he or she is elected, they’ll get another standardized liberal who’s for more government intervention, reverse discrimination, open borders, etc.
I’d have no hesitation voting for a black candidate who took specific, explicit conservative positions on such issues. But vagueness and avoidance of racial issues would leave me mighty suspicious. The first black president will be one who isn’t afraid to publicly oppose the racial grievance industry and so-called black “rights” leaders.