What Can History Teach Us About The 2008 Presidential Race?

This may be the first race where an African American candidate is running for president, but this is not the first election where race will play a significant role in the outcome of the election. Race has been in the forefront or subtext of most modern elections. Candidates have either had to address racial issues explicitly, or candidates made direct racial appeals to mobilize desired voters.

There are numerous examples of the centrality of race to presidential campaigns. In the nail-biter election of 1876, Samuel Tilden conceded the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South. This move effectively ended Reconstruction and paved the way for Jim Crow segregation to flourish in the South for three generations.

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Coalition transformed Democratic Party politics. His coalition attracted northern blacks, union members, white ethnics and Southern whites. This was an odd coalition, and Roosevelt struggled throughout his presidency to keep all his constituents happy. To appease Southern whites in Congress and at the ballot box, Roosevelt deliberately refused to be a strong advocate for civil rights, notably anti-lynching laws.

In 1948, Harry Truman did push the envelope on civil rights. He, along with Senator Hubert Humphrey, succeeded in strengthening the Democratic Party's civil rights platform. Southern Democrats, led by Gov. Strom Thurmond, left the Democratic National Convention. Thurmond launched his own bid for the presidency that year as a Dixiecrat and won four Deep South States.

Southerners are not the only Americans who can be accused on inserting race into presidential elections. Candidates from other parts of the country are just as culpable. In 1960, Californian Richard Nixon ran against Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. Nixon actually had the stronger record on civil rights than Kennedy. Nixon was a card carrying member of the NAACP who sent his kids to integrated schools. Kennedy, on the other hand, strategically voted against key provisions of the 1957 Civil Rights Act before voting for the act. Kennedy deftly positioned himself as a moderate on racial issues to appeal to Southern Democrats. In a stroke of good timing, Kennedy reached out to Coretta Scott King when Martin Luther King was sentenced to hard labor for a traffic violation. His brother also helped to get King released. Nixon, whose running mate raised eyebrows when he promised a black Cabinet member, chose not to reach out to the King family, lest he be perceived as being too pro-black.

By 1968, Nixon had completely reinvented himself. By then public opinion data revealed that a "silent majority" that was uncomfortable with the fast pace of societal change. This discomfort buoyed George Wallace's third party candidacy. Nixon knew that strategically, he needed to appeal to voters who were attracted to Wallace. So, he and the Republican Party, in this election and in 1972, adopted the "Southern Strategy." This strategy called for using racially neutral language and issues (such as "law and order" and "anti-busing") to signal to disaffected whites that he would slow the fast pace of societal change. Ronald Reagan expanded upon this strategy during his three presidential campaigns by invoking the "welfare queen." These words are codes that allow you to talk about race without actually talking about race.

Lee Atwater perfected the subtle use of race in George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign. He was the mastermind behind the infamous "Willie Horton" ad, which showed a menacing picture of convicted criminal who robbed and raped a couple while out on prison furlough during Dukakis' gubernatorial administration. The point of the message was unstated but unbelievably clear: if Michael Dukakis is elected president, black men will be let out of jail to rape, rob and pillage.

Race-baiting continues into the contemporary period. In 1992, Bill Clinton, in an attempt to exorcise the demons of Willie Horton, made a public display of executing a black cop killer to prove that he was tough on crime. Then he publicly embarrassed Jesse Jackson by excoriating rapper Sister Souljah for her own racially incendiary comments at a Rainbow PUSH event to which he was invited. Sister Souljah's comments are indefensible and worthy of challenge, but Clinton's display was arguably directed toward Reagan Democrats who wanted assurances that he would and could check the civil rights lobby.

In 2000, George W. Bush was on the giving and receiving end of racially specific campaign tactics. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, push polling done on Gov. Bush's behalf spread rumors that rival John McCain had fathered an out-of-wedlock child with a black woman (McCain has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh). McCain lost the South Carolina primary badly and had to drop out of the race immediately after that primary. The NAACP National Voter Fund then made an issue of Bush's refusal to sign hate crime legislation in the wake of the James Byrd lynching. The NAACP-NVF created direct mail ads and leaflets featuring Byrd's daughter, distributing them in black communities.

Given the longstanding history of race-baiting in presidential elections, should we expect anything different this year. Will people be on their p's and q's in this elections because they do not want to appear to be racist? We are doubtful. Think of the racial and gener incidents that have already happened this year: Joe Biden's "articulate and clean" gaffe; the "iron my shirt" hecklers who harrassed Hillary Clinton; Jeremiah Wright. While we all can hope for a civil general election campaign, we wouldn't hold our breaths for that one to happen.

For further reading:

Mayer, Jeremy. 2002. Running on Race. New York: Random House.