Special 9/26 Debate Coverage

The first presidential debate always provides a new perspective on the prowess and legitimacy of each candidate. By pitting them against each other in front of an audience of millions of viewers, the candidates were forced to answer questions that they would otherwise avoid. Although it is not completely clear who came out on top, both John McCain and Barack Obama were reintroduced to the public in a whole new light.

In light of the current Wall Street crisis, economic issues dominated much of the debate. It provided a chance for both candidates to differentiate themselves on the subject, both of them attempting both to build themselves up and shoot down the other. Senator Obama, who has in recent weeks sought to make economics a prime focus of his campaign, pinned the breakdown on George W. Bush’s deregulatory policies while at the same time linking McCain to the unpopular incumbent president. This new focus on economics seems to represent what will become a broader scheme in the Obama campaign, a strategy which has provided him a boost in the polls during the current economic turbulence. It is likely that Obama will continue to cite his opponent’s previous statement that “The fundamentals of our economy are strong”, and cast him as economically incompetent and out of touch.

Another continuous theme in Obama’s debate rhetoric was an appeal to the middle class, especially in relation to taxes and the economy. Since Friday he has continued to slam McCain on this issue, releasing a new attack ad stating that “in 90 minutes of debate, John McCain mentioned the middle class zero times”. Judging from the success of negative ads thus far, it is possible that Obama will surge forward as a result, deepening his current lead in the polls.

When asked about how to deal with the economy, McCain emphasized accountability of individuals rather than deregulatory policies. He introduced this Idea with an historic anecdote from Dwight Eisenhower on the eve of D-day. By mentioning Eisenhower, McCain is trying to reinforce his role as the seasoned war hero and while casting his opponent as an amateur. This strategy is also manifests itself in the way he addressed Obama. McCain would often start with “what Senator Obama does not understand is….,” trying to make him seem inexperienced in the eyes of the public. In much the same manner, Obama would say that McCain “just doesn’t get it” in an attempt to cast him as the out of touch old-timer. The debate was largely characterized by this kind of subtleness as opposed to many of the primary debates that involved the candidates sniping back and forth.

Although some post-debate polls showed that Obama was perceived to have won the debate, Friday did not result in a clear winner as many had hoped. The race continues to be a close contest, with Obama still slightly ahead. However, we can be satisfied that the night provided the public with a much more definitive idea of the differences between the two candidates.



To watch the full debate go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-nNIEduEOw



For Further Reading:

CnnPolitics.com.2008 Obama slams McCain on middle clash Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/28/campaign.wrap/index.html, 9/29/08.

Bergen, Peter . 2008. Debate Skipped key Iran-Israel questions. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/28/bergen.debate/index.html, 9/29/08.

Can Jesse Jackson Teach Barack Obama Anything About Presidential Campaigning?

While Barack Obama is the first black person to ever head a major party’s presidential nomination ticket, he is definitely not the first black person to run for a major party’s nomination. Because of the earlier efforts of Shirley Chisholm (1972), Jesse Jackson (1984, 1988), Doug Wilder (1992), Al Sharpton (2004) and Carol Moseley-Braun (2004), Barack Obama can stand where he stands today.

Of the previous black presidential candidates mentioned above, Jesse Jackson was clearly the most successful. Today, Jackson is maligned as a race-baiting gadfly who threatened to cut off Obama’s scrotum, but it would be helpful for us to look back at his campaigns to draw contrasts and similarities between him and Barack Obama.

As early as 1972, blacks started running for president not necessarily to win but to draw attention to issues that were being ignored in public debate. Shirley Chisholm knew that she was a long shot candidate, but she hoped that her candidacy would bring greater attention to civil rights issues on behalf of women and blacks.

Similarly, Jesse Jackson hoped to use his candidacy to wrest concessions from the Democratic Party for blacks. Because blacks are a reliable Democratic voting bloc, they often feel overlooked in internal party politics and in campaign outreach. If Jesse Jackson could win an overwhelming majority of black votes in the Democratic primary, he would have influence to make demands of the Democratic Party on behalf of blacks.

Jackson’s performance in 1984 and 1988 demonstrate the effectiveness of such a strategy. In 1984, Jackson won a majority of black primary voters, but significant factions in the black community resisted his campaign. Older, less educated blacks were less likely to support him, and black elites such as Coretta Scott King and Andrew Young refused to endorse his candidacy. Moreover, Jackson had very little crossover appeal in 1984. Jackson ended up winning a little more than a tenth of the overall primary vote and even fewer pledged delegates. As such, he had very little leverage to make any credible demands on behalf of blacks.

Jackson retooled in 1988. Having learned from his mistakes, Jackson in his 1988 campaign became a much more mainstream candidate by appealing not only to African Americans but labor groups and poor whites. His strategy worked. In 1988, he won nearly 30% of the overall vote and 27% of the pledged delegates. With a larger share of the vote and the delegate pool, Jackson was able to be influential in party proceedings at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. The party adopted a strong anti-apartheid plank to the platform, and many attribute Jackson’s strong showing to the elevation of Ron Brown as the DNC’s first black chair.

The question for us is how this relates to Barack Obama. There is no indication that Obama ever adopted a leverage strategy. From the start of Obama’s campaign, he has made attempts to appear as a universal candidate and has positioned himself as a candidate serious about winning the nomination and presidency. Obama tries not to target specific voter bases; instead he uses general language to keep a majority of the American public intrigued. Even when Jackson attempted to use general language there was still a targeted aspect behind it; a clear example of which can be seen in his 1988 announcement speech. Describing problems with drugs, education, and most specifically the outsourcing of “our” jobs and economic violence, Jackson targeted issues that most suit the concerns of African Americans. Obama, understanding that this eliminates a major constituent base, has made efforts to appeal to the American public as a whole by making clear generalizations about what we as a nation can do to make changes.

Still, it appears that both Obama and Jackson have been impaired a little by racialized generalities about leadership. Work by Charlton McIlwain of NYU shows that part of the reason that white voters did not support Jackson in 1988 was that they did not perceive him to be a serious leader. Obama clearly has more support in Jackson, but there are some factions that clearly have trouble seeing Obama as a leader, particularly in the South. In an August poll by Winthrop University/ETV, John McCain enjoyed a more than 20 point advantage over Barack Obama when southern voters were asked to assess whether the candidates were strong leaders. While Obama’s lead in the polls has grown in the last week because of the economic crisis, he will still have to shore up his leadership credentials if he hopes to win.

For Further Reading:

Charlton McIlwain. 2007. “Perceptions of Leadership and the Problem of Obama’s Blackness.” Journal of Black Studies. 38(1): 64-74.

Katherine Tate. 1995. From Protest to Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press/Russell Sage Foundation.

Ronald Walters. 2005. Freedom Is Not Enough. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

How Will Minorities Vote In This Election?

On the surface it seems that answering this question would be the main reason to study race and politics. Why else would studying minority voting matter? Studying the voting patterns of any group is useful mostly for answering the question why different groups of people vote a certain way? Throughout our history, minority voters have been affected by the same issues that have affected the majority, but there have been other issues that didn’t directly affect the majority, White Americans, in the same way. Civil Rights, segregation, racism, job discrimination, to name a few. So why are these things important today? Because they affect where we are and where we’re going. How do today’s prejudices affect voting? These are difficult complex questions.

African Americans today overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party, but this has not always been the case. From the 1860’s until the Great Depression the Republican Party enjoyed very consistent African American support because Republican Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. There was a major shift of African American support from the Republicans to the Democrats resulting from Roosevelt’s New-Deal Coalition. From the 1930's to the 1960's, the Democratic and Republican Parties competed on a roughly equal level (if we compare their civil rights platforms) for black votes, and Republicans could earn a substantial minority of the black vote. This changed in 1964, when presidential candidate Barry Goldwater refused to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At that point, blacks began to perceive that the Democrats had the more progressive civil rights platform. Since then, blacks have overwhelmingly voted for Democratic candidates.

In the upcoming 2008 election, there seems little to suggest that blacks will change their voting behavior. We have a strong Democratic candidate who also happens to be Black, and Democrats retain their substantive advantage on civil rights issues. However, Asians and Hispanics voting is a little harder to predict.

For starters, the terms “Latino” and “Asian American” encompass many different ethnic groups, whose political outlooks can vary. For instance, Cuban Americans are more likely to identify and vote as Republicans, while Mexican, Puerto Rican and Central Americans are more likely to identify and vote as Democrats.

Recently, the Republican Party has done particularly well among Latino voters. After engaging in targeted outreach efforts to Latinos in 2000 and 2004, Bush saw his share of the of the Latino vote increase 9 percentage points between 2004 than 2000. However, given the Republican Party’s more recent anti-immigrant stances, it is unlikely that Republicans are going to replicate that level of success among Latinos in this election.

For Asian Americans, there has been an overall trend towards the Democratic Party. While many Asian Americans do not profess to have a partisan preference, those who do express a partisan preference are more likely to identify with the Democratic. Asian immigrants from totalitarian regimes are more likely to identify with the Republican Party, though. However, both parties have done a lackluster job in reaching out to members of the Asian American community. This means that both parties may potentially overlook key votes that could change the course of the election in moderately competitive states such as Washington State.


For further reading:

Edward Carmines and James Stimson. 1989. Issue Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rodolfo de la Garza and Louis DeSipio (Eds.). 2005. Muted Voices: Latinos and the 2000 Elections. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

Pie-te Lien, Margaret Conway and Janelle Wong. 2004. The Politics of Asian Americans. New York: Routledge.

Tasha Philpot. 2007. Race, Republicans and the Return of the Party of Lincoln. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

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.