Identity concepts and definitions

Gender & Race in the Presidential Campaign

Clinton & Obama - Gender and Race in a Presidential Campaign

The 2008 presidential campaign in the United States is unique in that never before have voters in the Democratic primaries been offered a choice between a woman candidate and an African-American male candidate. It can be safely stated that never before have race and gender played such a major role in American presidential politics. While the Republican candidates are all white males, the major Democratic candidates are males (African-American Barack Obama and Caucasian John Edwards) and female (former first lady and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton)

Back in January 2007, Washington Post reporter Dan Balz (Balz 2007) wrote, "For all the potential history-in-the-making of their candidacies, neither Clinton nor Obama enters the campaign primarily because of race or gender." In fact, Balz goes on in the article, Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, is not the first African-American candidate to enter the presidential primary field. Jesse Jackson ran in 1984, and was seen more as breaking a racial barrier than seriously contending for the presidency. And Obama's appeal, Balz writes, "...appears not fundamentally based on his race."

And Clinton, Balz continues, has ascended to near the top of the Democratic field "not principally because she is a woman" but rather because she is part of the Bill Clinton family, and because as first lady she was more of an activist than most first ladies are expected to be. That having been said, there is "no way" one can safely underestimate the "significance of race and gender in the coming campaign," the writer asserts.

Fast forward to October 2007; a New York Times article (Seelye 2007) reports on the African-American voters in South Carolina, site of the Democratic Primary in January 2008. Beauty shop owner Clara Vereen, an African-American, said that she would like a black man to be president some day; "I would love that, but I want to be real, too." By that she meant that a black president "would not be safe," Seelye writes. "I fear that they just would kill him." As for Clinton, Vereen said "We always love Hillary because we love her husband," but when it comes to a woman being president she added that as a Christian who accepts what is written in the Bible, she believes "...the Lord has put man first...a man is supposed to be the head."

Another hair stylist in South Carolina, Vanessa Gerald, 38, said she was "torn" because while Obama is "trying to help his people" Hillary "is too." No matter which of the two candidates wins, Gerald said, "this is history here...so let's see what history going to bring in." Maria Hewett, a black retiree in another hair salon visited by the journalist for the Times, said she would vote for Obama "...despite her fear that he could be a target" once elected.

As for Obama's style of politics, another New York Times article (Scott, 2007) reports that he is a member of "a new class of black politicians" - he's too young to have felt the sting of Jim Crowe laws and segregation, and he was educated in white institutions. "His style is more conciliatory than confrontational, more technocrat than preacher," Scott writes. And Obama tends to speak about race "indirectly, or implicitly," Scott explains. For example, after Hurricane Katrina Obama did not criticize the terrible response by FEMA and the Bush Administration based on the ethnicity of those most seriously impacted. "The incompetence was color-blind," he said, adding, "the real stumbling block was indifference to the problems of the poor," Scott continues.

In his speech announcing his official candidacy, Obama stated, "...Beneath all the difference of race and region, faith and station, we are one people." The Rev. Al Sharpton has said that Obama "doesn't want to look like he's only a black candidate." The Scott article notes that Obama's advisors are saying he is "entirely comfortable with his identity...proud to be an African-American but not limited by that." And moreover, Obama carries a "peculiar burden as a presidential candidate," Scott asserts, and that burden relates to whether or not he calibrates his words, "blacks as well as whites are likely to parse them for anything they might signal about racial issues." That said, it is also true that Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, a long way from black life in America, so he is not even a traditional black politician, let alone the fact that blacks don't make serious runs for the presidency very often.

As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, she has "subtly but unmistakably, pushed gender, engaging in a series of events intended to present her in softer ways," according to an article in the New York Times January 14, 2008 (Nagourney 2008). In fact, a number of prominent Democrats believe that Clinton defeated Obama in New Hampshire "after a decisive swing of women into her camp." That swing came about after a Saturday night debate prior to the New Hampshire vote in which John Edwards and Obama "joined forces in criticizing her"; possibly contributing to that sudden swing in women's votes - from Obama to Clinton - was the news video clip in which she appeared to nearly be in tears after a question about the rigors of the campaign.