Race's role in Barack Obama's election

Obama and Election

History was made in November 2008, not just American history, but world history as the United States elected its first African-American President. but, the election of a Black man as President, as unheard of as it might have been just 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago, was history because it was a national catharsis -- a repudiation of the greed, avarice, and selfishness that had so characterized American society for the past eight years. Obama's election was a referendum on a new America -- a younger America with an optimistic, but not Pollyannaish, view of the grave and serious problems faced; but a dramatic change from past politicians in that Obama stands for a more open government, dialog with international persons who might disagree with our policies, a standard of excellence and of honesty that he himself has embedded, and the genuine desire to change the way government is, to how government "can be" (Glasrud and Wintz, eds., 2009). Some have postulated that there was a racial aspect to the Obama election. In its most basic form, of course race was a factor -- he is African-American. But rather than seeing that as the reason for election, it is really less that Obama was African-American, and more that Obama spoke to the electorate in new ways and coveted younger, more vital voters through the use of technology and social networking systems (Franklin, 2009).

However, it was not the Black vote that put Obama in office -- only 13% of the electorate were of African-American descent; nor was it just the liberal Democrats, rather it was a number of Americans who said, upon exiting the polls that they had "had enough" of the way the Bush administration lied to them, and wanted someone who, if we paraphrase John Locke three centuries prior, existed to grant "a social contract to the people of America in a manner in which they are able to pursue their own inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and self-actualization. Additionally, this campaign, like no other before it, utilized social networking groups and software to put the candidate in touch with the constituents. For the first time in history, the candidate was more than a voice on television -- he was accessible, he commented regularly, and he was "just like the rest of us" (Ifill, 2009).

Literature & Historical Review - for the academic, this election represents some very interesting cultural and political trends within the body politic of the United States. Within American society, the sociological struggle for Civil Rights for not just Black Americans, but all Americans, has been part and parcel of the national trend since the end of the Civil War (Franklin, 2005, 118-21). The story of Civil Rights is really the early history of the Obama campaign, and the problems and concerns of society that were part of his campaign were part of this struggle. Indeed, the campaign of Obama cannot be understood without understanding the Civil Rights movement as a whole. The five decades comprising the 1950s to the millennium were, in United States History, both tumultuous and exciting. There were so many changes in the social, political, and technological areas; the World War II Era now seems quite primitive. Since 1950 we have had a major cultural revolution, at least four major military conflicts (depending on who defines), rapid technological growth, new and virulent diseases, a President who resigned rather than face impeachment and jail, the fall of the Soviet Union, telecommunications and transportation improvements that are vast, and several economic challenges (Gross, 2008).

The 1950s were an Era of dramatic change. America had been on the winning side of the war, and the resultant economic boom and political situation pushed the United States into the limelight. America was "rich," and expected to help other countries, but was going through its own crises at home and growing pains socially and economically. Several large trends occurred during the 1950s, the Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R. developed, Africa began to be decolonialized throwing the economic and political situation out of balance, the Korean War brought the United States into another global conflict, tensions heated up in Egypt (the Suez Canal Crisis) and Cuba (Castro and the Cuban Revolution), and America went through a turbulent time with Anti-Communist feelings and Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations and focus on "reds in the State Department" (Halberstam, 1994, intro.)

The Civil Rights Movement, far from beginning in the 1950s, did have some rather impressive gains. The gains occurred not because of one person or one group, but of a movement that seemed to coalesce and solidify even through adversity. Perhaps it was the right time -- Blacks had served in World War II, exposing some White Americans to race issues for the first time; the country was focused on anti-communism, so race may have taken a second seat. It is also important to remember that it was not just brave African-Americans who led the fight for justice, but college students and religious leaders of many races. In fact, these activities often employed legal challenges, civil protests, and other initiatives to bring the issue of race into the living rooms of middle-class Americans. Not all African-Americans agreed with the manner in which the struggle should be put in place: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a primary advocate of peaceful change -- reasonable dialog, and taking the arguments of Thoreau and Gandhi to heart. King believed if enough people openly disobeyed, albeit peacefully, unjust laws and actions, those laws would fail. (Vanoue, 2002, 14-18). In contrast, though, as millions of African-Americans migrated from the rural South to the North and West seeking new jobs, they demanded higher pay and a more egalitarian system. This, combined with more mechanization of agriculture in the South, moved the African-American into a wider dispersion in the country. It is also interesting to note that most Americans, politicians especially, supported the decolonization of the African nations and equal government and rights for those populations -- but then, in their own backyard, had differing views. Legal challenges abounded, the most famous was the 1954 decision "Brown vs. Board of Education," in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. By denying anyone the right to an education, the Court said, many institutions in the South were denying basic Constitutional rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

However, while the ruling was a major victory, when, in 1957 the little Rock Arkansas School District was ordered to desegregate, its Governor Fabus refused, arguing that the States had the right to administer their schools. In the Fall of 1957, Fabus called out the National Guard to prevent African-Americans from entering Little Rock High School -- and, media coverage in its infancy, Americans were still shocked to see White mobs attacking Black children.

With the world's eyes watching America, and President Eisenhower desperate to regain control over the States, Federal Troops were called in to protect African-Americans, and Governor Fabus closed the schools in 1958 and 1959. Still, the Movement accentuated the idea of peaceful coexistence and the establishment of legal authority for members of all races. What possibly made the Civil Right's Movement of the 1950s so important is not necessarily what battles were won, but what preparations were made as the decade drew to a close. (Jackson, 2006, inclusive).

These basic issues of "Brown v Board," Martin Luther King, and the way the American population viewed minorities are what made the Obama victory so historic. For so many African-Americans in politics or who have led the way -- without the struggles and the legacy of the 1950s, the story would not have unfolded this way. We use this guide of the past as an outline of the struggle -- and of what happens when individual character changes the fabric of society to prepare it for something new. For society, Obama "had the right temperament; her ran not 'as the black candidate, but as a candidate for President who happened to be black" he showed that white votes "were willing to embrace a black man who did not make them feel guilty about race" (Ifill, 2009).

And, for society as a whole, Obama is admittedly intelligent and yet knows that Americans are as well -- he believes:

… the country recognizes that the challenges we face aren't amenable to sound-bite solutions. People are looking for serious solutions to complex problems. I don't think we need more moderation per se -- I think we should be bolder in promoting universal health care, or dealing with global warming. We just need to understand that actually solving these problems won't be easy, and that whatever solutions we come up with will require consensus among groups with divergent interests. That means everybody has to listen, and everybody has to give a little. That's not easy to do (Obama, 2008).

Sociologically, Barack Obama's run for president touched something profound in America, awakening a civic engagement, pride, and passion that many had perhaps given up on. In the course of his campaign, Obama inspired millions of Americans - young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, and from every racial and ethnic background. When Obama walked into the room. . The crowd was transfixed (Tufankjuan, 2008). The goal, of course, is that in politics, as well as society, race plays no part in the decision process. Thanks to previous Civil Rights advocates, and people like Jesse Jackson, Obama was not the first minority to attempt a high political seat. This is even more important when one realizes the election was not won on race, but on a combination of issues appropriate focus on sections of the electorate in which his message resonated (Metzler, 2008).

Political Advertising and Propaganda: Political advertising and social rhetoric are certainly not new to the arena of campaigns. Politicians in Ancient Greece and Rome used pamphlets, orations, and their own brand of social networks to decry their opponents. In fact, the 20th century is far more civil in terms of rhetoric that many presidential elections of the past.

However, the goal of political advertising is, of course, to persuade, and in the modern era how to quickly get the salient information to the public in the least amount of time. Typically, a high level of media, particularly television, exposure leads to a high level of advertising exposure, which in turn leads to a high effect toward candidate veracity (Franz, 2007). Thus, there are four main aims of political advertising: 1) to influence issues, giving information, simplifying data, etc.; 2) showing the candidates at work with the public, bringing the personality of the candidate into the living room; 3) building image and accessibility; 4) information about the differences between candidate and opponent (Roberts, 1997).

Primaries and Campaign Struggles - From the start, Senator John McCain was the proposed Republican Candidate for 2008, but it was not so clear for the Democrats. At the start of the year, support for Barack Obama began rising in the polls, passing Clinton for first place in Iowa; Obama ended up winning the Iowa caucus, with John Edwards coming in second and Clinton in third. Obama became the new front-runner in New Hampshire when his poll numbers skyrocketed after his victory in Iowa had her trailing Obama for a few days up to the primary date, after his poll numbers skyrocketed at the end of December 2007. Obama carried Super Tuesday, but Clinton won Ohio and Rhode Island, as well as the primary in Texas. In April, Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary. Yet by June, after a 17-month long campaign against Clinton, Obama held a wide lead in the number of states, while Clinton had majorities in the larger states. Because Democratic state delegate contests are decided by a form of proportional representation and popular vote number were so close, the contest continued into June. However, with the help of multiple super delegate endorsements, Obama became the first African-American to win the nomination of a major political party (Price, 2008).

Race and the Obama Campaign -- Some naturally ask the question of whether race played a role in Obama's election. This has also been coupled with the idea that it was social networking that had a more prominent effect than any previous election. Furthermore, the uniqueness and significance of the Obama election changed forever the construct of communication structures with the electorate. There have been many charismatic political candidates, but until this election, none were versed enough, or perhaps comfortable, to utilize the burgeoning number of social networks to reach out to constituents of all ages, to personally communicate with them via the technology of the internet, and to utilize these methods to change the manner in which he was able to confront his detractors, answer questions, and respond to events in an almost real-time manner (Fergus, 2009).

Management of diversity and diverse groups is also an important part of group dynamics, and remains an important part of the Obama administration. Clearly, since 1950 the population in the United States has grown more and more diverse. In 2005, for instance, the Census Bureau estimated that people of color will make up over 30% of the population, and that ethnically diverse groups over 45%. In some geographic areas of the country this percentage will be even higher, thus it makes sense for organizations to understand and actively address the needs of a culturally diverse workplace. The concept of managing diversity through social networks was also central to the Obama campaign; his was a campaign based on diversity; his was a viewpoint based on diversity. While he sees himself as a Black American, he does not define his nature as that of one vulture vs. another -- and it was this key concept of defining and utilizing the power of diversity within social networking that was critical to success in many areas of the country (Barnes, 2009).

The 2008 presidential candidates regularly used social networks to communicate directly with the networks, and the Obama campaign went further by having custom, online social networking tools built directly into their campaign websites (TechPresident.com). It is easy to see that the use of this new technology might be explained in a number of different ways: imitation, genuine social interest, part of the media flux, or a unique understanding of the way that younger minds look to these sites for validation. Whatever the reason, the 2008 campaigns perceived SNSs as a direct, unfiltered access point to the electorate. Unlike traditional news media in which "gatekeeping" filters out most candidates' access and notoriously negative news packages outnumber politicians' positive aspects (Johnson, D., 2009), SNSs enabled candidates to directly approach their electorate, especially young voters, admittedly a marginalized but substantively important group that would critically affect the outcome of the campaign (Kaye, 2009).

The success of the Obama campaign in utilizing SNSs may also be the result, not only of his message and personality, but because Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook, left the company in 2007 to specifically work on the Obama New Media Campaign. (Stelter, 2008). "Technology has always been used as a net to capture people in a campaign or cause, but not to organize," says Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. "Chris saw what was possible before anyone else." Hughes built something the candidate said he wanted but didn't yet know was possible: a virtual mechanism for scaling and supporting community action. Then that community turned around and elected his boss president. "I still can't quite wrap my mind around it," Hughes says. (McGirt, 2009).

Obama's campaign echoed, for many, the campaign of John F. Kennedy -- his youth, vivacity, and spirit for change politically, and his use of a new medium in a new way that will forever change political campaigns. For Kennedy, it was television; for Obama, the Internet. "Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee" (Arianna Huffington in Schiffman, 2009). Each time the racial card came up in the campaign, Obama's staff downplayed it -- each time he was asked, Obama remarked to the effect -- this isn't about race, it's about change" (Lum, 2009).

In the past, for a candidate to do what Obama did would have required an army of volunteers and paid organizers, not to mention months and months of preparation and action. Instead, Obama used the Internet to organize his supporters efficiently, effectively, and in a way that made each feel special. "The tools changed between 2004 and 2008. Barack Obama won every single caucus state that matters, and he did it because of those tools, because he was able to move thousands of people to organize." Additionally, Obama was fiscally smart, he took advantage of YouTube for free advertising, and they were likely more effective because viewers chose to watch them instead of being forced during a commercial break, "The campaign's office stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours. To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million" (Howard Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi in Miller, 2008).

Obama's faith in the Internet, and constant exposure, helped him win more votes in the face of adversity. He was able to allow people to listen repeatedly to his own words, over-and-over, for example his speech on race which, by election time, had been viewed almost 7 million times.

It was this change, and Obama's willingness to take a chance and allow himself to be so visible (interactive website, own YouTube Station, etc.), for all to see, that also changed the way tactics will be written for future elections (Johnson, 2009).