Race and Politics in 2008

Race and Politics in 2008 Presidential Election Campaign

Race and the 2008 Election

The 2008 Presidential election marked a profound change for both major American political parties and the American electorate as a whole in terms of the way that race is conceptualized in American politics. For the Democratic Party, the party during the primaries revealed brought to light the extent of the fissure between conservative, white, working-class Democrats, and more urbanized racial minorities, as well as more liberal, younger individuals living in cities in general. For the Republican Party, the election of Barak Obama to the presidency marked the death-knell of its long-standing 'Southern Strategy,' which had existed since the South had stood in opposition to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, "melding economic conservatives with state's rights advocates" (Aistrup 19996, p.5.) 'States rights,' of course, was often a code word for a pro-segregation stance. The Republican Party "captured the allegiance of the whites most uneasy about the civil rights movement and its legacy (Harwood 2008, p.1). However, Obama's success in Southern states now shattered this conventional wisdom, and brought to light the newly empowered young and black electorate in the South, as well as drew Latinos in the Southwest and West to the Democratic fold.

At first, during the primary, as the race narrowed to a horse-race between Democratic senators Obama and Clinton, it was feared that Obama would be unable to command the support of working-class, rural white Democrats. At the time, one commentator in the New York Times wrote in an editorial: "Obama has attracted the same sort of affluent voters who backed Gary Hart in 1984, while Clinton "dominated the blue-collar whites" (Harwood 2008, p.1). This proved less problematic, however, as the economy worsened. Furthermore, Obama's youthfulness, not simply his chronological age, but his embrace of youth culture, became yet another reason for his success, in addition to the seismic shocks that shook the credit market. Obama's appeal to a new generation of voters revealed that the America of tomorrow may be less race-obsessed than the previous generation in a way that transcends previous identity politics. "Only a Fugees-loving, pick-up-basketball-playing, biracial president-elect would send supporters an e-mail message on election night that said: 'I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.' He signed it simply 'Barack'...He and his biggest fans, the generation of young adults who voted for him in record numbers, together had slogged through twenty-one months of campaigning" (Cave 2008). This informality of tone and comfort with technology (as opposed to John McCain who according to most reports barely uses a computer) was seen to overcome anxieties about Obama's perceived 'difference' from so-called mainstream Americans.

Obama projects an image of himself as a man who is comfortable about his race, who can quip that 'brothers should pull their pants up,' on national television, and jokingly refer to himself as a 'mutt' when discussing prospective puppies for the new position of First Dog. Obama subtitled his autobiography, written long before he aspired to the presidency Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Obama writes of his struggles to reconcile his multiracial identity, of being perceived as not being 'black' enough by African-Americans, but still being read as black by whites, although he was raised by a white mother and grandmother. Early on, he said, he grasped while living in New York City "with mathematical precision with which America's race and class problems joined," how white, lower-class frustrations were vented upon blacks, even with the idyllic memories of growing up in more pluralistic and racially tolerant Hawaii as a child (Obama 121). Obama famously referred to his white grandmother during the campaign who tragically passed away the night before he was elected, as a woman of tolerance, yet who still was subject to the prejudices of society enough to feel uncomfortable when she saw an African-American walking across the street. Although this remark was criticized, Obama's point was that in America, race was inescapable, and prejudice must be dealt with through voicing concerns, rather than pretending racial divides did not exist. At times, America's unspoken discourse about race seemed to harm Obama, as in his difficulty wresting the nomination from Clinton in states like Pennsylvania, states with large, older, white working-class populations. But the desire for change and the ability to cross barriers and humanize himself seemed to counteract this: The Obama generation "has been knocked for putting all of their personal stuff on full display...But there is an upside, too, which is a willingness to communicate with large numbers of people in your network about what's important" (Cave 2008). Even McCain was forced to condemn a woman who insisted that Obama must be a Muslim at a Republican rally, in deference to how unpopular it had become for a Republican to play the 'race card.'