From the ArcaMax Publishing, Michael Barone Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/michaelbarone/s-373086-163332
"They're going to try to make you afraid of me," Barack Obama told the
audience at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month. "He's young and
inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's
black?" Obama was doing here by inference what many of his supporters
do more explicitly. Obama's candidacy, in their view, puts American
voters to the test: Are they open-minded enough to vote for a black
candidate? Or are they still so overcome by racial prejudice as to
reject the first black candidate with a serious chance to win?
There are obviously problems with this. In a nation of 303 million,
there are surely some people who won't vote for Obama because he's
black. But there are a lot more Americans who aren't willing to vote
for him for other reasons that have nothing to do with race -- because
he's a Democrat, because he's taken liberal positions on many issues,
because (to quote his own words) he's young and inexperienced.
In any case, Obama's candidacy by itself is not a test of whether
Americans are unwilling to vote for a black candidate; to determine
that, you would have to take into account whether those unwilling to
vote for him would be willing to vote for a different kind of black
candidate. And as it happens, there is such a test case. In the fall
of 1995, Colin Powell, fresh from a boffo book tour, was (or was
widely thought to be) contemplating running for president. There were
plenty of polls matching him as the Republican nominee against
incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton. And running well: A typical Gallup
poll had him leading Clinton 54 to 39 percent.
That 's bigger than any lead Obama has had over John McCain this year.
And an analysis of 1995 and 2008 polls show that these two black
candidates (putative candidate in the case of Powell, if you like)
shows that they were attracting many different voters. In 1995, Powell
was winning virtually all Republicans, a majority of Independents and
a small number of Democrats. In recent polls this year, Obama has been
winning virtually all Democrats, about half the Independents and a
small number of Republicans. In other words, they have largely
non-overlapping constituencies.
That seems to leave considerably less than 10 percent of American
voters either (a) unwilling to vote for Powell in 1995 and (b)
unwilling to vote for Obama in 2008. And some of that small number are
surely motivated by factors other than race. So I would submit that
the vast majority of American voters have already passed the test.
They've shown they're willing to vote for a black candidate, provided
he has acceptable views on issues and appropriate experience for the
job.
The objection may be made that I am basing my conclusions on polls
rather than actual election results. In the races for governor in
California in 1982 and Virginia in 1989, preelection polls seem to
have understated the percentages ready to vote against black
candidates Tom Bradley and Douglas Wilder. But those elections were
held 26 and 19 years ago. And we did not see a similar effect in most
Democratic primaries this year: It was Obama's vote that was
understated in pre-primary polls in New Hampshire.
Exit polls taken on Election Day did tend to overstate Obama's
percentage in many states. But that could result from respondent
self-selection. Only about half of those approached to take the exit
poll do so. Obama voters, with higher levels of enthusiasm for their
candidate, may have been more likely than Hillary Clinton voters to go
to the trouble of filling out the exit poll. That's consistent with
the greater propensity of Obama supporters to participate in caucuses
in the four states that held both caucuses and primaries.
On balance I think Obama's race has been a political asset. I believe
that most Americans think it would be a good thing, all other things
being reasonably equal, for our country to elect a black president. I
know I feel that way myself. I think that impulse has inspired many
voters, ever since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National
Convention, to give Obama a sympathetic look-over, to be readier
perhaps to appreciate his strengths and to overlook his weaknesses
than they might be with an otherwise similar non-black candidate. The
refusal of a very small number of voters to support a black candidate
does not, I think, offset this significant advantage. The Obama
candidacy is indeed a test -- a test not of American voters, but of
Barack Obama.
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To read more political analysis by Michael Barone, visit
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