U.S. Elections 2008

News & Polls

30 June 2008
Race Relations a Factor in 2008 Presidential Election

By Eric Green
Staff Writer

Washington -- Race relations will be a factor in the 2008 presidential election between presumed Democratic candidate Barack Obama and his presumed Republican opponent, John McCain, several political experts tell America.gov.

Arizona State University history professor Thomas J. Davis said various public opinion polls show “race will be a determinative issue for a significant number of voters” in the campaign between Obama, an Illinois senator who is African American, and McCain, a white senator from Arizona.

Davis cited a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that put the likely number of U.S. voters concerned about race at approximately 30 percent.

“I think that percentage is low,” said Davis, adding that America’s difficult history with race relations has made “many Americans today uncomfortable in openly announcing their own racial bias. Yet such bias directs a full range of actions and decisions, such as voting.”

Remarks about race made by Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, will be “only one of many controversies resonating with deep racial effect while on the surface supporting an air of colorblind neutrality,” said Davis.

He said the “so-called Wright controversy reflected spin rather than substance. It was much less about what Reverend Wright said rather than what could be made of what he said in connection with discrediting” Obama. (See “Debate Continues About Presidential Candidate’s Speech on Race.”)

Davis said Obama has a “50-50 chance” of winning the presidential election. He said several polls showing race as a significant issue in the contest also show McCain's age could be an even more significant issue for voters. If elected to the White House, McCain would be, at age 72, the oldest person in U.S. history inaugurated as president. (See “Barack Obama’s U.S. Presidential Bid Bridges Racial Divisions.”)

RACE SEEN WORKING IN OBAMA’S FAVOR

David Greenberg, assistant professor of journalism and media studies and history at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said he believes race has worked “largely to Obama’s favor so far.”

On the “flip side,” Greenberg said, “there are surely a small percentage of people who are so bigoted that they’ll never vote for a black man. But they would not likely vote for any Democrat, white or black.” Greenberg said Obama will “probably suffer only a little at the polls because of his race.”

Greenberg said the Reverend Wright story “surely will make some people think twice about Obama. He handled the episode badly from start to finish.”

The professor said Obama often uses race in a “subtle and gentle way, and it’s a style that’s different from some other prominent black politicians. But it’s very much part of his appeal.”

Greenberg cited a June 26 essay Obama wrote for Time magazine which concludes that with the senator’s mother from Kansas and his father from Kenya, stories like Obama’s “could only happen in America.”

Obama is “trying to make people feel good about America by voting for him,” said Greenberg, “since in doing so, they are demonstrating that America is not racist -- or at least not so racist that it can’t elect an African American.”

Even though McCain might be the strongest candidate the Republicans could have fielded, said Greenberg, “at this point” Obama “seems a good bet to win” the November 4 election.

VOTERS HAVE CHANCE TO FULFILL KING’S DREAM

Political scientist Alvin Felzenberg, a visiting lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, said “whether and how much race features in the campaign will very much depend on the candidates.”

“Now that the voters in multiple primary elections [in 2008] have demonstrated a willingness, if not eagerness, to nominate the son of an African-American immigrant for the nation's highest office, I would expect turnout to be exceptionally high in the African-American community,” said Felzenberg, who covers the issue of race extensively in his new book, The Leaders We Deserved and a Few We Didn't: Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game.

McCain has “made it clear that he does not want the votes of people who would vote against an African-American candidate merely because of that candidate's race,” said Felzenberg. He added that voters of all parties and races “have an opportunity to give meaning” to the dream of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. by giving Obama “a chance to be judged not by his race, but by the strengths of his ideas and his qualifications for the office he seeks. The same should hold true of John McCain.”

Felzenberg said that given President Bush’s low standing in the polls, the Republicans selected in McCain “the only Republican with a chance of winning the presidency,” while Obama has “galvanized multiple, new first-time and young voters into the political process. That is a considerable achievement.”

McCain, said Felzenberg, has an “inspiring, personal story to tell and a significant record of achievement. After many years of listening to voters complain about the nature of their choices, this time, the electorate is in for a treat.”

For additional information, see “McCain and Obama on Patriotism” on Time magazine’s Web site.

See also “How Will Candidates Explain Stances on Meeting Hostile Leaders.”

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