Weisberg is Right
Jacob Weisberg at Slate finally wrote the story that most of the press has been unwilling or unable to address: Obama’s race is a significant handicap for his campaign:
Such prejudice usually comes coded in distortions about Obama and his background. To the willfully ignorant, he is a secret Muslim married to a black-power radical. Or—thank you, Geraldine Ferraro—he only got where he is because of the special treatment accorded those lucky enough to be born with African blood. Some Jews assume Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel in the way they assume other black politicians to be. To some white voters (14 percent in the CBS/New York Times poll), Obama is someone who, as president, would favor blacks over whites. Or he is an “elitist” who cannot understand ordinary (read: white) people because he isn’t one of them. Or he is charged with playing the race card, or of accusing his opponents of racism, when he has strenuously avoided doing anything of the sort. We’re just not comfortable with, you know, a Hawaiian.
I’ve posted on this topic before, but here’s some more data from a late May/early June Gallup poll to consider. Among self-identified Republicans, 92 percent are supporting McCain, just 1 point below the support they gave Bush in 2004. Among self-identified Democrats, however, 82 percent are planning to vote for Obama, a full 7 points below what Kerry got.
What explains this coolness towards Obama among Democrats? Today’s convention coverage is obsessed with the idea that women supporters of Hillary Clinton are failing to join the Obama bandwagon, but women are actually a smaller share (54 percent) of the Democrats cool to Obama than those who are supporting him (56 percent).
Maybe these Democrats are just content with the direction of the country and Bush’s policies? There’s some evidence for this. Among those Democrats cool to Obama, 18 percent approve of President Bush compared to only 2 percent among those who support Obama.
But the big difference, however, between Democrats who do and don’t support Obama, is how they view race. When asked whether they thought Obama would go too far to aid blacks, only 12 percent of Obama supporters thought he would. On the other hand, nearly half (48 percent) of those cool to Obama thought he would go to far.
All the usual caveats apply here, especially the date of the poll. I’ll redo the analysis when I get more recent poll data, but my guess is that not much has changed.
Comments
THE “BLAME FRAME”
I recently learned of and read “The Blame Frame: Justifying (Racial) Injustice in America,” by Jon Hanson and Kathleen Hanson of the Harvard Law School. While this article appears in Vol. 41 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law review 413, it is available for downloading via SSRN at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1209742
running a total of 67 pages but well worth reading. While the article is not devised as a personal test, it is difficult not to test oneself while reading it, facing one’s own history.
It is so easy to rationalize when addressing what may be racial injustice. The Hansons point this out with the “Blame Frame” as it has evolved going back to the U.S. Constitution’s approval of slavery without daring to use that word. The Hansons, at page 426, state:
“ … Americans’ basic attributional framework for justifying inequalities or suffering has been to blame the victim and excuse the non-victims. Outcomes are just in that the powerful are rewarded for their exemplary dispositions while the victims pay the price for their wayward dispositions. In narrative form, the blame frame often sounds something like this:
‘We,’ who should be advantaged, are acting, if at all, through good intentions, exemplary dispositions and in accordance with situational forces larger than us. ‘They,’ because of their aberrant dispositions interacting with or resulting from these same forces, should suffer or be further disadvantaged or separated from us and should not receive our assistance.”
The Hansons set forth many examples, including hurricane Katrina of just three years ago. President George W. Bush spoke on that anniversary of the progress that has been made. But many dispute the extent of this progress, including for many African-Americans in New Orleans. We don’t have to jog our memories to recall Katrina and its wake.
Read this article and consider whether the “Blame Frame” test may apply to you.
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | August 26, 2008 10:18 AM
I know it’s a cliche, but it is so easy (for lots of reasons) for the media narrative at the DNC to be about some Clinton supporters’ unwillingness to back Obama. It’s like a nice soap opera. More importantly, it’s not messy and ugly like covering racism. For yers - ever since blatant racism became un-PC - social scientists have grappled with how to measure racism. As a voter it saddens me, as a social scientists I know that we’ll get reams of good data out of this election cycle to help us get closer a better understanding of reality.
Thanks for the plug. BPA
Posted by: Black Political Analysis | August 26, 2008 12:27 PM
Sure, a larger than normal amount of people may think that Obama will favor blacks over other races. And that may be a hindrance. But at the same time Obama has benefited from significant positive press, both domestic and international, as the first black candidate with a true chance of winning the presidency. He has been hailed as proof that race is not a significant factor in elections and has polled better among black Republicans than most democrats. So, overall, is his race really a hindrance?
Posted by: Marko D. | August 27, 2008 09:31 PM