Commentary: Obama for president?
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By Patrick Reddy
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Sacramento, CA, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Since the 1960s, when Massachusetts Republican Ed Brooke became the first African-American U.S. senator since Reconstruction, black candidates for governor or senator have won on an average of once every decade. The successes include Brooke (1966 and 1972), Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder (1989) and Sen. Carol Mosley Braun of Illinois (1992). The latter two are Democrats.
Barack Obama won last year's Illinois Democratic U.S. Senate primary by combining minority votes with surprisingly strong white support all over the state. And when GOP nominee Jack Ryan withdrew due to a personal scandal and was replaced by black conservative Alan Keyes, it guaranteed that Illinois would get another black senator.
But long before Obama won a 70-percent landslide over Keyes, he had become a national star. The media were fascinated by both his multicultural background -- his father was an immigrant from Kenya and his mother is white with Cherokee heritage, and young Barack grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia -- and his becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
As keynote speaker for the Democratic National Convention, he exceeded all expectations. On CNN, William Schneider called Obama's address "a moment of poetry" and gave him the "Political Play of the Week." In its annual "Men of the Year" issue, Gentleman's Quarterly called him the "life of the party." And that was just the beginning.
Speculation on a future Obama presidential bid began almost immediately after his speech. He has signed to write three books, including a re-issue of his autobiography written before he was 30. Since July Obama has reportedly turned down more than 200 invitations to speak outside Illinois. When he appeared on the "David Letterman Show" and the host invited him back to discuss a future presidential campaign, Obama didn't even try to disguise his interest.
"Obama-mania" is here. In Newsweek's "Who's Next" issue, Obama made the cover and joked that he was more over-exposed than Paris Hilton. Jonathan Alter wrote that Obama's "already in a different category of fame. Democrats -- viewing Obama's electrifying speech at the Democratic convention and landslide victory as about the only good news in a dismal election year -- are already talking about him on the ticket in 2008."
Conservative columnist George Will wrote that Obama was "an Illinois superstar with national possibilities." David Early, in the San Jose Mercury News, called him "The Total Package," saying: "Congratulations, my brother, and remember this -- on Wednesday morning, character assassins went to work too. Watch your back."
This is definitely NOT an attack on Obama; I'd love to see him win national office. What follows is a realistic assessment of the hurdles Obama would face. Despite his obvious talents, Obama would be a distinct underdog in a presidential campaign.
First would be the well-known problems that senators have in winning the White House. Only two sitting senators in last 110 years have been elected president -- Warren G. Harding in 1920 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. Since the 1970s numerous senators pumped up by the media as presidential timber -- Ed Muskie, Henry Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Howard Baker, Gary Hart, John Glenn, Joe Biden, Bob Kerry, Bill Bradley, John McCain, etc. -- never even got nominated. The Senate was once thought to be the cradle of presidents; it's actually been the graveyard for most national ambitions. Governors have a much easier time winning due to their edge in executive experience: Four of the last five presidents have been governors.
Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and John Kerry were all "blue state" Democratic senators who got their party's nomination but fell short in November. I'd feel a whole lot better about his national prospects if Obama had won in a "red" Republican state like Florida, Ohio or Missouri. And if he were governor of a red state, he'd likely be on his way.
Second, his future opponents aren't going to be a joke. His likely opponents -- Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Bill Richardson, Al Gore, etc -- are all proven minority-vote getters. They won't concede the black vote to Obama and will give him the toughest competition he's ever faced.
Of course, if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he'll have to confront the lingering prejudice that no one wants to discuss. No woman or minority candidate of either party has been in serious contention for national office.
Since the passage of California's Proposition 13 in 1978, which signaled the birth of a new conservative era, major-party black candidates for president, governor and U.S. senator have won three of 28 contests for a winning percentage of 10.7. In addition, blacks have lost Democratic primaries in numerous states over the past decade. Roughly 1 percent of black candidates who have tried for governor or senator have won. And that doesn't even count the hundreds of potential minority candidates who are discouraged from even trying for statewide office. Some of those candidates probably were destined to lose for non-racial reasons. But they weren't all hacks, crooks or black militants. They didn't all run against popular incumbents like New York Gov. George Pataki in 2002. In fact, the only person in the last 25 years to defeat a black candidate who became a national figure was 1992 New Hampshire Primary winner Paul Tsongas, who ousted Brooke in 1978.
There is something systematically wrong. Why do mediocre white candidates often win the highest-level jobs while black candidates succeed only when everything goes right? Even the slightest error -- a botched turnout drive, a gaffe in a debate or an emotional side issue -- can sink a campaign. There seems to be a "tinted glass ceiling" preventing black candidates from reaching the top offices -- a ceiling held in place by a hard-core group of white voters who, in the words of former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Parren Mitchell, D-Md., "wouldn't vote for you, even if you walked on water."
More than 20 years ago Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was almost elected governor of California. The 1982 campaign, which ended in an excruciating one-point upset loss, set up a pattern that has lasted. Bradley's candidacy showed that even blacks who go out of their way to reassure white voters will still face racial barriers that are almost impossible to overcome.
The cause of Bradley's defeat and the source of so many problems for black candidates was the defection of older white Democrats of modest means. Bradley ran ahead of Democratic Senate candidate Jerry Brown with Asian voters, in moderate white suburban areas, in conservative areas like Orange County and liberal enclaves like Santa Monica and Marin County. They ran roughly even among Hispanics. But the only precincts where Brown ran ahead of Bradley were white labor areas like San Francisco, Oakland and Long Beach. These voters tend to live in close proximity to urban black populations and compete with minorities for jobs and living space, hence their racial sensitivity. And it was exactly those Democratic defections that sank Bradley's bid to become the first black governor since Reconstruction -- 4 percent of all voters admitted in an exit poll that they went against Bradley because of his skin color.
With the exception of Obama in 2004, in every black campaign for governor or senator, the pattern has been the same: Older white voters are very reluctant to support blacks. Those who say that race has remained a virtually insurmountable hurdle for blacks can point to the fact that black candidates are routinely defeated in all regions. Even black Republicans are losing badly: Not a single black GOP nominee for governor or senator has won 40 percent since 1978, and white Republicans have been a majority of governors and Congress since 1994.
One sign that the nation is ready to elect a black president will be when white voters start electing black governors, even in red states. To contend seriously for the presidency, Obama will have to prove he can win working-class whites in swing states. John Kennedy did something similar when he carried West Virginia, proving that a Roman Catholic could win over previously hostile Protestant workers.
Obama shattered several records for black candidates for major state office: the highest percentage ever, the greatest share of white and Hispanic votes. However, there is a big difference between a Senate race and a campaign for executive office like mayor, governor or president. Those offices are like a chief executive officer, ultimately responsible for everyone, especially in a crisis. Blacks just don't seem to be trusted in this role yet. I would highly recommend that Obama get some executive experience before running for president.
In summary, Barack Obama looks to be the first serious black contender for national office. But he'll have to overcome: a) the familiar red/blue state divisions; b) the historic problems of senators seeking the White House; and c) the legacy of racial division. That's a tall, no gigantic, order.
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