Where Obama’s race is an issue – and where it isn’t
Dante Chinni
Posted: 06.26.2008 / 10:24 AM EDT
For Sen. Barack Obama, who will be the first African-American nominee for president of a major party, the matter of race poses some unique challenges.
Analysts often argue, for instance, that polling data on African-American candidates are inaccurate because respondents don’t like to admit to racial bias to a stranger on the phone – making it harder for his campaign to get a read on Sen. Obama’s standing in the polls.
Moreover, Obama faces a set of potential wedge issues having to do with minority preferences and racial “quotas” in hiring and college admissions. In several states, supporters of “anti-racial-preference” initiatives had already been working to put on the November ballot certain measures, such as the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, that in effect would end affirmative-action policies.
Some have suggested that the presence of such initiatives on the ballot could drive up turnout among those more likely to vote for Sen. John McCain.
To try to assess how big a factor Obama’s race will be in the campaign, we took poll questions dealing with race and racial preferences from the 2004 American National Election Study from the University of Michigan and filtered them through our 11 community types. We removed the responses of African-Americans to try to understand how whites and people of other races felt about the issues raised.
The results are something of a surprise. By far, Obama’s race presents the biggest challenges to voters living in communities with relatively high African-American populations (“Minority Central” counties).
More than 90 percent of non-African-Americans in those communities said they agreed with the statement “Blacks should work their way up like other groups.” More than 80 percent of the non-African-Americans in those communities agreed that “Blacks should try harder to succeed.” Minority Central communities had higher percentages agreeing with those statements than any other community type.
What’s driving those numbers?
There is no single answer. The fact that the median household income in these communities (about $31,000 a year) is far lower than the national median (about $41,000) means people are living closer to the margins and may be more likely to be concerned about who’s getting ahead. And the geographic location of many of these communities, the Southeast, has a long history of racial strife.
But it is hard to ignore the “proximity factor.” The higher percentage of African-Americans in Minority Central communities, 36 percent on average, means there is probably more competition between people of different races living near one another for things like jobs, housing, and political offices.
Non-African-Americans living in other places that are not particularly well off, such as more-rural towns with service-sector economies (“Service Worker Centers”), did not show such strong feelings about African-Americans. More than 70 percent of those people in Service Worker Centers said they thought “Blacks should work their way up,” and just under 70 percent said “Blacks should try harder.”
Those percentages are high, but not as high as for Minority Central communities.
One key difference? Fewer than 3 percent of the people who live in Service Worker Centers are African-American.
The questions also pointed to the kinds of communities where Obama’s race would be less of an issue: places with young people and colleges (“Campus and Careers”) and places with higher concentrations of Hispanic voters (“Immigration Nation”). Non-African-Americans living in those communities were the least likely to agree that “Blacks should work their way up” and that “Blacks should try harder.”
Both of those community types also have smaller-than-average African-American populations.
The three largest community types in Patchwork Nation by population – big cities (“Industrial Metropolis”), wealthy suburbs (“Monied ’Burbs”), and places experiencing growth and diversification (“Boom Towns”) – were somewhere in the middle.
What all of that means for Obama’s vote on election night in these different types of communities is far from clear.
It may be that on Election Day turnout by African-American voters in communities with large African-American populations cancels out any anti-Obama, “anti racial preference” vote that may arise in those places. A big enough surge in African-American turnout might even overwhelm an anti-Obama vote.
Then there is the question of how non-African-Americans living in those places see Obama himself.
On Election Day, will most white voters tend to see the Illinois senator as a Columbia University and Harvard educated lawyer who is postracial? Or will enough of them see another African-American politician who supports “unfair racial preferences”?
The answers to those questions may dictate a lot.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:04 am EDT
Obama’s race is an issue anywhere in the U.S. Just look at the percentage of blacks voting for him.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:59 pm EDT
Blacks have been voting for the most qualified white candidates for generations.
The moment they have a candidate that looks like them and is qualified to lead, then they are justified in voting for that man.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:40 pm EDT
The first response by RR/FL Says is flagged as inappropriate.
Sad you can point a finger at white people but when black people act the same way, its ok, its not nice to point out the obvious.
Sad that you flag this. This is your true racism showing, and you think we are too stupid to see this.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm EDT
Hey Harry,
Just for the record, the Monitor didn’t flag and tries to keep these respones open and stay neutral. That flag was from another user.
cheers,
Dante
June 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm EDT
Dear Dante,
I apologize
It was the flag that I though came from you was racist.
Thank you for your reply, I enjoyed the article.
The only thing that needs to be looked at further is the socio-economic level of white voters in the area who are at the same income level as black voters/residents and compare them to the black people. Then we may begin to see the roots of some of the problems to be addressed. The reports of young and middle class and up white voters for Obama flys in the face of your flagger.
Harry
June 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm EDT
Obama,s race IS the issue,period. We all have opinions and are allowed to express them. Keep in mind however that Obama is not nor will he be THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT. In fact if he is elected, he will be the most watched and controlled President in the history of the world. Should he be elected, his every move and word will be questioned, examined, analyzed, evaluated and open to public debate and discussion. More books will be written if he is elected, than have been written about any one man in the last 100 years at the very least. The majority and/or non-minority media and politicians will have a field day everyday for many years to come. Comparisons to him will be legion and many inappropiately so.
OBama, is alive and he is interested in the United States of America and all of its citizenry. The same can not be said of McCain.
He(Obama) is an intelligent man who is far from naive and no doubt aware of every conceivable and inconceivable possibility that may befall him and his family should he gain office. Measure a man by his deeds, is not a statement that will be applied to him if elected.
Hatred and anger are 2 of the strongest motivators of human action and interaction. And, history has repeatedly shown that both are usually the down fall of the majority. Time and time again those so motivated as above neither look at the truth nor for it; but rather are fueled by some preconcieved and outdated notions and emotions that have little if any basis in truth.
Consider also that he is not the descendant of slaves or slave owners. People with small minds neither grow nor promote growth. They’re afraid of it. Take another look at slavey and remember that although slavery had predated America, American slavery was slavery at its worst. It, for the first time, dehumanized peoples because of the color of their skin and used every kind of degradation to keep it and promote it(American slacery). It also used the Bible to support its station. Then the greedy always pitted the exslaves against poor whites, intentionally creating, they hope eternal enemies. The South, also the Bible belt took slavery and segregation and ran with it, being then and now the worst of their kind, the purveyors of some of the most infamous(sexual and immoral) acts in modern history. Which in turn beg the questions of the non-minoriity so tainted, ” Are your women safe and are your male still intact?” Answer: there are none so blind as those that will not see. In this country what is worse than being ‘black’, as seen by this corrupted society that uses and creates every opportunity to further its own ends, which is the continued destruction and of the descendants of ex-African-American slaves? Not one thing. It’s the color of a man’s skin that determines his worth, right?
June 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm EDT
[…] analyst in the Christian Science Monitor looks at polling results to try and discover where Obama?s race might be an issue in the general […]
July 16th, 2008 at 8:04 am EDT
[…] toward race vary in our different community types, Patchwork Nation has continually noted. Racial tensions are higher in some areas than in others. Even within a given community, conflict […]
August 5th, 2008 at 7:41 am EDT
[…] Polling data seem to suggest that areas that are overwhelmingly white and more removed from black populations may actually have an easier time embracing an African-American candidate. […]