The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama

A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy

Dewey M. Clayton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781135841416
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the early twenty-first century, race still occupies a dominant role in American politics. Despite this truism, presidential candidate Barack Obama was uniquely poised to transcend both race and party as the first African American to have a realistic chance of winning the presidency. Previous contenders running in the traditional mode of the Civil Rights Movement based their appeal primarily on African American voters. Obama, on the other hand, ran a deracialized campaign in an effort to appeal to voters of different backgrounds and political parties.

Clayton examines how race in American politics has changed over time and offers an explanation for why Obama's candidacy offers a different roadmap for the future. The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama provides students of politics, inside and outside of the classroom, a unique opportunity to explore the institutional and structural challenges an African American faces in becoming the president of the United States. This guide to major issues in Black politics and the ins and outs of the 2008 campaign provides the necessary contours for understanding how the highest elected African American official won office.

PART 1
THE HISTORICAL NATURE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS RUNNING FOR POLITICAL OFFICE, COALITION POLITICS, AND OBAMA’S WINNING COALITION

1
Introduction

To America in general, Obama brings hope, change, opportunity; hope that we can end that war, hope that we can invest in children’s education, that we can invest in the seniors that built this country, so that they can pay their rent and live a decent life. That will be the same for black Americans, Asian Americans, and white Americans alike. Obama will bring this country and the world together, and not without challenges. That is what is needed.¹

Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI)

The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy examines one of the most profound presidential elections in the history of this country. This book offers an in-depth look at the extraordinary political journey and meteoric rise of one individual, Barack Obama, from the state legislature in Illinois, to the Senate in Washington, D.C., and finally to the presidency of the United States. My main focus is to demonstrate that Barack Obama, as a Democrat, was uniquely poised to transcend race and party and was the first African American candidate with a realistic chance of winning the presidency in the United States. So, a central theme of this book is how Obama, as an African American, won election in conservative America of 2008.

The main argument for this work is that Barack Obama’s candidacy provides a new paradigm for candidates of color to transcend race at the presidential level. One of the big questions to emerge from Obama’s election is whether his administration will have a markedly different impact on the lives of African Americans than a white president’s administration. Another question that needs thorough examination is what, if anything, has happened to create a political climate in America that has allowed an African American to become the nominee of a major political party and subsequently win the general presidential election. A goal of this book is to show the maturation of the American political process whereby Americans examine candidates based not on the color of their skin but on their stance on the issues and choose the most qualified person. As the book progresses, the reader will be able to discern how race in American society has changed over time, and that although racism is still prevalent, it no longer is an impediment to achieving the highest office in the land.

Barack Obama’s candidacy provides an excellent case study of the changing order in American politics for he is the first African American to gain the nomination of his party and then the presidency of this country. When Reverend Jesse Jackson, an African American, ran for president in 1984 and again in 1988, political observers stated that he was unable to transcend race. When Reverend Al Sharpton, another African American, ran in 2004, people felt he was too polarizing a figure. Both of these men came out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Obama did not grow up as part of this civil rights movement. He was too young to sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, to travel as a Freedom Rider from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, or to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to gain the right to vote. However, he benefited from the movement’s courage, determination, and unwavering belief in the American ideal that all people are created equal. In 2008, Barack Obama was uniquely qualified to offer the American people a new paradigm for politics in the twenty-first century. This paradigm is based on the building of a new coalition of African Americans, Latinos, young people, and first-time voters, and the use of a new technology—the Internet—to organize and mobilize this new coalition, and to mount the most successful fundraising campaign of any presidential candidate in the history of this nation.

Overview of the Book

Part One examines the historical nature of African Americans running for political office in America. It begins with a chapter that explores the history of African American politics in America from Reconstruction to the present. It also discusses Barack Obama and his unique background that made it possible for him to make such a historic presidential bid. Chapter 2 examines descriptive and substantive representation. Will an Obama administration have a markedly different impact on the lives of African Americans than a white president’s administration? In this chapter, I analyze the history of racially polarized voting in America. In this country, white voters have traditionally voted only for white candidates while black voters have voted only for black candidates, when possible. Because of this, minority candidates have often been at a disadvantage when running in a majority white district. Obama sought the presidency by running a deracialized campaign. I discuss the concept of deracialization and the implications of running this style campaign on his ability to govern.

Chapter 3 investigates coalition politics in America and how Obama was able to put together a winning coalition of different races, ethnicities, and age groups to win a majority of the vote. I explore the demographic trends in America and discuss what they say about the electoral landscape in the future. In Chapter 4, I examine Obama and the different demographic groups that made up his winning coalition: the white vote, the Latino vote, the black vote, and the youth vote. This election was remarkable on many levels. In the Democratic primary, the two frontrunners were both firsts: Hillary Clinton was the first female major contender for her party’s nomination and Barack Obama was the first African American to be a major contender for his party’s nomination. Because of this, I also focus on the intersection of race, class, and gender in the election in this chapter.

Part Two takes a more in-depth look at the dynamics of the campaign process itself. Chapter 5 is titled “The Clinton Factor: Hillary and Bill.” Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner at the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign. She had huge name recognition, a substantial campaign chest, more political experience than Barack Obama, and her husband had been president of the United States for eight years. That said, how was it that Barack Obama was able to out-campaign, out-organize, and out-spend Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination? South Carolina became a pivotal primary, and I examine what impact Bill Clinton had on the campaign trail and that primary in particular. Focusing on Obama’s campaign for the White House in Chapter 6, I scrutinize some of the major events that emerge. First, I examine the nomination process and key decisions made by the Obama camp, such as going to Iowa to get an upset primary victory and the Super Tuesday strategy. I also look at the Rev. Wright factor and Obama’s Father’s Day speech. Lastly, I analyze the general election. Obama’s opponent, Senator John McCain, was behind in the polls after the Democratic Convention in August 2008. McCain’s surprise pick of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his vice presidential running mate shored up his base and injected new momentum into his campaign, but in the end failed to convert Independent voters and female Democratic supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton to the Republican cause. Moreover, the choice of Palin called into question McCain’s political judgment.

In Chapter 7, I explore how Obama was able to tap into computer technology to run a brilliant grassroots campaign. By using the Internet, and his webpage, and an array of social networking sites such as MyBarackObama, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, Obama raised an incredible amount of money and organized a vast army of volunteers in all fifty states. I conclude in Chapter 8 that Obama’s bold and innovative strategy positioned him to accomplish what no African American in this country had achieved: capture the presidency of the United States and in the process change forever how presidential campaigns in this country will be conducted.

African American Politics in America

When the United States of America was founded in 1776, the majority of African Americans were enslaved. As such, they had no political rights—no right to vote and no right to political representation. Ironically, this nation, founded on the principles that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” refused to acknowledge that these rights pertained to the African American slave population. The founding fathers looked upon slavery as an economic and political issue, not as a moral one. In fact, the right to vote was originally bestowed only on white, male property owners. Poor white men, all women, and the majority of African American men were denied the right to vote in the first half-century of the republic. Furthermore, the Constitution, America’s blueprint for democracy, sanctioned the institution of slavery. Slavery was a contentious issue at the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, with Northern and Southern delegates in disagreement over whether slaves should be counted for purposes of taxation and representation. To resolve this dispute, the framers settled on the Three-Fifths Compromise, which stated that each slave would count as equal to three-fifths, or 60 percent, of a free white person in determining representation in the House of Representatives and in apportioning direct taxes.² The issue of slavery, however, was not resolved and almost tore this nation apart, when in 1860 and 1861 a total of eleven Southern states seceded from the Union and called themselves the Confederate States of America. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery in the “states under rebellion.”

Civil War Amendments

At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Union had held and Congress set out to bestow full citizenship rights on all African Americans. To accomplish this, Congress proposed and subsequently ratified a series of amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery; in 1868, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment, which gave African Americans citizenship rights; and in 1870, Congress ratified the 15th Amendment, which gave black males the right to vote.³ These three amendments, collectively known as the Civil War Amendments, gave hope to African Americans during this time period known as Reconstruction, that America would finally make good on its promise of equality for all of its citizens. Passed by Congress in 1867, the Reconstruction Act stationed Northern military troops in the South and allowed many African Americans to exercise social, political, and economic rights for the first time.⁴

African Americans gained substantial political power during this period. Blacks held elective office in state legislatures throughout the South. Moreover, they served as lieutenant governors in several states, and one black, P. B. S. Pinchback, briefly served as governor of Louisiana. Additionally, between 1869 and 1901, two blacks served in the U.S. Senate and twenty in the U.S. House of Representatives.⁵

Reconstruction

The electoral victories enjoyed by African Americans during the Reconstruction Period did not last long. The disputed presidential election of 1876, settled by the Hayes-Tilden Compromise, spelled the death knell for African American electoral success in the South. In that election, the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, struck a deal with Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate, in which the Republicans pledged to withdraw federal troops from the South if Hayes were allowed to become president. As a result of the agreement, the political power of African Americans declined precipitously. White Southerners, who had not stopped their intimidation against blacks during this period, were now unimpeded in their efforts to reclaim their supremacy throughout the South and relegate African Americans to inferior second-class citizenship status.⁶

Southern whites resented African Americans voting and holding public office and exercising political power. They had begun to form secret societies to intimidate blacks through illegal means. Historian John Hope Franklin noted that for ten years after 1867 white terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia, and other white hate groups sprang up throughout the South with the sole purpose of maintaining white supremacy and keeping blacks in their place.⁷

Concurrently, the U.S. Supreme Court had begun issuing a series of court decisions that limited the effect of the 15th Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote.⁸ According to Franklin,

In 1875 several indictments under the Enforcement Act of 1870 charged defendants with preventing Negroes from exercising their right to vote in elections. In United States v. Reese the Court held that the statute covered more offenses than were punishable under the terms of the Fifteenth Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. In United States v. Cruikshank the Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed citizens not the right to vote but only a right not to be discriminated against by the state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.⁹

Franklin asserted, “As far as the Court was concerned, the South was free to settle its problems as best it could.”¹⁰ Then, in 1896, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (163 U.S. 537) in which it enunciated for the first time the doctrine of “separate but equal.” This narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by the Court was widely viewed throughout the land as giving legitimacy to separating American society by race and creating a system of racial apartheid in the American South.¹¹

Tactics Used to Disenfranchis...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART 1 THE HISTORICAL NATURE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS RUNNING FOR POLITICAL OFFICE, COALITION POLITICS, AND OBAMA’S WINNING COALITION
• PART 2 THE DYNAMICS OF THE CAMPAIGN PROCESS
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index