Obviously, one concern people have with Barack Obama's candidacy is that they worry that a black man faces intrinsic electoral problems. I would say that the flipside of this is that an African-American Democrat probably has more latitude to say sensible things about affirmative action (via Jon Chait who sees this as part of a growing populist trend in Obama's rhetoric) that would get a white candidate in hot water with supporters he's counting on.
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Obama on Affirmative Action
14 May 2007 01:50 pm
Comments (58)
It's kind of funny how strong this playing-against-identity dynamic is on the Democratic side. Obama can say sensible things about affirmative action because he's black. Clinton can use compromising rhetoric on abortion because she's a woman. Edwards can generally be very progressive because he's the white southern guy.
Hey Matt,
A several days ago you mentioned (http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/05/team_obama.php) that one of Obama's economic advisors (Jeffrey Liebman) had, in the past, "flirted with Social Security privatization," and that subsequently it would be worth everyone's while "to pin Obama down on privatizing Social Security."
It appears that Mr. Obama has provided a clear and unambiguous answer (in the NYT article to which you linked above):
"Speaking on 'This Week' on ABC, Mr. Obama said “everything should be on the table” when considering overhauling the Social Security system. He said he would consider raising the retirement age as well as increasing payroll taxes, but he ruled out privatizing the federal program."
I just thought it was worthwhile to point out his position on this since you had raised the question previously, AND because Mr. Obama seems to be accused often- and I believe unfairly- of compromising on core Democratic and/or progressive policy issues.
(My apologies if this is old news or if you have posted already posted about this sometime between today and your previous post on May 10th.)
And, to wit, playing against type is happening on the other side of the aisle, as the Three Stooges rush to pander to the religious right and the starve-the-beast right, having previously made their careers by running against those groups, for the most part. Rudy has since decided to curtail his pandering to the religious right, but we'll see.
Emes, that is an important data point, but what say we go nuts and give Matt the whole quote, hmm?
From Hotline Blog:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also said that with Social Security, everything should be on the table.OBAMA: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising the retirement age?
OBAMA: Everything should be on the table.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising payroll taxes?OBAMA: Everything should be on the table. I think we should
approach it the same way Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in
1983. They came together. I don't want to lay out my preferences
beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It
is not as difficult a problem as we're going to have with Medicaid and
Medicare.STEPHANOPOULOS: Partial privatization?
OBAMA: Privatization is not something that I would consider, and
the reason is this: Social Security, I think, is -- that's the floor.
That's the baseline. Social Security is that safety net that can't be
frayed, and we shouldn't put at risk.
As the Hotline item points out, this is basically the Howard Dean position on Social Security.
It's kind of funny how strong this playing-against-identity dynamic is on the Democratic side.
I think it's a pretty standard tactic with a venerable tradition that extends far back beyond "Nixon goes to China." I'm also not sure that it properly describes Edwards's posture, as (AFAIK) Southern populism has its own (not all bad) history.
Ok, so MY you have repeatedly mentioned "Candidate X appears more liberal to voters, so they are more likely to do conservative things and still look liberal" when describing HRC. You always mention this as a Bad thing. Is there a reason all of a sudden it is a good thing for Obama and Affirmative Action? Is it because you really dislike affirmitive action?
For the record, I think the electoral disadvantage you get form nominating a woman or minority is small, and very small relative to the moral choice of not nominating women or minorities. I also don't think the electorate at large cares about affirmitive action in any specific way, and right wing talk show hosts will never stop talking about affirmitive action.
I think it's a pretty standard tactic with a venerable tradition that extends far back beyond "Nixon goes to China."
And Reagan negotiating with the Soviets. Welfare reform would have played out a lot differently if Newt Gingrich had been partnered with George W. Bush, as opposed to Bill Clinton. Etc.
The recent calls for bipartisan "comprehensive immigration reform" are of a similar vein. The Republicans don't want to be demonized for the parts of the law that are tough on immigrants, and the Democrats don't want to be demonized for the parts that are amnesty-ish. It's hard to imagine a bill getting passed without this kind of bipartisanship, but there's a big free rider problem... anyway, this is getting far afield, but yes, there is very little likelihood of affirmative action changing in a major way without Democratic involvement.
Republicans chip away at it where they can, mostly by appointing officials who are hostile to the laws they're supposed to enforce, but they would never dare to scale back affirmative action dramatically without Democratic help. It would be the farthest thing from pretty.
"I'm also not sure that it properly describes Edwards's posture, as (AFAIK) Southern populism has its own (not all bad) history."
Southern lefty populism does indeed have its own history.
But it's a history that gets completely interrupted in 1968, and doesn't return until Edwards.
If you look at Dem Southern elected politicians post-'68, they almost all tend to fall in the Clinton, Gore, Harold Ford mold of being moderating centrist reformers, not lefty populists.
You have to go back to the 1932 - 1968 period to find historical analogs of Edwards, with folks like Estes Kefauver, post-assassination LBJ, Al Gore Sr, and my personal favorite - Ralph Yarborough.
Well, Southern populism wasn't all good, either. From an old Balkin article on populism and progressivism:
Yet populism is hardly without its limitations. Indeed, both populism and progressivism have symmetrical failings, each of which is more easily recognized from the opposite perspective. History teaches us that populism has recurring pathologies; it is especially important to recognize and counteract them. These dangers are particularly obvious to academics and other intellectual elites: They include fascism, nativism, anti-intellectualism, persecution of unpopular minorities, exaltation of the mediocre, and romantic exaggeration of the wisdom and virtue of the masses.(42) What is more difficult for many academics to recognize is that progressivism has its own distinctive dangers and defects. Unfortunately, these tend to be less visible from within a progressivist sensibility. They include elitism, paternalism, authoritarianism, naivete, excessive and misplaced respect for the "best and brightest," isolation from the concerns of ordinary people, an inflated sense of superiority over ordinary people, disdain for popular values, fear of popular rule, confusion of factual and moral expertise, and meritocratic hubris.and, from footnote #42:
In these debates, distinctions between populists in the Midwest, West, and South become particularly salient. Many Southern populists, faced with attacks from commercial and political elites, often turned to race baiting, either as a political strategy to shore up their political base for reform, or out of disillusionment with the possibilities for democratic change in an America increasingly dominated by large concentrations of wealth and corporate power. The career of Tom Watson, who mutated from radical egalitarian to racist demagogue, is symbolic of the Faustian bargain of Southern populism. See C. VANN WOODWARD, TOM WATSON: AGRARIAN REBEL (1955).That seems like a pretty good summary of the worries about populism (and perhaps Southern populism in particular), the motivation of those worries, and the reasons to believe that such worries may well be overblown or at least balanced by other unacknowledged advantages.
Thanks for the Yarborough link. I like that line -- "Let's put the jam on the lower shelf so the little people can reach it."
"Well, Southern populism wasn't all good"
George Wallace was a Southern populist, and it's quite an understatement to say that he wasn't all good. So was Jesse Helms.
But please note that I'm referring to the tradition of Southern lefty populism, which basically disappears in 1968 until Edwards begins to revive it.
You always mention this as a Bad thing. Is there a reason all of a sudden it is a good thing for Obama and Affirmative Action? Is it because you really dislike affirmitive action?
Depends on what you mean by "really." I actually dislike it, though only very, very, very mildly. Indeed, I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way, but normally I dislike race-based affirmative action much less than I dislike people who spend a lot of time complaining about affirmative action.
But please note that I'm referring to the tradition of Southern lefty populism, which basically disappears in 1968 until Edwards begins to revive it.
Ah, sweet, sweet hagiography. Fritz Hollings with southern left-populisting quite a bit before John Edwards. As were Zell Miller (in his pre-psycho phase) and, indeed, Bill Clinton. Edwards has moved further left from where any of those guys (or, indeed, John Edwards) was in the 1980s or 90s, which is all to the good, but he didn't launch any kind of trend here.
Indeed, I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way, but normally I dislike race-based affirmative action much less than I dislike people who spend a lot of time complaining about affirmative action.
You're not the only person who feels that way.
Most of the noise about affirmative action comes in the context of elite institutions that, by definition, attract far more eminently well-qualified applicants than they can accept. (I remember my first day at my elite law school, when I realized that a bomb could blow up my entire class, the next 300 people on the waiting list could take our places, and no one would know the difference.) What this means in practical terms is that a minority student with B+ grades gets into, say, Harvard while the A- white student ends up at Penn or NYU. And both, for the most part, thrive. (It may be that minority students are over-represented in the lower half of the class, but after years of study and number-crunching, I've discovered that, within a small margin for error, approximately 50% of all students end up in the bottom half of any given class.)That doesn't seem to me to be either a great injustice or a significant solution to any social problem -- except to the extent that our elites-to-be are actually exposed to some real minorities while growing up, and they might later, therefore, actually consider the views and interests of minorities as a genuine issue, not some exotic concern. So I guess I'm lukewarm on affirmative action as well.
Obama's statements on affirmative action were consistent with Bill Clinton's approach. Clearly Clinton couldn't say the exact words that Obama said because his daughter is white, not black.
Now that I mention Clinton, remember his Sister Souljah moment? The fact that he was white was completely irrelevant to what he was trying to convey. (The relevant fact was that he was a Democrat.)
What I'm saying is that racial identity is important, but if you view Obama as "a black man first" or you view Hillary as "a white woman first" you are depriving yourself. Sometimes it is hard work to let go of those labels, especially since our discourse centers around them so completely, but when you let go of labels you find yourself in a much better position to engage in honest discussion.
Ultimately what really matters is whether or not a candidate says something that's true, and whether or not they understand why its true.
Anyway, here's a couple statements of Clinton's from 1995:
"beyond discrimination we need to do more to help disadvantaged people and distressed communities, no matter what their race or gender. There are places in our country where the free enterprise system simply doesn't reach. It simply isn't working to provide jobs and opportunity."
"Affirmative action has not always been perfect, and affirmative action should not go on forever. It should be changed now to take care of those things that are wrong, and it should be retired when its job is done. I am resolved that that day will come. But the evidence suggests, indeed, screams that that day has not come."
The concept of class-based affirmative action has been kicking around in policy circles for at least a dozen years, but it never goes anywhere because sincere proponents eventually discover that, if honestly implemented, it would radically redistribute preferences from blacks and Latinos to whites and Asians. For example, white kids in the bottom 10% of the social-economic scale outscore black kids in the top 10% of the scale on the SAT.
Calling for class-based affirmative action, however, remains fashionable as a version of Clinton's successful "mend it, don't end it" strategy of distraction and delay.
"Ah, sweet, sweet hagiography. Fritz Hollings with southern left-populisting quite a bit before John Edwards."
And crucial to note that Hollings was elected to his Senate seat in 1966. (And first elected Governor in 1958.) He's precisely the kind of Southern lefty populist that couldn't have originated in the 1968 - Edwards period. (And, of course, Hollings, like other Southern Dems in the post-'68 era, was constantly forced to distance himself from the national party.)
"As were Zell Miller (in his pre-psycho phase) and, indeed, Bill Clinton."
I really think you're off the mark here.
Clinton and Miller were archetypical Ed Kilgore "New South" moderating centrist reformers, not lefty populists.
They were smart and responsible people who got elected because folks believed they'd figure out how to make the schools function.
Ever since '68 and George Wallace, elected Dem politicians in the South have almost always run as the smart and responsible alternative to the populist yahoos on the other side.
All of the populist energy really has been in the other party in the South. Jim Webb and Edwards may be the leading edge of a renewed Southern lefty populism, but we truly haven't seen their analog in the past 40 years.
Steve Sailer:
A political reporter on WABC radio today (I forget his name) commented that Mitt Romney is the only Presidential candidate whose ancestors included bigamists. He didn't seem to be aware that Obama's father was a bigamist.
CJColucci,
Two questions for you:
What happens to the white guy who doesn't get into NYU because he gets bumped by the white guy who got bumped by the less-qualified black guy at Harvard?
Do you really think that the types of black students elites will rub elbows with at Harvard (e.g., Barack Obama) will give them any special insight into the "views and interests of minorities"?
I personally think the affirmative action debate has been reviewed far too much. I personally support it fairly strongly, but somewhat like Matt, my biggest problem is with the rabid opponents. Mostly because they show almost a complete inability to grapple with numbers, statistics, practical effects, the reality of racism in our society, racial profiling, etc.
I would argue that the Left needs to start moving beyond affirmative action simply because it won't be available as a tool much longer - look at Michigan, California, Texas (and to a lesser degree, Washington State, etc.). Most large State universities no longer can practice affirmative action. The policy is sufficiently problematic and unpopular that we need to start rethinking it. I would argue that the entitlement effects and the doubts among whites about minority students (often unjustified) cause a lot of problems.
Finally, as for class based affirmative action - many schools DO practice class based affirmative action. And, it hasn't been embraced more broadly for 2 major reasons - (1) an aggressive, effective version would have broad impacts on admission and result in the exclusion of large numbers of the elites children who currently go and (2) a weak, ineffective version will rarely reach many truly disadvantaged students, because the gap is too wide by the time students apply to college.
...normally I dislike race-based affirmative action much less than I dislike people who spend a lot of time complaining about affirmative action.
So? All that this means is that you know how to indulge your inner shallow snot. Which, dude, I've seen you on bloggingheads. But your writing usually obscures your kneejerkery.
I don't know whether you intended to be transparent here or if it just slipped out. So kudos for the thin, obscurant veil.
And yeah, you are not alone. Tons of people are right there with you. Putting less energy into fixing this injustice and more energy into "disliking" those who are pointing out this particular injustice.
It's never, ever really been social injustice which animated this crowd. And they will never, ever cop to that. So, you're hanging with like-minded people at least.
Toodles,
and have a nice day y'all.
Steve Sailer isn't doing himself any favors by insisting that an Obama political position that contradicts the race-obsessed strawObama he's constructed in his mind must therefore be insincere.
Deep down Crackhead Barack Hussein Obama loves affirmative action.
He was accepted into Columbia and Harvard on affirmative action.
And he wants to see the schools swell with more negro enrollment, especially at the expense of more qualified whites. Crackhead Obama hates the white race with a passion, and this is just a fact.
(I'm not even going to mention his proclivity for raping white women.)
"I actually dislike (affirmative action), though only very, very, very mildly."
Ironic, considering the entire rationale behind supporting Obama is one of affirmative action.
Indeed, the idea of electing a black President and continuing the work of normalizing race in this country is the sole reason I considered supporting an ideologically anodyne candidate with a core focus on platitudes in what should be an ideological re-aligning election for Democrats.
And even though I've come to my senses about which candidate to support, I still think it's reasonable important to put Obama in the Naval Observatory for affirmative action reasons.
-----
Put me down as a supporter of affirmative action. Given the experience of Reconstruction, I'd rather continue it a generation too long rather than stop it a generation too early.
Sandra Day O'Connor had this one right. Give it another 30 years and call it a day. Several centuries of legal discrimination and worse deserve two generations of remedy.
"I'm not even going to mention his proclivity for raping white women."
Interesting how I mention George Wallace upthread, and it immediately summons forth a flood of Steve Sailer posts.
I'm not saying Sailer is the reincarnated ghost of Wallace, but it is interesting how you never see the two of them in the same room at the same time...
Petey:
I don't think that these posters are Sailer, to be honest. He wouldn't be afraid to post those things under his own name if he believed them. I'll give him that. There are a bunch of paleoconservatives now writing posts here who have come over with Sailer from the conservative website VDare.
Ironic, considering the entire rationale behind supporting Obama is one of affirmative action.
Surprisingly--genuinely surprising to me--untrue for most of his supporters, of whom I am on off days. The other major candidates come with some substantial baggage that supporters have to accept (or not care about in the first place). Cf. Iraq War.
And following in the wake of Steve Sailer, the less intelligent fish from the race-obsessive school begin to swarm.
Dear George. The fundamental disagreement between folks like me and folks like yourself is not, as you attempt to frame it, a matter of "putting less energy into fixing this injustice and more energy into 'disliking' those who are pointing out this particular injustice," where the "injustice" in question is affirmative action.
No, the disagreement is about whether affirmative action is a corrective to centuries of injustice that may have ceased to be useful, or whether affirmative action is itself an injustice perpetrated against the oppressed white race by a cabal of overprivileged minorities and the powerful liberal elite.
This would seem to be a fundamental disagreement between people who are primarily motivated by a desire to equalize opportunity for all Americans, and people who are primarily motivated by tribalism and a desire to protect the status of their tribesmen from people they generally view as untermenschen.
A perhaps more sophisticated way to express Matthew's sentiment is to say that affirmative action may be a suboptimal policy, but it is far less harmful to America than political figures who can't seem to grasp that slavery and Jim Crow were grave injustices, creating a state of unequal opportunity that can neither be wished away with colorblind laws nor excused by ham-fisted appeals to genetic research.
A blunter way of putting it is that you're a bunch of assholes.
"Surprisingly--genuinely surprising to me--untrue for most of his supporters"
I don't think the low information Dems who give Obama his non-black base of support at the moment are entirely clear on their own political motivations.
It's precisely their fuzziness about political issues that makes them receptive to the kind of "beyond politics" appeals Obama keeps making.
And I think it's reasonably clear from the rhetoric of Obama's campaign so far that the campaign sees a desire among voters to normalize race as Obama's core strength.
Ironic, considering the entire rationale behind supporting Obama is one of affirmative action.
Funnily enough, I think something like affirmative action is what motivates me to support Edwards on even days. I don't see him as a VP though; maybe if HRC gets the nomination.
The real long-term problem with affirmative action is analogous to the long term problem with Social Security -- the increase in the retiree ratio: there are fewer payers and more payees, increasing the burden on each payer.
Similarly, when the Nixon Administration started affirmative action for blacks in 1969, there were about 7 white payers for each black payee, so the burden per individual white -- the racial ratio, as it were -- was small, on average. But, in 1973, the Nixon Administration extended preferences to other minorities. Combined with the vast immigration of Hispanics, this means that the racial ratio will decline from 7:1 to roughly 1:1 some time after the middle of the century.
This is clearly not supportable.
One solution might be to offer affirmative action only to blacks and exclude immigrant groups, who after all, unlike African-Americans, chose to come to America, warts and all. The ratio of blacks to whites is changing only slowly, unlike the ratio of Hispanic immigrants to whites.
But, this compromise has attracted almost zero interest because both critics and defenders of affirmative action are obsessed with blacks and bored with the effects of immigration. Blacks are just more fun to moralize about than Hispanics, I guess ...
"Similarly, when the Nixon Administration started affirmative action for blacks in 1969, there were about 7 white payers for each black payee, so the burden per individual white -- the racial ratio, as it were -- was small, on average."
I believe Jesse Helms made this argument a while ago.
Steve Sailer needed that job, but they had to give it to a minority.
This is clearly not supportable.
Then you can stop worrying about it, because it won't be supported. Lots of things die out without much fanfare as they become "unsupportable."
That's got to be the most brilliant comeback ever!
Let's substitute in other issues:
"Then you can stop worrying about the Iraq War / global warming / Republican corruption, because it won't be supported. Lots of things die out without much fanfare as they become "unsupportable.""
Pretty doggone persuasive!
"That's got to be the most brilliant comeback ever!"
OK. How's about:
You're a sick racist fuckhead who seems to have a "bashing the darkies" subtext to every single one of your political concerns.
Does that work better as a comeback for you?
But, in 1973, the Nixon Administration extended preferences to other minorities.
If you told me that Nixon's entire purpose in extending affirmative action was to kill off the program, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
Petey:
"You're a sick racist fuckhead who seems to have a "bashing the darkies" subtext to every single one of your political concerns."
Unless your sole goal is to preach to the choir, you're not scoring any points by resorting to untrue, ad hominem attacks on Steve Sailer. If you had even a passing familiarity with his work, you would know that, he is not about "bashing darkies"; on the contrary, he has proposed policies that would actually help black people (as opposed to policies that would just make lefties like you feel good).
For example, Sailer has proposed limiting unskilled immigration, which, per George Borjas and other economists who study it, hurts uneducated black men the most. Sailer has also proposed supplementing the diets of black Africans with iodine, iron, and other nutrients to combat malnutrition that has led to IQ scores in sub-Saharan Africa of approximately 70 (versus 85 among black Americans), thus limiting economic growth and quality of life.
What happens to the white guy who doesn't get into NYU because he gets bumped by the white guy who got bumped by the less-qualified black guy at Harvard?
He goes to Cornell. Oooh! Such injustice!
Obama didn't just get into Harvard. He made Law Review. He went up against the best the white race had to offer and he proved himself to be more intelligent than them.
Petey, I think you're really pushing the bounds of civility here. Given that anti-black racism is probably a more common motive than affirmative action, your statement that Obama supporters are motivated to support Obama rather than Edwards by affirmative action is no more -- and possibly less -- credible than a hypothetical claim that Edwards supporters are motivated to support Edwards rather than Obama by mistrust of blacks / good ol' fashioned American white supremacy.
I'm not actually accusing Edwards supporters of any such racism, because that's bullshit, but so is this stuff about Obama's support deriving from his race. No doubt some people support Obama because he's black, just as some support Edwards because he's white, but you can't reduce Obama's support to "affirmative action." After all, it's not as if Carol Moseley-Braun or Al Sharpton swept the Democratic primaries in '04.
For the record - I would argue that the biggest reason to support Obama is that he got the Iraq War right from the start. He had the right positions, he had the courage to make them clear (when he could have dodged), and he has been vindicated.
This is one reason I think the negatives to affirmative action are overstated - White people will always feel blacks are receiving special privileges, no matter how untrue it is. People said blacks received unfair advantages like this well before the Civil Rights movement. People believed this while blacks were legally discriminated against by the government and private business.
If we eliminate affirmative action nationwide tomorrow, there will be a substantial number of whites 10 years from now still talking about how black success stories received benefits because they were black. It's part of the subconscious racism we develop when raised in American culture. It's a real problem.
MDtoMN:
"People said blacks received unfair advantages like this well before the Civil Rights movement. People believed this while blacks were legally discriminated against by the government and private business."
Do you have any citation for this claim?
"What happens to the white guy who doesn't get into NYU because he gets bumped by the white guy who got bumped by the less-qualified black guy at Harvard?"
"He goes to Cornell. Oooh! Such injustice!"
More likely, he goes to Fordham, and then votes Republican for the rest of his life. And if he is ever in a position to give a black guy a break, he goes out of his way not to.
"Petey, I think you're really pushing the bounds of civility here."
I'm pushing the bounds of civility by discussing that normalizing race is at the core of the Obama campaign's appeal?
I'm pushing the bounds of civility by discussing something that Obama's rhetoric brings up literally? I'm pushing the bounds of civility by saying that I found the lure of this appeal to be rather compelling?
Somehow, I think we have drastically different notions of were the bounds of civility lie.
-----
Civility aside, if I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know what else the Obama campaign is about. He's running on biography and personality, best I can tell, and nothing else.
Petey:
"I'm pushing the bounds of civility by discussing that normalizing race is at the core of the Obama campaign's appeal?"
How would electing a (half, African) black man president "normalize race" in way that appointing two black Secretaries of State, two black Supreme Court Justices, black major corporation (e.g., Merrill Lynch, Time Warner) CEOs, electing numerous black big-city mayors, black governors, and Congressmen hasn't?
an African-American Democrat probably has more latitude to say sensible things about affirmative action (via Jon Chait who sees this as part of a growing populist trend in Obama's rhetoric) that would get a white candidate in hot water with supporters he's counting on.
Isn't the flipside to this that Obama probably feels pressure to say "sensible things" about affirmative action - that is, to bash it in ways that white Democrats could never afford to - in order to distance himself from "black issues"? Throughout his campaign, Obama has been careful to present himself in a way that takes advantage of his ethnicity (and the historic opportunity his campaign represents) while putting some space between himself and the causes traditionally associated with African-American candidates (civil rights, poverty, social justice, etc.). The strategy here is obvious, if regrettable: to present a black politician who "transcends race" by not pushing too many racial buttons. Sharpton and Jackson both had a tendency to ruffle dainty white feathers by talking about issues that have been typically coded as "black"; I'm sure the Obama camp remembers this when they send their guy out with all that soaring but curiously empty rhetoric about the healing power of hope.
How would electing a (half, African) black man president "normalize race" in way that appointing two black Secretaries of State, two black Supreme Court Justices, black major corporation (e.g., Merrill Lynch, Time Warner) CEOs, electing numerous black big-city mayors, black governors, and Congressmen hasn't?
I don't think that anyone who's thought about it for more than five seconds actually thinks electing Obama will actually "normalize race" in America. But do you really think that the symbolic power of electing a black president isn't one of the biggest selling points of his campaign? Yes, high-information voters are more likely to value Obama's judgment on Iraq, but how many rank-and-file Obama fans are supporting him because of the war? My guess is it's not the majority, at least judging by the campaign Obama's run, which isn't emphasizing the war to anywhere near the extent that Howard Dean's did (to compare Obama with a previous candidate who had a similar advantage).
Christmas:
"Yes, high-information voters are more likely to value Obama's judgment on Iraq, but how many rank-and-file Obama fans are supporting him because of the war?"
I don't think it takes a particularly "high-information" voter to know Obama was against the Iraq War from the beginning; neither do I think he deserves high credit for being against it: he was simply following the liberal Democrat position (e.g., that of Ted Kennedy). That position has been reflexively anti-war since Vietnam, including voting against the first Gulf War. Nevertheless, I do think his Iraq position is a major reason for Obama's popularity -- it's a set of baggage Obama's competitors Hillary and Edwards are saddled with that he isn't.
Obama can also better lay claim to the youthful cohort of Democrats perpetually attracted to a JFK-like figure: Obama is younger and a far better public speaker than the other Dems, and he has a short-enough resume as a politician that he can speak platitudes about transcending politics without sounding completely implausible. The symbolism of being black doesn't hurt, but it would be completely empty symbolism, after all: America has no history of oppressing Kenyan economists like Obama's father, and Obama -- who sailed smoothly from expensive Hawaiian prep school, to exclusive California college, to Columbia and Harvard -- has no personal history of overcoming any adversity in this country based on his color.
The theory that Iraq, not race, explains Obama's popularity doesn't stand up to the historical evidence. Obama became a superstar with his keynote address to the Democratic convention in 2004. Although he had made a good speech against the Iraq war in 2002, he did not repeat those criticisms in his 2004 speech that made him famous. What he did emphasize, what he started with, was his "story of race and inheritance."
A good friend of mine, a professor of Classics, had the opportunity to sit on the undergraduate admissions committee one year at an Ivy League school, which I will not name. This person, generally a liberal, was amazed at how many on the committee did not want the school to accept many white males. They would not say it as such; they would couch it as "let's give someone else an opportunity," etc. He told me that he particularly liked one candidate, who was brilliant, he said, but the committee chose a hispanic woman in his place, with substantially lower test scores.
The truth of the matter is that Barack Hussein Obama is a recipient of affirmative action. People on the committees at Harvard and Columbia have already said that he was accepted because of affirmative action, not academic merit.
Obama is a very dangerous man. If elected President, he will all but declare war upon the white race.
"Obama is a very dangerous man. If elected President, he will all but declare war upon the white race."
Where Sailer goes, the Sailer-ettes follow.
"People on the committees at Harvard and Columbia have already said that he was accepted because of affirmative action, not academic merit."
Wow, this unsourced allegation completely proves that affirmative action is a bad policy, because as we all know Obama was unable to compete with the smarter preppy white kids at Harvard, and as a result he subsequently dropped out of college and opened a junkyard with his son.
The theory that Iraq, not race, explains Obama's popularity doesn't stand up to the historical evidence.
The theory that if it's not Iraq the only other thing it could be is his race is a sign of a certain, shall we say, obsession.
"Where Sailer goes, the Sailer-ettes follow."
Petey, you've already demonstrated that you can't argue intelligently with Sailer. Stop embarrassing yourself with the name-calling.
"Stop embarrassing yourself with the name-calling."
Thank you for your concern, but I'll note that the only name I was calling there was "Sailer", which happens to actually be the guy's name.
If that name is an embarrassment, I don't think that's my problem.
On the off-chance that a consensus emerges - are people seriously arguing that race is *not* a major part of Obama's appeal?
Are folks arguing that we would seriously be weighing a 46 year old with two full years in the Senate for President and no military or notable background if he were yet another middle-aged white guy?
Or, as noted above, are folks arguing that Obama's 2004 convention speech was not about race and biography?
I try to learn something new every day.
obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law. He was elected president of Harvard Law Review.
just putting it out there.
Comments closed May 28, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Matt,
Have you thought about whether you were a beneficiary of affirmative action in having a Hispanic-sounding name? Do you think this might have helped you get into Harvard?
Frankly, if I were a Wonder Bread-white guy who didn't get into Harvard after applying with top grades and SATs, while less-qualified minority applicants were accepted, I wouldn't be jumping for joy over Obama's latest milquetoast platitudinal comments on affirmative action.
Posted by Steve | May 14, 2007 1:51 PM