Word: racial
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iowa and the overwhelmingly white exurb known as New Hampshire into Nevada and South Carolina. The Nevada population is one-quarter Hispanic, and typically about half of South Carolina Democratic-primary voters are African American. Within hours of reaching those states, the contest between Clinton and Obama acquired a racial text and subtext that posed dangers for both candidates. The spat subsided only after the candidates stepped in to defuse the tension and return to the sort of post-identity campaigns that both will need to run in the general election...
While South Carolina Democrats of all races have doubtless thought about the racial implications of this election, on the ground--in the churches and salons and restaurants the candidates visit--very few voters will actually base their decision on race. Indeed, what all candidates are learning--or will soon learn--is that African-American voters can't be neatly classified or treated as a homogeneous voting bloc. Nearly 80% of blacks vote Democratic, but Republican candidates have managed to make intermittent gains over the past decade. Many African-American voters--including Democrats--line up with conservatives on social and cultural...
Twenty-two states will hold Democratic primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5. The racial politics of New York, California and many of the other states voting that day are so riverine that they make South Carolina's racial divide look simple. But if Obama can persuade enough black and white South Carolinians to give him a resounding victory, he may be able to claim that he knows not only how to fire up an American crowd but also how to dampen its lingering prejudices...
Obama himself acknowledged this problem in a speech last August to the National Association of Black Journalists. But pressure is mounting on Obama to accentuate his blackness and show that he has not forsaken his adopted racial roots. Some will claim that it is good politics for him to do so because the South Carolina primary features a Democratic Party electorate that is 50% African American. Another source of pressure comes from old-school civil rights activists suddenly facing eclipse, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton...
Second, displaying commitment to racial loyalty would, for Obama, unjustifiably jeopardize key white support. Astonishing numbers of whites have been drawn to Obama's effort to forge a new alliance of voters that transcends race. When Senator Hillary Clinton accused Obama of deliberately racializing her ill-chosen remarks on Martin Luther King Jr., L.B.J. and civil rights legislation, she implicitly suggested that the Obama camp had indulged in racial opportunism--victim-mongering of the Jackson-Sharpton variety. An important slice of the white vote that Obama attracts is made up of people who are keenly attentive to such charges. They...