Obama and Racism

If Obama loses this election, the primary reason will be racism.

I am among the Democrats who are freaking out a little bit because the Obama campaign is allowing McCain to control the debate and seem to be unwilling to punch him in the gut. I thought we learned these lessons in 2000 and 2004. Others seem to think people like me are overreacting. It's not often that I am more pessimistic than Dave Noon, but this is one case. Bill Clinton seems pretty confident too, for whatever that's worth.

I'm willing to relax and accept this. But what I worry about is racism in Michigan. Tom S. has a great post about the deep-seated racial animosity in Michigan. This could easily cost Obama the state. Michigan has an above-average percentage of older white people. Most people point to the riots of 1967 as the seed of racial hatred in Michigan, but of course it goes back much farther. Detroit during World War II was not a nice place when it came to racial harmony. For anyone interested in these issues, I suggest reading Thomas Sugrue's The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, which is one of the best history books I have ever read.

U.S. politics is ultimately driven by local issues. Talking heads don't talk about this much because they would have to work and understand the nation rather than staying in Washington and creating grand narratives out of trivia. When Tom Daschle lost his Senate seat in 2004, it wasn't because Democrats can't win anymore in places like South Dakota. It was because he had basically abandoned the state and had listed his residence as Washington, D.C., for tax purposes. That pissed off enough South Dakotans that they voted him out of office. Similarly, Kathleen Sebelius' surprising success as governor of Kansas has a lot to do with her personal political skills, but at least as much to do with infighting that has crippled the Kansas Republican party over the past 10 years.

If Obama loses the election, it is probably because he loses Michigan. If he loses, every commentator will create grand narratives as to why, probably focusing on his lofty rhetoric, his supposed elitism, his inability to connect with working-class voters, or some other bullshit. But the real reason will be racism. Enough people won't vote for him because he's black that it could cost him the election. A lot of those people live in places that weren't going to go Democratic anyway--Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, etc. But Michigan should go Democratic. If it doesn't, it isn't anything Obama did or didn't do. It's because he's black.

I was hoping Obama's candidacy would open a national discussion on race, but of course it hasn't. It's something no one wants to talk about. The Republicans certainly don't want to bring it up because they want the racist vote and want to play on racist symbols and ideas to undermine Obama without being too obvious about it. The media doesn't want to talk about it, I guess because it would impinge their white viewership and would be seen as biased against McCain. Obama doesn't bring it up because it doesn't seem like good politics from his angle, which might be right.

If Obama loses, he loses because of racism. And if that happens, some more cynical Democrats will claim that we should have nominated Hillary because she wouldn't have had that problem and would have won easily. That's probably a bad argument. I say probably because if the Democrats win only their normal states and if Arkansas would have put us over the top, the argument makes electoral sense. But Hillary would have been far less competitive in the West. New Mexico might have gone to the Democrats, but that's unsure. Certainly Colorado would not be competitive, nor would Nevada or Montana. Virginia and Iowa, I don't know. But while Obama has not been able to continue his 50 state strategy into the general election, he has least opened up states for Democrats that have not been competitive for 15 years.

Unless something really bad happens between now and then, I say this:

Win or lose--Obama in 2012!