Race and the Election

In the past few days, race entered in to the Presidential campaign for the first time though it is not as explicit as it was in the Democratic Primary. On one level, the purpose of interjecting race, for both sides, is preventative. On another level, the purpose of raising the issue of race is to increase racial resentment.

The Obama camp wants to raise the specter of to race to warn against its use, redirecting the campaign to the issues because he is winning on almost all of the issues (Economy, Health Care but not necessarily Iraq). This is why he states, “they'll state I'm different and not like the other presidents on our currency;” “he has a funny name;” and “I’m black.” By preemptively redirecting, he hopes to keep the focus on the issues and avoid race. Ironically, in a web ad, the McCain campaign used the face of Senator Obama on a dollar bill, as well as on the Statue of Liberty and Mt. Rushmore.

The McCain camp wants to raise the issue that Senator Obama and not Senator McCain is playing the race card in the election, focusing the campaign on the issue of race and on character. Since McCain is not winning on the issues he must win on character. Consequently, McCain's campaign has two main arguments about Senator Obama. First, he is risky (he is a celebrity and not a politician; he has "fans;" he would rather win the campaign and not the war; he delivers great speeches but does not have great ideas).

Second, Obama is different (he likes arugula; he goes to the gym three times a day; he appeals to foreigners; he prefers MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew -- Black Forest Berry Honest Tea). At Open Left, Chris Bowers notes the premise behind this is "different who are people suck." The is just tribal politics of which identity politics is a sub-category.

In addition to his arguments, McCain's new race strategy is to push the issue of race as far as possible without every being explicit. The celeb ad is one part of the strategy. The creators of the "Celeb" ad are the creators of the attack against Harold Ford Jr., in "Call Me." However, "Celeb" does not go as far as "Call Me" did. It went far enough to move the discussion to race but it is only suggestive and implicit in a way that "Obama did drugs so maybe he is a dealer" is over the top and explicit, right Mr. Penn?

By moving the topic to discuss race we move further away from the issues, especially when the end of July numbers shows even more problem with jobs and corporations. This would be all bad news for McCain if we would focus on it. Instead, the McCain campaign stirs the pot of racial resentment, especially within the "blue collar" and lower-income demographics. As Ben Smith at Politico discusses, while racism is not necessary a campaign strategy, racial resentment is necessary to increase racially-polarized voting, which would only hurt Senator Obama or any racial candidate in most majoritarian voting systems.

In an interview with CNN's John King, Senator McCain awkward addresses the race issue, claiming that there is no place for it in this campaign, the Obama campaign used the race card, and then ends the interview with no chance of rebuttal. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, said Obama pulled from the bottom of the Deck to play the race card. For Obama to use the race card, McCain suggests, is to try to win on style and not substance, reinforcing argument one, and McCain cares too much for the Ameircan people to let that happen, reinforcing argument two that states Obama is different, since Obama is not patriotic and does not care about the American people as a president should. Subsequently, McCain cares the American people, hence, he is more patriotic.

Another potential topic where McCain can use this strategy is affirmative action. Recently McCain's reversed his position on affirmative action, as he now will vote for the anti-affirmative action initiatives in Arizona. All he needs is the media to ask him about it and he can reinforce his to arguments about Obama: Affirmative Action provides people with benefits who do not deserve them, making that group "special." The first argues that the people receiving the benefits are less qualified (aka, they lack substance) and these practices create special groups and treat citizens differently.

Conincidently, there are are three states with anti-affirmative action initiatives on the ballot this fall and two of them are the "Swing States" of New Mexico and Colorado. Imagine that: a controversial initiative hoping to stir the emotions just like, on a limited scale, the Gay-Marriage Initiatives of 2004.

By walking around the issue of race, the McCain campaign entices the media to pick up the story, which it did because there is little else to cover (or what there is to cover may require too much substantive reporting of actual issues) and draw the Obama campaign to discuss race, which they have to in response to McCain and the Media. When everyone discusses race, especially potential double-standards on race, this may raise racial resentment. And if there is a discussion of race or the development of racial resentment, Senator Obama loses voters.

If Senator Obama continues to make comments to defend himself against the different charge, then the McCain campaign will make the argument that Obama is playing a game with race. This provides he McCain campaign to interject race as they can quickly counter with a Chicken Little argument or "There he goes again." Of course, McCain will not be able to play this game throughout the fall as, at some point, he must actually address the issues and not Senator Obama.