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Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks Tuesday about race during a news conference in Philadelphia.
Posted on Wed, Mar. 19, 2008
The racial divide | Walking the tightrope
Obama seeks to rescue campaign, reassure blacks, whites by talking about race
By WILLIAM DOUGLAS - McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama might have righted his shaken presidential campaign with his bold speech on race Tuesday, political analysts said.
“I think his candidacy was in serious, serious trouble. I think that this speech saved his campaign,” said G. Terry Madonna, director for the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall College.
Obama confronted the nation’s racial divide head-on Tuesday, tackling both black grievance and white resentment in a bold effort to quiet a campaign uproar over race and his former pastor’s incendiary statements.
Standing before a row of eight American flags near the building where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, Obama urged the nation to break “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.”
“The anger is real,” he said. “It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”
The speech, at the National Constitution Center, was by far the most prominent airing of racial issues in Obama’s 13-month campaign to become the first black president. It was prompted by the wider notice his former pastor’s racial statements have been receiving in the last week.
Madonna and other analysts said Obama’s remarks will likely reaffirm his popularity among African-American voters and ease concerns among upscale white suburban voters about the controversial opinions of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
But Obama’s address isn’t likely to sway many working-class white Democrats, who helped U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton win in Texas and Ohio and who appear poised to do the same for her in Pennsylvania’s Democratic presidential primary on April 22.
“It was a risky speech, but on the whole, it will help more than it will hurt,” said Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political science professor. “But it’s going to take more than one speech for him to get white working-class Democrats. He’s going to have to put himself out front of those voters again and again. He’s got to find a way of telling them, ‘What I have in mind will help you.’”
A video circulating of Wright shows him asserting American foreign policy was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Wright also said the United States should be condemned for its treatment of African-Americans. He accuses the government of flooding black communities with drugs and HIV.
In taking on the issues of race and Wright’s remarks, Obama sought to douse two fires simultaneously: worries among whites struggling to square Obama’s inclusive rhetoric with the divisive views of his minister, and fears among some African-Americans that Obama would jettison Wright to appeal to white voters.
Obama has struggled of late to gain a majority of white votes, with Clinton winning big among whites in most Southern states as well as in New Jersey, where she captured the white vote by a 2-to-1-margin; Missouri, where she won it by 57-39 percent; and Ohio, where she carried white voters by 61-38 percent.
“The speech went a long way in responding to critics on both sides,” said Todd Shaw, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. “He had to respond to African-Americans who felt he was disassociating himself from the black church and respond to those who felt Reverend Wright’s views were Obama’s views. He had to concede he had a problem.”
Clinton, Obama’s chief Democratic rival, said she was glad Obama had given the speech.
“Issues of race and gender in America have been complicated throughout our history, and they are complicated in this primary campaign,” said Clinton, also campaigning in Philadelphia.
Obama faces a daunting political task in Pennsylvania, where places like Scranton, Pittsburgh and Allentown mirror some of Ohio’s economically hard-hit areas. Obama spoke in Philadelphia. Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a staunch Clinton supporter, opined that his state has “conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”
Clinton holds a solid 56-30 percent lead over Obama in Pennsylvania, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Monday. She holds a commanding 63-23 percent lead over Obama among white voters, the survey found.
Obama trumps Clinton 63-27 percent among Pennsylvania’s black voters, but that’s a potentially bad omen for him because he’s usually pulled 80 percent to 90 percent of blacks in previous primary states.
“The big story in the presidential race over the last week has been the comments of Barack Obama’s pastor about America,” said Dean Debnam, Public Policy Polling’s president.
“It appears this issue has hurt him a good deal with likely primary voters in Pennsylvania. ... He’s definitely a victim of the 24-hour news cycle right now.”
The Associated Press contributed.
