Convenient Cover: Why Ideology & "Electability" May Overide Obama's Star Quality

U.S. Senator Barack Obama continues to be quite popular in this week's much talked about poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, and many pundits seem to be banking on the hype to push Obama over the edge and take the plunge into the 2008 presidential race. The problem with the rating, however, is that about as many people who gave Obama high marks said they didn't know enough about him to rate him. Do these almost 50% percent of Republicans and more than one third of Democrats perhaps not know - we dare say - that Obama is black?

Whether they and others know this or not now, perhaps, is not important. But there is no doubt that once the reality and implications of Obama's complexion sinks in, it will make a crucial difference in his election hopes - both among Democrats in the primary, and in the general election should he win (though, as you will probably see later, we wonder whether he'd make it that far).

Let's begin with the general election, where Republicans and other conservative types will of course be part of the electorate. It seems an almost foregone conclusion at this point that Republicans, especially in the South, have mastered and continue to refine the art of race-baiting; they know such messages will always find fertile ground to influence voting decisions at the least, and develop into vociferous anti-black/minority opposition, even hysteria, at most (especially in a Presidential race). Of course there is always convenient cover for such insidious messages; for Republicans, it is ideology.

And you can already see it coming in this week's evangelical rancor over Rick Warren's invitation of Obama to speak at his megachurch AIDS summit. Should Obama win the nomination, he is certain to face vigorous opposition from Republicans who believe Obama's real sin is his skin. This sentiment will be denied of course, with claims that it is his stance on abortion, stem cell research, homosexuals, etc. - not race - that is the reason for opposition.

Our claim that Republicans would respond this way is not without warrant (see an article in this week's New Republic for more in depth discussion about this).

However, Obama will likely face this predicament of opposition from Democrats as well. For some - those lingering Dixiecrats in the South - it also may well be a racial opposition. But by and large it is likely to be fueled by something different.

There's only one thing that matters to Democrats in 2008 - winning. It is this - what is known in political parlance as the question of electability - that will likely make Obama's quest, should he eventually embark on it, difficult. Democrats are likely to find themselves in a vicious circle of reasoning that though they themselves have no problem with Obama being black, they don't think others share their belief (at least not enough people). If you ask Democrats whether the country is "ready for a black President," my guess is the answer would be, no (for whites, and many black as well). And so many Democrats, in search for a winning candidate may likely conclude that people will not vote for a black President - he can't win - and therefore we shouldn't set him and the party up for certain failure.

Fraught with "race of interviewer" effects and skewed because of social desirability though it may be, what the folks at Quinnipiac, Gallup and other polling organizations should be asking at this point is whether or not people care about race when making their choice of candidates in 2008, and how willing they would be to vote for a black man for President. That, we believe, would tell us much more about the hopes and possibilities of an Obama candidacy than perhaps anything else.

Obama certainly has the qualifications to be President, yet the barriers of race make us quite skeptical about the possibility of the nation electing the first black President.