Hillary Plays the Race Card

Last week, we came as close as we ever will to making an electoral prediction. We warned that Barack Obama’s win in Iowa might not translate into a win in New Hampshire because concerns about electing a black man as president (in a state that is almost completely comprised of white voters) can more easily affect vote choice in the privacy of a voting booth as opposed to in a public caucus setting. There is no way to be certain that Hillary Clinton won for this reason, but the historic inaccuracy of pre-election polls in New Hampshire suggests the possibility.

Further, the Clinton camp launched an all-out assault on Obama after his win in Iowa. Two of the comments rise to the level of “playing the race card,” so this space is dedicated to an analysis of those.

First, it is important to remember what it means to “play the race card” in contemporary American politics. There are two elements that are counter-intuitive: invoking race does not necessarily have to be intentional, and the message must be implicitly racial so as not to alert the audience that race is being used. While the media is primarily interested in intent, we are not. It is sexy to find a “smoking gun” that proves a campaign intended to prime negative predispositions about race to help its candidate, but such a quest does not help us to understand the way people may be affected by the message (which is our primary interest). What we do know from scores of studies is that an explicit mention of race – particularly from a white candidate running against a candidate of color – will inevitably backfire. Because, as Tali Mendelberg has now famously showed us, we have a cultural norm of racial equality, white Americans in particular are sensitive to being (or at least appearing) to be racially prejudiced. For a racial message to be effective, it must prime racial resentment at the subconscious level; that is, the receiver of the message cannot be alerted to the fact that the message is inherently racial.

We saw this twice over the past week from the Clinton campaign: once from the candidate herself and once from her husband, the former president.

Last Monday (the day before the New Hampshire primaries) Bill Clinton publicly referred to Barack Obama’s record of opposing the war in Iraq as a “fairy tale.” Ordinarily, this would not trigger any concern about racial messages, but the phrase was exactly the same as former Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Joe Biden used one year ago to refer to Obama’s candidacy. Those remarks were explicitly racial, though they were intended as a compliment. Biden’s point was that Obama is an attractive candidate because he is well-spoken, bright, and without a lot of political baggage or skeletons. Implicit in his comments was the suggestion that black candidates – and African Americans in general – do not possess these qualities. That comment garnered a significant amount of media attention (we wrote about it in this space), so it is certain that the former president had heard about it. Again, intent aside, the term “fairly tale,” which is not often used in politics, has the potential to cue Biden’s comments or otherwise suggest that this black candidate is not fit to be president – a message that the Clinton campaign is using explicitly as they argue that Obama does not have enough experience to inhabit the Oval Office.

What’s more, Bill Clinton’s comments come the same day that Senator Clinton made remarks about Obama’s similarity to Dr. Martin Luther King. In a series of speeches, Clinton has invoked the memory of Dr. King – particularly as she has campaigned in South Carolina – to separate her commitment to minority rights from Obama’s. How, you might ask, can a white candidate out-black a black candidate? By suggesting that the latter does not have the ability to effect meaningful change – just like Martin Luther King. The exchange went something like this: Obama has mentioned King often in his remarks to remind voters of a time when people had “the audacity to hope,” and since the Iowa caucuses he had given a number of stirring speeches with a cadence and charisma reminiscent of King. Clinton was quick to stay on message that Obama is little more than a pretty package with not enough substance to get the job done. In doing so, she played the race card by saying the following at a rally in New Hampshire last Monday: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.”

Because we are more on alert to the race card being played (because of past usage, as well as because there is a black candidate in the race), the racial implications of the message did not go unnoticed. The remarks started a vigorous discussion in the media and online, even prompting the influential black member of Congress James Clyburn of South Carolina to seemingly break his neutrality by openly criticizing the comment. By suggesting that black leaders can stir emotions but cannot achieve results without white allies, she suggested (intentionally or otherwise – remember: we are not concerned about intent) that while Obama might talk a good game, it is important to remember that change will only truly come with a white person at the helm.

The situation became even more curious when billionaire Black Entertainment Founder Bob Johnson attacked Obama at a Clinton rally by saying that Obama must believe black folks are “stupid” to think that Clinton was trying to play the race card. He went on to suggest that Obama was doing drugs while the Clintons were fighting for racial justice, a suggestion he unsuccessfully tried to deny later in the day. Johnson, who has come under consistent fire from black Americans for perpetuating racial stereotypes on his network while making a fortune from doing so, showed how the Clintons will be able to use their significant clout with African American leaders to mitigate Obama’s messages among black voters.

Ironically, we may see a twist on the “New Hampshire effect” in South Carolina. That is, no matter how many black folks Clinton can draw to her rallies, she may find that in the privacy of a voting booth, African Americans display a propensity to vote for Obama in numbers greater than the polls indicate.

In closing, it is important to note that Bill Richardson, the first Latino candidate to participate in a presidential primary for a major party nomination, dropped out after he failed to exceed expectations in New Hampshire. While there was little explicit discussion about race during his campaign, he served as a symbol of the attempt of American to transcend its divisive past in this year when the Democratic Party’s top front runners are a woman and an African American. He, too, pushed forward the path to disassembling the 220 years of white male presidents (and presidential candidates).

Related Stories:

"Clinton, Obama Clash Over Race Issue " (New York Times)
"Clinton-Obama War of Words" (New York Times blog)
"Race and Gender are Issues in Tense Day for Democrats" (New York Times)
"Obama Attacked by 'Big Bobcat'" (Chicago Tribune blog)