Knockout
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
History
will record that it was a crushing victory in the North Carolina
primary that proved Barack Obama’s decisive blow against Hillary
Clinton in the 2008 race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The state’s combination of a significant African American
population, a large number of college students, and a big pool of
highly-educated white voters proved magical for the Illinois Senator.
Clinton,
who has dodged many bullets during this campaign, may stay in the
race until the bitter end. But only a miracle for her or disaster for
Obama can change the dye cast in the Tar Heel state. By last weekend
Obama, who holds an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, had
erased Clinton’s once-substantial lead in superdelegates. After
winning the Indiana primary held the same day as the North Carolina
election by a slim margin, Hillary Clinton claimed that the tide had
turned. Indeed, it had but not in a direction favorable to the New
York Senator. Clinton’s disappointingly meager Indiana victory
combined with Obama’s decisive win in North Carolina started a slow
but steady trickle of superdelegates toward Obama, a trend that
dashed Clinton’s last hope, that of being rescued by Democratic
Party leaders.
What
does Barack Obama’s victory mean? It is, first of all, a testament
to Obama’s political brilliance. But it is more than that. Obama
is, because of his political skills, intelligence, temper, and
background virtually the perfect candidate to test how far this
country has come in overcoming the legacy of racism. The results have
shown that some sectors of the Democratic electorate at least have
come a long way.
But,
if Obama’s primary victory showed how far parts of this country
have come on the question of race, the general election may show how
far other sectors of the electorate have yet to go.
Obama
now must urgently reach out to those sectors of the Democratic
electorate — women, working class whites, Latinos — who favored
Hillary Clinton in the primaries. He must do it by showing that he is
a better choice in terms of the interests and values of these voters
than John McCain.
Obama
must make a special effort to reach the Latino population, a key to a
Democratic victory in November. Many analysts have interpreted
Clinton’s consistently greater support among Latinos as reflecting
a Latino rejection of a black candidate. Such an analysis is
fundamentally flawed, notwithstanding the fact of substantial
black-Latino rivalry and instances of open antagonism. In fact,
Latinos have a track record of supporting black Democratic candidates
against white Republican candidates in many races around the country.
And Latino support for Hillary Clinton is mainly a reflection of much
greater familiarity with the candidate, plus loyalty and gratitude.
A
March 7, 2008, report by the Pew Hispanic Institute (“The Hispanic
Vote in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primaries”) throws an
interesting light on the issue of race as a factor in Latino
political choices. The study found that among voters in the Super
Tuesday primaries, a far higher percentage of Latinos (28 percent)
than whites (13 percent) said that race was important in deciding
their vote. However, the Latino vote for Obama was the same among
those who thought race was important (35 percent) as among those who
said race was not important (35 percent) while among whites, the vote
for Obama was lower among those who said race was important (35
percent) compared to those who said race was not important (43
percent).
One
possible explanation for this Latino pattern might be that race cuts
two contradictory ways among Hispanics. Some Latinos may reject Obama
because of prejudice or ethnic rivalry while others may identify with
and embrace him as a standard bearer for all people of color and not
just African Americans.
What
is clear is that, apart from very conservative or hard-core
Republican voters, Latinos are a constituency that Obama can win
over. One of the challenges in doing this is overcoming John McCain’s
image as the rare Republican sympathetic to immigrants. In fact, as
with so many other issues, John McCain has changed his position on
immigration in order to curry favor with Republican right-wing voters
and now favors an immigration policy focused on border control and
enforcement rather than legalization.
The
stakes could not be higher for Latinos as for all Americans. John
McCain portrays himself as a Republican maverick. Yet, if the Arizona
Senator has, in a few areas of domestic policy, strayed from the
Republican herd in the past, he is now squarely in the right-wing
camp. In order to win the nomination, McCain has become cozy with
every reactionary segment of the Republican Party, from the advocates
of endless tax cuts for the rich to the xenophobic zealots to the
religious fanatics.
It’s
worse when it comes to foreign policy. Both on Iraq and Iran, McCain
actually has been more hawkish than Bush. Unlike Obama, McCain would
not even begin to extricate the United States from the quagmire into
which Bush has sunk this country. Instead, he says he would be
content to have U.S. troops stay in Iraq for decades and possibly
undertake a new and undoubtedly disastrous adventure next door in
Iran.
It
would be a disaster if prejudice or the wounds of the campaign
produced a third term for George W. Bush in the person of John
McCain. This election will be a test of character, not the character
of Barack Obama or John McCain, but of the character of the American
people.
