Barack Hussein Obama and the politics of race

Obama's silence on Imus alarms some blacks - The Boston Globe:

"But with Obama battling other Democrats -- most notably Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York -- for the support of black voters, the candidate's reticence on the Imus issue set off alarms yesterday among some black activists who are anxious to see him more forcefully push for racial justice."

Obama is not an Irish name or a Polish one, but there must be days when the Illinois senator must wish it were. Almost any change at all would make his life less complicated. Obama did not become a US senator from Illinois by being "the black candidate." That is a strategy that only works at lower levels - city and county offices, state legislatures, or the US House of Representatives.

There is no state where such a strategy will lead to victory for a statewide office and it certainly won't work running for president. It won't even come close to winning the Democrat nomination as Shirley Chisholm (1972), Jesse Jackson (1984 and 1988) and Al Sharpton (2004) have amply demonstrated.

Look at the record of black politicians who have succeeded in races for state-wide offices. The late US Senator Ed Brook of Massachusetts, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of Ohio, Lieutenant Governor Mike Steele of Maryland had to build broad coalitions in states that were either heavily Democratic or highly competitive - states where being black and Republican were not enough to secure an election.

Doug Wilder did not get elected governor in Virginia merely be being the black candidate or even the Democrat; he did it by being the business-friendly Democrat who happened to be black. Harold Ford Jr. made his race for US senator in Tennessee competitive by being a Democrat with strong political experience, not primarily as a black candidate.

No doubt, Sen. Obama knows this history well. His own career is just the most recent example.

Obama knows that even 100 percent support from the black community can't guarantee much more than winning the primaries in South Carolina and a few other states where black votes are the principal voting group in the Democrat Party. He needs lots of white votes (more white votes than black votes), Hispanic votes, Asian votes - the votes of all sorts of Democrats to get the nomination and to do so in a way that he is positioned to make a competitive run for the presidency.

So, Obama has been walking a tightrope, trying to work black voters away from his primary rivals while not alienating the white constituency he needs to break free from the pack and actually win the prize. The Imus flap is just the latest pothole in the road to victory, there will likely be others. And they pose a different and greater challenge for Barack Obama than they do for Hilary Clinton or John Edwards.