A lengthy post on gender & race in US politics

May 10, 2008 12:53

A few days ago, I made a post here. Buried in the middle of my ramblings about a very strange dream, and some personal family stuff I talked about the US presidential race. Well, mostly I bitched about Hillary Clinton who is working very very hard to hand the general election in November to John McCain on a silver platter.

A couple of interesting discussions have taken place in the comments. My sister, cyren_2132 and warhol65 with some input from me, have talked about whether a Hillary win or an Obama win of the nomination screws the party more, because at this point it kind of looks like both could do that. I think we're all pretty much coming firmly down on the side of a Hillary win being the worst, because of the reactions of the new and young voters that he has brought into the political process. These are people we may never get back, if the party leadership selects Hillary Clinton as our candidate, which is what it's come down to.

The other discussion has been on the broader question of whether either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama ever had a chance of being elected. I'm finding myself in the odd position of defending both of their chances, odd because before the race started I was fairly certain that neither of them could be. I want to talk a little bit about my reasons for believing that they could not be elected before I get into the reasons that I'll be focusing on in this post. Also, I feel that in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am an Obama supporter and have been from fairly early in this race. You probably already guessed that.

Here's what I thought the big stumbling blocks were to their campaigns. For Hillary it was never really gender. I can think of 1/2 a dozen women off the top of my head who I believe could and very well may someday win the presidency. The two best candidates are Elizabeth Dole who not only has all of the famous name recognition of her husband, himself a presidential candidate and US Senator, but is an articulate, passionate and well-liked woman on both sides of the aisle. She's someone who campaigned for John F. Kennedy and worked in the Johnson White House before working for Nixon and Reagan and changing her party affiliation to Republican. She's a moderate on pretty much all issues, social and economic. But the most important thing there, is that she's well-liked. The other is Kathleen Sebelius, current governor of Kansas. Again in the interest of full-disclosure I feel like I should mention that I'm from Kansas. Sebelius is a Democrat who was elected by a fairly good margin in a heavily Republican state. She's a moderate on social issues and fairly liberal on economic issues. She comes from a background that is strongly middle-America working class, but also one with political ties. And again, most importantly, she's well-liked. My issue with Hillary's campaign has had very little to do with her being a woman. It has always been the specifics of who she is. She's a woman who is divisive in every way. People love her or hate her and there is no in-between. People who don't agree with her, rarely respect her, and she cannot work with the opposition to reach a compromise. She just isn't liked enough to be president. And okay, that does have a little bit to do with being a woman, because if she were a man the things that make people in general dislike her, would make them see her as strong and no-nonsesne, but that is really beside the point. I felt this way from the very beginning, when it was first speculated that she would run. At that point, I liked her a lot. I respected her. I strongly considered making her my candidate. It is what she's done in the race that has drawn my ire.

Now let's look at the reasons that I thought an Obama ticket was doomed, reasons that frankly still keep me up nights. His are very much more straight-forward, and the reasons you might expect. I don't know that the country is ready to elect a black man president. I don't know that he can possibly carry states where the confederate flag is prominently displayed at government sites, and where law is still the only reason that schools are not segregated. I think he's got a chance, because those states also have large black populations that if he can get them to go to the polls might be enough to tip the scales, but that's a big if, and assumes that there are enough of them eligible to vote in states that still use legal maneuvering to disenfranchise black voters in massive numbers. That's strike 1. Strike 2 is his name. I think it would be much easier for a black man to win if he had an "American" sounding name. His name makes him an easier target for idiot radio hosts who like to point out the similar sound between Obama and Osama. It makes him seem more foreign, combine that with the fact that his father actually was from another country and he just seems too exotic to be an American president.

But none of these reasons are what were brought up in comments to the last post. yinkawills made this comment, to start the discussion.
I'm a black woman from Britain, and I think Obama can't become president, for the same reason Hilary can't.

The first black or female president- i.e someone breaking the mould due to race or gender- would have to be a conservative. That would enable voters to stomach the shock.

In the UK, the first woman Prime Minister was someone so right wing, her gender was the only radical thing about her.
If she'd been in the US she would have been to the right of Reagan.

I've noticed this elsewhere,in major Western democracies. Its too much to expect voters to go for both a giant departure in their normal patterns of thinking (and voting) and accept some major political upheavals as well. If either Obama or Clinton were conservative Republicans, they'd stand a better chance.Not that I'm saying either of them are leftish. As I understand it, John Edwards was more left (relatively speaking) than either of them.
Just that they arent conservative enough.

Its no co-incidence that the first black Secretaries of State have been in a Republican administration, for all the vaunted talk of Clinton as 'the first black President' (gag me with a spoon :C)

If post Gulf War 1, Colin Powell had run as a Republican, he could have been elected.Pre-Katrina,-and before it had become apparent what a debacle Gulf War 2 was-I remember reading that a group of Republicans were trying to persuade Dr Rice to run..
What is sad to me, is that the divide and rule game splitting the poorest white communities against black people, to the detriment of both, that has worked ever since the founding of the US, appears to still work...

I responded here with an argument that focused on two issues. The first was that my general feel for US local, state, and national politics was that women and black politicians, particularly the firsts, were usually democrats and often to the liberal end of that scale. I also mentioned that it was largely the youth vote that had gotten these people elected. And I talked extensively about our last barrier-breaking president, John F. Kennedy who was a liberal Democrat who became the first Catholic President.

That drew this response from yinkawills:
I am old enough- just about- to remember that it was quite a big jump for someone of Irish Catholic ancestry to be running for President. But, to put it in perspective, JFK was white, male,Christian, the son of a multimillionaire, and former ambassador.And didnt he go to a private school? His Catholicism was the only thing that marked him out from people who normally fill the Senate/run for president, with the background of a, well a George W Bush (or an Al Gore, for that matter). A female or black person president is a much bigger step for the US, it seems to me from the outside looking in, particularly the latter.Isn't Obama something like only the 5th black senator, ever??

I've moved the whole discussion to a top level post, first because I think it's interesting and there may be other people on my flist who'd like to get in on it, but also because I think there are some important things being said here.

Now, for those who know me, it won't come as any surprise that my first instinct was to go out and research. I suppressed that instinct after the initial round of comments, mostly because I really didn't have the time, but just couldn't help myself the second time around. In fact, I've found the whole thing so interesting that next week I might try to go to the library and do more extensive research and write up something vaguely academic on the roles of race and gender in elected politics in the US.

I have some things to say about appointed political positions and specifically about Colin Powell, but I'm saving those for the very end of this post. I'm also going to get back to Kennedy, because I do have a response to the arguments on his background, but for now I want to go back to my original premise, that by and large, women and men who have been elected are liberal democrats. I'm also going to talk a little about how many of them were publicly educated from working class backgrounds, because that became another criteria to look at in the second comment. I'm starting with Women because there is just so much more material there. Women have been much more successful to date in the political field in general.

For women, I've focused on female governors and senators because those two offices are kind of the stepping stones to the presidency in the US. Most presidents were either governors or senators first. Just generally, twenty US states have elected female governors. Of those, only six of their first governors were Republicans, and many would be considered radical for reasons beyond their gender. The Republicans among them were largely social moderates.

I want to look at three in particular who I think refute the idea that a woman who is first to be elected to a position (particularly an executive position) must be conservative with her gender the only radical thing about her.

First, is Madeleine Kunin, who in addition to being the first female governor of Vermont was also the first elected female Jewish governor in the United States. She was also the first Jewish governor of Vermont. She was publicly educated and worked her way up through local politics to reach that state-wide office. She didn't get there on the money or reputation of her family. She is a liberal democrat.

Second, is Joan Finney, the first female governor of Kansas. She was also the oldest person ever elected governor in Kansas and our first Catholic governor. She was also the first woman in the United States to defeat an incumbent governor. Joan Finney was a moderate Democrat who defeated a conservative Republican in a highly Republican and very socially conservative state. She was also educated in public schools right through to her advanced degrees, and worked her way up through local politics.

Third, is Linda Lingle of Hawaii. She's probably the most socially and economically conservative on this list, and she's the only Republican. She's also probably the most radical for her state. Elected in 2002, she was Hawaii's first elected Republican governor. She is also their first Jewish governor. She was educated in the public schools and rose through the ranks of local politics to reach state-wide office. She was a huge departure from their norm.

Which brings me to female Senators. Twenty-two women from eighteen states have been elected and served complete terms in the senate, or are currently serving their first elected term. Only six of those have been Republicans, and many of those are socially liberal, which in US politics is where it really counts. There are plenty of economically conservative Democrats and economically liberal Republicans. It's the social issues that are really the liberal/conservative dividing line in America. Gun Control, Abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, stem cell research, these are the things that mark someone as radical either radically liberal or radically conservative.

Maine has a history of producing Republican female senators who are socially liberal. Margaret Chase Smith was their first female senator (and only the second in the US) serving from 1949-1973. She was mostly considered a moderate Republican, but she fought a lot of very unpopular fights. Among other things, she was a very vocal opponent of McCarthyism, earning her the nickname Moscow Maggie. Senator McCarthy was broadly supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and enjoyed enormous popular support. She opposed him, even though it was unpopular and painted her as a radical. She won re-election once in the midst of that argument, and twice more after it died down. Additionally, they are currently represented by two female Senators (the first and only state to elect women to both senate seats at the same time). Olympia Snowe is a Republican, though many Republicans would say she's not. She's also from a poor working-class background, the daughter of a Greek immigrant. Her mother died when she was very young and she was raised by relatives. She supports gay rights, reproductive rights (her term, not mine), stem cell research, and limited gun control. Susan Collins, also a Republican, has worked primarily on bipartisan efforts, leading prominent Republican leaders to label her RINO (Republican in Name Only).

Maria Cantwell of Washington and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, both Democrats, became the first women to defeat an incumbent Senator in the US in 2001. They were both publicly educated, and are liberal. Cantwell is very liberal on social issues.

When I look over their biographies, well over half of these women were from working-class backgrounds. They were almost all publicly educated, and a large number of them were Jewish or Catholic.

And of course, I can't leave out Carol Moseley Braun. She's a Democrat from Illinois. She was the first woman elected to the senate from Illinois, and she was the first and to-date only black woman elected to the senate in the country. In addition to these two "radical" factors, she is from a working class-background and was publicly educated. She didn't have family money or political reputation to help her reach this position. And, she is considered, even with the Democratic party to be an extreme social liberal. She is strongly pro-choice, having voted against both the partial-birth abortion ban and restricting funding for abortions on military bases. She has consistently voted against the death penalty. She was one of only sixteen senators to vote against the Communications Decency Act and one of only fourteen to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act. While these actual votes of course came after her election, these political views were no secret during her campaign.

My analysis of women, particularly the first women to be elected to executive office or the senate from their states, is that they were predominantly liberal and often had other factors that set them apart as somehow radical in the world of politics, often their socio-economic background, or religion.

It's a little harder to see the case among black politicians. Only four have black men have ever served as governor of their states, and only two of those were elected and served complete terms. And have only been five black US senators, only three of which were elected post-reconstruction (which is a very important note, as it was largely white voters who were disenfranchised immediately after the civil war in the south. It was arguably this disenfranchisement that made southern politicians freeze the black community entirely out of the political process for so long, but that is another issue for another day). That gives me a much narrower pool to work with, so I've broadened my research to include those elected to the House of Representatives and to a lesser extent those elected to other political positions (mayors of major cities, state legislatures, etc).

Of the four black governors in US history, one served for only a few months in Louisiana in 1872-73. His election was contested, it is unclear whether he was ever legitimately elected to the governorship. His political views are largely unknown. Another, David Paterson, is the current governor of New York. He was Lieutenant Governor, and took office as governor after the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. He is extremely liberal, but is not necessarily a good case study because he was not elected to that office.

Douglas Wilder served as governor of Virgina from 1990 to 1994. He is a socially moderate Democrat. He is the first black person to be elected to a state-wide executive office in the south in the 20th century (can be read as post-reconstruction) which would include posts like Attorney General, Insurance Commisioner, etc. in addition to Governor and Lt. Governor. He was the seventh of eight children in a working-class family. He attended segregated public schools. he certainly did not have family money or political ties to fall back on.

Deval L. Patrick has served as Massachusetts' governor since 2006. He is very very liberal on both social and economic issues (his positions are to the left of every major candidate in this presidential cycle, including John Edwards). He grew up on the South Side of Chicago, which is one of the poorest parts of a major metropolitan area in the country. He was raised by his single mother. His father had left the family to be a Jazz musician in NYC after he got another woman pregnant. He attended public schools in Chicago through middle school where he caught the attention of a private group that identified and assisted young black people who showed extraordinary leadership capabilities. They enabled him to attend an exclusive private school in Massachusetts and he later attended Harvard. He won his election by a substantial margin, and that win is largely credited to the huge numbers of new voters that he turned out. These were people, mostly young, who had never been involved in the political process. In many ways, Governor Patrick is extraordinarily similar to Barack Obama. Politically, he's a bit to his left, but in terms of background and political organization they are practically carbon copies.

There have only been 5 black senators. Only three of those were elected post-reconstruction. The first of these was Edward Brooke who served the state of Massachusetts for 2 terms from 1967-79. While he was a Republican, he was far from conservative. He was a member of the self-proclaimed, "liberal wing," of the Republican Party. He was co-author to the 1968 Fair Housing Act, actively fought for restrictions and even bans on nuclear testing, was the first Republican to call for the resignation of Richard Nixon (well before even many Democrats did), was a strong supporter of Women's rights and a leader in the 1975 fight to renew Title IX protections for women, he was a vocal supporter of abortion rights. He was also the last Republican to serve Massachusetts as a senator.

Then there was Carol Moseley Braun who I spoke rather extensively about above, and currently of course, Barack Obama is a Senator from Illinois (the state's second black Senator making Illinois the only state to elect two black senators).

Of the 90 African Americans to have served as US Representatives, only three were Republicans. Nearly all of them (including the first) were from working-class backgrounds, often very poor backgrounds. They were essentially all publicly educated, and many attended segregated schools. All but two were socially liberal.

The same holds true of black mayors and state legislators. They are almost without exception socially liberal politicians who come from poor working-class families and attended public schools. It seems that it is nearly impossible in American for a black person to be elected to any public office if they are not socially liberal (the one exception here may be gay rights, but in terms of abortion rights, women's rights, gun laws, the death penalty, etc.) and from a disadvantaged family background.

In fact, that was one of the major criticisms of Colin Powell in '99 when both parties were talking about how good of a candidate he might be. He was too moderate, not "black" enough. It's also been one of the criticisms that was frequently raised of Condolezza Rice when the Republican party talked about running her, that she was too conservative and just not "black" enough. It was also one of the first tactics used against Barack Obama in this race, only given his background the opposition has had no real luck making that stick.

Now, I'd like to talk about John Kennedy and the reply I got when I brought up his presidency. He was certainly the last person to really break a barrier by being elected. It is certainly true that he was from a very wealthy family, and that they had some political connections to draw upon. It is true that his father was a US Ambassador, though I feel that I should point out that he was largely seen as politically inept. His ambassadorship was probably more of a hindrance than a help to JFK. His father was ambassador to the UK and while there supported a policy of appeasement of Hitler, and continued to support that policy long past the time when it became political suicide. Still, his grandfather had been a very popular mayor of Boston, and the family money came from both sides. He did attend private schools and led a very privileged life. But even with that as the case, I don't think you can say that his catholicism was the only "radical," thing about him. He was very young. He was politically, and particularly socially, to the left of even the other Democratic candidates. And his Catholicism was no small thing. Even today, a large number of American protestants say that Catholics are not Christians. To these people, they're like Jews, moderately better than Muslims and the eastern religions, but they're still all going to hell because they haven't embraced the one true God. It makes no sense to me, but it is still a prevalent attitude, that effects Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and other essentially Christian groups. In 1960 that wasn't just a prevalent attitude it was a majority attitude. And it was made all the worse, because of the perceived power that the Pope has over Catholics. People were scared to death that by electing John Kennedy they would be handing over the reigns of government to the Vatican. That's a fear that's bigger than anything associated with electing a black man or a woman. I also think it's important to note that he did that, as have most barrier-breaking politicians, by mobilizing new voters, especially youth but in all cases people who had not previously been a part of the process.

And the last thing I wanted to talk about was people in appointed positions. In her original reply, yinkawills said that it "was no coincidence that the first black secretaries of state were in a Republican administration." I think that's missing the bigger picture. First, those positions are appointed and so the influence of voters over them is marginal, but if you look at the broader picture, both Republican and Democratic administrations have appointed both women and black people to cabinet level positions. In almost all cases, those appointees were to the extreme conservative or extreme liberal end of the spectrum. The first black cabinet level member was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Robert C. Weaver, under Johnson. He was very socially liberal, to the left of Johnson. There have been several prominent women in cabinet level positions most of whom were to the extreme end of their party's political views. What this shows me, is not that women or black politicians have to be very blandly conservative to reach high positions, but rather that they must appeal strongly to the party base. And it has virtually no bearing on elected offices, because you cannot win the presidency or even a governorship or senatorship without managing to draw some voters from the opposition party.

The one exception in the above analysis is Colin Powell. He was politically moderate enough, and cagey enough about his own party affiliation, that his name was tossed about by both parties prior to the 2000 election. He's a special case, because it's not his politics that made him a good candidate, or even that got him the appointment as Secretary of State. It's his military status. His military record is so impressive, that his politics were secondary, because that's something you can almost always count on in America. We like people who are good military leaders. And it is the one advantage that I think really matters that John F. Kennedy had over Barack Obama.

I welcome any and all thoughts and comments.

barack obama, race, politics, election 2008, hillary clinton, 2008 election, gender

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