New era of American Politics
As the 2008 presidential election proves to be a history-making turning point in American politics, Clark professors examine the roles that race, gender, age, values, media, technology and financial strategy will play.
By Anne Gibson Ph.D '96 | Photos by Tammy Woodard M.A. '98
In early 2008, Clark hosted two history-making political rallies. On February 2, the first Black governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, led a rally on behalf of Senator Barack Obama, the first viable Black U.S. presidential candidate. Two days later, just one day before Super Tuesday, an audience of approximately 3,500 at Kneller Athletic Center greeted Obama 's Democratic rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, the first viable female U.S. presidential candidate.
Clinton's personal appearance in particular galvanized the Clark community. Shyamal Asher '08 wrote in his blog, “Overall, it was a great day for Clark University as well as the students who got a firsthand look at a presidential candida".” Clark's name appeared with Clinton's in a variety of broadcast and print outlets, including a video clip of the rally on YouTube and a Clark mention by Clinton on “The David Letterman Show.”
But what does the emergence of these two candidates, and the course of the 2008 presidential campaign in general, mean in a wider context? Five Clark faculty from several academic departments weigh in on this question and agree that this election is a test —a test of the media, the American public and the way presidential campaigns are conducted.
Breaking social barriers
For historian Janette Greenwood, government professor Sharon Krefetz and English professor Betsy Huang, this election is a test of whether the American public is willing to elect a candidate with a nontraditional demographic profile. Greenwood, who teaches courses in American social history, women 's studies, and race and ethnic relations, views the three leading presidential hopefuls of this year 's primaries—Obama, Clinton and Republican John McCain—as marked by what she calls “the yeasty period of change” of the 1960s and 1970s.
During that time, Greenwood points out that McCain, as a Vietnam veteran and POW, was a participant in a war that deeply divided American society. Obama attended grade school and high school, and Clinton completed college and law school. Without two critical aspects of social change during these decade —the Civil Rights movement and the second wave of feminism—Greenwood says we wouldn't have had an Obama or a Clinton in this race. According to Greenwood, Clinton and Obama are products of social change that broke down barriers in important ways.
Greenwood is intrigued by what she characterizes as "a whispering campaign as old as American politics," referring to insinuations that have labeled Obama a “closet Muslim.”
“Americans love conspiracy theories,” she notes, citing past examples including the rumors of a papal conspiracy backing the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, among others. “Now some suspect Obama of being a kind of Manchurian candidate who, if elected, is going to work from the inside. Those are really old kinds of notions. People will believe what they want to believe, unless they become critical thinkers. ”
While characterizing Obama's presidential nomination as “a great testimony to this country,” she also worries that some will use his success to deny the existence of racial discrimination. Similarly, despite the continuing progress towards women 's equality, Greenwood questions whether Clinton, as a female candidate, would have made it as far as she did, if she hadn 't been the wife of a former president.
Is America ready? Krefetz likes to think that Clinton would have been able to break through “the glass ceiling” had her effort to secure the Democratic party's nomination for president not been derailed by the unexpected emergence of Obama. Describing that turn of events, there 's a wistfulness in her face that echoes the regret of many women “of a certain age,” as she puts it, who were torn between voting for the first viable candidate of their own sex or a very smart, dynamic Black candidate. “It's painful for some of us to have Hillary out of the picture,” she says. “It's hard to imagine who might be the next woman with the experience and ability to overcome traditional views of women as being unfit to serve as commander-in-chief. ”
In 2001, Krefetz had an opportunity to size-up Obama in person over lunch at a conference in Chicago at which both of them spoke. She 's now eagerly watching his campaign play out. “We've had an aborted test of whether a woman could be elected president. Now we will have the test about whether Americans are ready to have a Black man as president. ”
But even as Krefetz identifies Obama as Black, she points out that his racial identity isn 't that straightforward. “Obama's candidacy is complicated by the fact that he's half Black and half White. He defies a lot of the stereotypes of ‘Black men as being people Whites have to be scared of,' and conversely, he's getting criticized by some younger, more radical Black activists for not being ‘Black enough.'” Despite his biracial heritage, she says, many Whites see him as Black, and some Blacks see him as White.
Krefetz's interest in the candidates isn't limited to the two Democratic contenders, adding age to the -isms of race and sex that are being tested in this election. “The fact that, at 72, McCain would be the oldest person to be elected president concerns a lot of people, including some in his own age bracket. They question whether someone that old will be fit enough to meet the demands of the job. ”
She also points out McCain's reputation as a nontraditional Republican with a history of bipartisanship. Many Republicans, especially those on the far right, don 't see him as the kind of Republican they can identify with. “What's interesting about McCain is that for so long he was seen as a maverick—really independent—who was drawing support from Independents and some Democrats, because he was seen as being quite willing to depart from the Republican party line. ”
Appearance, trust and values English professor Betsy Huang, whose research focuses on literary explorations of racial and ethnic identity, holds up for examination the 2000 publication of a Japanese graphic novel whose story is eerily similar to some aspects of the current presidential campaign. “Eagle: The Making of an Asian American President” follows the fictional election campaign of Kenneth Yamaoka, a highly qualified, third-generation Japanese American seeking to become the 43rd president of the United States. Huang says Yamaoka 's candidacy “raises all sorts of questions about what we want our president to look like and what kinds of values, both moral and cultural, the president should embody. ” For many people, one's physical appearance is indicative of his or her values. Obama revealed an understanding of this connection, when he pointed out that he does not look like “the presidents on the money” and that he has “a funny name.”
For Huang, the election is about whom the voters think they can trust, and that trust often hinges on whether individual voters think a candidate looks like someone capable of representing their values. That association between appearance and values is so ingrained, she suggests, that many of us, even those who believe deeply that a presidential candidate should be assessed solely on experience and ideas, not demographic profile, may find ourselves in the privacy of the voting booth choosing the candidate that looks “more like us.” Thus, results from polls asking for whom people will vote may not tally with what actually happens on election day.
Huang sees this election as a test of whether voters perceive the candidates as “universal” or “particular,” pointing out that people from a dominant culture tend to assume that they are capable of representing everyone, while at the same time being doubtful that a minority candidate is similarly capable. “There's a belief, even among minorities,” she explains, “that if you're White and Christian, you can represent everybody. But if you're a minority, your interests and values become particularized.”
In the fictional campaign, Yamaoka does win the election. But readers also learn that Yamaoka 's father-in-law, who has aggressively backed Yamaoka's campaign, is White, Anglo and very wealthy. Huang suggests that the father-in-law is the “universalizing” element in Yamaoka's campaign and, despite his Asian features, he mimics in every other way the values of the political establishment that funds him.
If that's true, Huang says, nontraditional candidates like Clinton and Obama must not seem too “particular.” To have any hope of succeeding, they must align themselves with aspects of the traditional power base. In Clinton 's case, that aspect might be that her husband is a former president—as long as she doesn't seem overly feminine. Similarly, as Krefetz pointed out, Obama should avoid identifying too closely with his African heritage. But as the demographics of the electorate shift toward non-Anglos, what voters perceive as “universal” versus “particular” will change, because they themselves are changing.
Power of the press For English professor Fern Johnson, this election is a test of the news media. Johnson, who co-directs Clark 's communication and culture program, researches how the media, including the internet, shape and are shaped by cultural and social trends. She criticizes mainstream news outlets for reducing complex issues to sound bytes and for failing to provide substantive insight into how issues of race and gender are playing out over the election season.
Since the beginning of the campaign, she notes that Obama has been consistently pigeon-holed as African American, a simplification that perpetuates the American preoccupation with the polarity of race. “In fact,” she corrects, “he is Black and, I think more important, biracial. Reporters seem comfortable using ‘Black' and ‘African American' interchangeably, thereby blending a broad array of people and making ‘African American' a kind of generic term for all Blacks, rather than the other way around. The growing reality of bi- and multiracial people in the United States is lost by referring to Obama as either ‘African American' or ‘Black,' but not of multiracial heritage.”
Johnson says the media also stumbled in their treatment of Clinton. “By calling Clinton ‘Mrs.,'” Johnson explains, “her marital status was magnified, and her professional status as a senator was diminished. Eventually the ‘Mrs.' form of address became less prevalent and both she and Obama were addressed as ‘senator.'” Nonetheless, the frame had been established giving Obama more professional status, despite his more junior status as a senator.
Johnson says there's an unwillingness in the news media to confront issues of race and gender in a thoughtful way, pointing out a tendency to brand, as “racist” or “sexist,” comments taken out of context, citing as examples remarks made by Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro. Just as the media chose not to examine the full context of those remarks in any depth, she says, it also failed to examine how sexist and racist attitudes —not to mention those of class—are evidenced in voters.
“We haven't had many serious and in-depth analyses in the news of how sexism and racism are factors in the race —even in the face of Clinton's low support numbers from men as compared to women and Obama's high support numbers from Blacks but not from working-class Whites.”
Johnson says the latter point is especially significant as mainstream news media seem unwilling to report on the racial edge underlying the Clinton-Obama difference in support of working-class voters and refers to an Aug. 4 CBS news report by Katie Couric on a poll that found Obama gaining in support from the “middle class.” It reported that the gains were slim in the lower-income sectors of the middle class, yet Couric provided no comment about the possibility of racial issues as a factor.
According to Johnson, the media's reliance on polling data as a news source precludes certain issues that are not easily formatted into polls from being presented to the public. Polling can also be misused, albeit inadvertently, by the media to reinforce beliefs and messages among some segments of the population.
“It's ultimately a contest over image and how short advertising spots and media reports highlight and magnify only a narrow array of campaign messages, ” says Johnson. “The image contest leading to the next president is certainly going to engage voter perceptions about both race and age. ”
Johnson says new media technologies are also being tested, pointing to Obama's success with using e-mail and text messaging to target voters. Obama's use of text messaging was very important to the wide turnout in many states during the primaries, especially for those states with caucuses.
Battle of the pocket books Government professor Robert Boatright, who studies American political behavior, campaigns and elections, says this campaign is a test of the presidential public financing system. For him, what distinguishes this election cycle is the way it 's being financed.
For the first time since the public financing system was created in 1974, a candidate (Obama) declined federal funding during the general election, thus enabling him to continue to raise and spend money after the convention, explains Boatright. “That's a big change, because it means that presidential campaigns are going to become spending battles. Obama has raised about $450 million, and we still have more than a month to go until Election Day. He is on track to raise more than twice what either Kerry or Bush raised in 2004. ”
Boatright attributes Obama's victory over Clinton to a superior fundraising strategy, specifically the use of essentially free e-mail technology to connect repeatedly with small donors (those contributing totals of $250 or less) over the course of the campaign. Slightly over half of what Obama has raised has been from donors like these, he says.
“One reason Obama beat Hillary was that she ran her campaign the way Bill [Clinton] did. She rounded up prominent Democrats who could each contribute $2,300 —the limit for an individual contribution. That's a good way to get a lot of money all at once. But the problem is then these people are done: they can 't give any more.”
“Every time there was a negative story, or a filing deadline, or Hillary said something, Obama could send out an e-mail to his supporters alerting them to what was happening, and asking for money to deal with it. It 's free to send an e-mail, and the donors could give again.”
After this election, perhaps victory will no longer be guaranteed to the candidate with a relatively small number of wealthy backers. “It's not necessarily the candidates who have the richest donors, it's the people who can most effectively use the Internet to raise money, in many cases from the same people, throughout the entire campaign. ”
So what will the result of this presidential election tell us about American society in the first decade of the second millennium? Huang believes that with every passing year more and more Americans will be ready to take a chance on a nontraditional candidate. If McCain wins, can we assume that it 's not yet the case? And what if Obama wins? Since he's both biracial and the best-funded, how can we know what the test results mean? Could it mean, as Boatright speculates, that it 's still “all about money”? Or could it mean, as Johnson asserts, that it's ultimately a contest over image?
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Clarknews Fall 2008
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Historian Janette Greenwood |
Government professor Sharon Krefetz |
English professor Betsy Huang |
Government professor Robert Boatright |
English professor Fern Johnson |
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