It took U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) five days to issue a statement on Don Imus’ racist and inflammatory remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. “The comments of Don Imus were divisive, hurtful and offensive to Americans of all backgrounds,” Obama stated the obvious, not going far enough for most black Americans and not even commenting on the public outcry for Imus to be fired.
This apparent reluctance to take a stand on a populist issue that is much on the minds of African Americans will not win Obama any friends among black voters, who according to the most recent Cook Political Report poll continue to favor U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) by a substantial margin. Clinton leads Obama among black voters by 18 percentage points – only slightly smaller than her overall lead of 22 percentage points. According to the poll, Clinton has the support of 43 percent of African-American respondents, compared with 25 percent for Obama and 7 percent for John Edwards.
There are several good reasons why so many black voters are saying they would vote against Obama in the Democratic primary. His national political experience is limited. Obama, already criticized for sty—-listic failings on the stump, explains that his campaign is a mere two months along. He has a steep learning curve, because he will have to go beyond his broader strategic message that panders to the middle and show he can handle the many daunting challenges of a chaotic presidential campaign.
Moreover, he is of mixed-race, with an African father and a white American mother, leaving some black Americans to regard him as an outsider. Many black Democrats who do consider Obama to be black rate that as a strike against his electability; at the moment, a white progressive like Bob Clark of Clayco (Obama’s local fundraising chair) is more likely than many African Americans to think American voters are prepared to elect a black president.
And, then, there is his caution on an issue like Imus’ racist rant, which will leave many black voters fearing that Obama’s pandering to the white middle will cause him to fail to represent their best interests. It does great damage to Obama, on this point, that he is campaigning against a seasoned candidate who can claim the legacy of Bill Clinton, who remains by far the American politician with whom blacks feel the most intense solidarity.
Obama and his local supporters have a great deal of work to do if they expect victory in 2008. Remarkably, Obama has been keeping up with Clinton in fundraising and generation of enthusiasm (and headlines), but he has been crushed in the polls every time voters have been asked to decide. Over the course of five Gallup polls, Obama’s appeal has not climbed. In the latest April poll, his standing is where it was last January, with Obama getting exactly half of the vote given to Clinton. Pull an anticipated candidacy by Al Gore out of the mix and let Gore supporters choose their second pick, and Clinton’s lead widens even more.
Bob Clark told the American that Clinton is too divisive to win a general election, which is why he thinks Obama should be the Democratic nominee. Many who would agree with Clark about Clinton would say the same of Obama, who will be rejected by racist whites for being too black and by skeptical blacks for not being black enough.
Obama’s visit to St. Louis on May 11 is sure to generate campaign funds, enthusiasm (especially among the young) and bold headlines. But the campaign had better keep a cold eye trained on the numbers and continue to experiment with strategy, because numbers don’t lie – and, at the moment, the numbers are highly problematic for the candidacy of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.