Race's Effect on the Campaign

How much is race affecting the 2008 presidential election? Described on the Fox News site and on MSNBC, an extensive Stanford University survey of 2,227 Americans indicates it could be around six percent.

Political scientists are interested, given the dynamics of national trends this year, in why the Democratic nominee is not farther ahead in most polls. The current president is one of the most unpopular since polling began. The economy is bad and apparently getting worse. Over eighty percent of the public feels the country is on the wrong track. There are more Democrats than Republicans. The nation is in a war it wants out of. The Republican nominee is of the same political party as the incumbent and closely shares his policy views, views that most voters associate with these unfavorable conditions.

Stanford politcal scientist Paul Sniderman, who worked on the analysis team, said, "There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots." As many as four in ten white independents evidenced at least some negative attitudes towards African-Americans. About one-third of white Democrats did. The researchers were able to correlate these stereotypical negative views with other factors to arrive at the 6 percent approximation of the effect it is having on people's election preferences.

For instance, some subscribed to some prejudicial views but still planned to vote for Obama. And some with prejudicial views would be voting against him even without those views, based either on disagreements with his ideology or questions about his experience for the presidency. Republicans, for instance, had higher rates of prejudicial attitudes but few would be voting for any Democrat of any race, the study found, because of political views. 85% of Republicans solidly back McCain, according to the study, while only 70% of Democrats as strongly support Obama.

The study attempted to use sophisticated techniques for assessing racial views. There were upfront questions such as, "Would you describe most blacks as violent?" But there were also such methods as recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen. The study also took into account the positive racial effects of Obama's candidacy on African-Americans. The group normally supports the Democratic nominee 89-90%, but this year backs Obama nearly unanimously. This counteracts the negative effect with whites a bit, but still leaves Obama with roughly a 6% handicap in the election due to his race.

So, what is the effect? Obama's Real Clear Politics lead in the aggregate of national polls is currently 2.2% and the electoral count is nip and tuck, with Obama projected in the lead in states with 273 electoral votes to McCain's 265. If he were white he would likely have an 8% lead and an extremely comfortable margin in the Electoral College.

These are simply the political facts of life in America. One take on this is to decry that there is still racism. Another is to rejoice that its virulence has relaxed enough that a candidate with Obama's heritage does have a realistic chance to get elected or defeated on his merits and views. His chances are not as good as they would otherwise be, but the chance is there and despite the impediment, he still leads. That, undeniably, is prgoress.