Clarence Page: Race's Political Comeback.
Race's political comeback
By Clarence Page
Black is back. So is white. Less than two years after President Barack Obama's election, race is making a political comeback — if it ever really left.
A mere four years ago, for example, Americans celebrated the rise of two hope-filled post-racial stars: District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty and Newark's Mayor Cory Booker. Each was touted as a young, energetic, post-civil-rights-era savior in the mold of then-Sen. Obama.
Multiracial coalitions of voters elected them both. Each managed to transcend race-based politics and make gains worthy of national praise regarding schools, crime, housing, economic developing and other issues that are either nonracial or should be.
Yet, despite their successes, Fenty was voted out of office on Sept. 14. White voters still supported him almost two-to-one, but black voters in the majority-black city turned on him by a similarly wide margin.
Booker at least managed to be re-elected in May with 59 percent of the vote, although that was a sizeable drop from his 72 percent landslide in 2006. As with Fenty, most of Booker's losses came from black voters.
The problem for both mayors is an old dilemma faced by ethnic crossover candidates: How do you sail in the predominately white mainstream without being scuttled by your ethnic or racial base?
That's an old question in Chicago, where Mayor Richard M. Daley's announcement that he's not going to run for re-election has ignited the long-suppressed ambitions of at least a dozen potentially serious candidates. It has also touched off worries of a return to the racially tinged “Council Wars” that preceded Daley's election in 1989.
As a close observer for the past generation of his leadership (and half of his father's before him) I can tell you that Daley did right what Fenty did wrong: Wisely following the path of the late Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, Daley reached out to all major groups in his city's ethnic quilt, including black voters who were his biggest opponents.
Starting from nearly zero, Daley increased his turnout among blacks and other groups in subsequent elections. He built the kind of majorities that frightened off potential contenders. Even today, with the city financially underwater and his approval ratings in the cellar, no other major contender was ready to run until Daley said he wouldn't.
Fenty, by contrast, was voted out despite a recent Washington Post poll in which most voters said they thought the District was on the right track. Indeed, the city's murder rate is down, funding for his youth job programs was up, and his nationally famous, though controversial, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was clearing out low-performing teachers, principals, school buildings and bureaucracy in ways that made other big-city superintendents jealous.
Unfortunately, Fenty had a deficit of people skills. He turned out to be great at governing, but lousy at politicking. Even bad schools and bad teachers have their constituencies. Old school alumni, for example, are quick to believe the worst unless you take time to explain what you're doing and why. Instead, Fenty's and Rhee's hard-charging style offered no spoonfuls of sugar to help the harsh medicine go down.
There are lessons in these examples for President Obama. Although his black support remains strong, it is partly because his supporters are circling wagons against cheap-shot attacks tinged with race, even if they don't explicitly use the words.
A recent Forbes article written by conservative Dinesh D'Souza — and amazingly endorsed by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich — offers the bizarre notion that Obama somehow is channeling Kenyan revolutionary beliefs from his dead father, whom Obama hardly knew.
Until now, both Gingrich and D'Souza at least were known for well-researched, thoughtful ideas, whether you agreed with them or not. I even had the pleasure of debating D'Souza on a couple of radio programs after he wrote a well-researched best-seller in the 1990s called The End of Racism . We're not there yet, I suggested. His strange take on Obama's thinking serves to prove my point.
Clarence Page is a columnist with the Chicago Tribune. His email address is cpage@tribune.com.
By Clarence Page
Black is back. So is white. Less than two years after President Barack Obama's election, race is making a political comeback — if it ever really left.
A mere four years ago, for example, Americans celebrated the rise of two hope-filled post-racial stars: District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty and Newark's Mayor Cory Booker. Each was touted as a young, energetic, post-civil-rights-era savior in the mold of then-Sen. Obama.
Multiracial coalitions of voters elected them both. Each managed to transcend race-based politics and make gains worthy of national praise regarding schools, crime, housing, economic developing and other issues that are either nonracial or should be.
Yet, despite their successes, Fenty was voted out of office on Sept. 14. White voters still supported him almost two-to-one, but black voters in the majority-black city turned on him by a similarly wide margin.
Booker at least managed to be re-elected in May with 59 percent of the vote, although that was a sizeable drop from his 72 percent landslide in 2006. As with Fenty, most of Booker's losses came from black voters.
The problem for both mayors is an old dilemma faced by ethnic crossover candidates: How do you sail in the predominately white mainstream without being scuttled by your ethnic or racial base?
That's an old question in Chicago, where Mayor Richard M. Daley's announcement that he's not going to run for re-election has ignited the long-suppressed ambitions of at least a dozen potentially serious candidates. It has also touched off worries of a return to the racially tinged “Council Wars” that preceded Daley's election in 1989.
As a close observer for the past generation of his leadership (and half of his father's before him) I can tell you that Daley did right what Fenty did wrong: Wisely following the path of the late Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, Daley reached out to all major groups in his city's ethnic quilt, including black voters who were his biggest opponents.
Starting from nearly zero, Daley increased his turnout among blacks and other groups in subsequent elections. He built the kind of majorities that frightened off potential contenders. Even today, with the city financially underwater and his approval ratings in the cellar, no other major contender was ready to run until Daley said he wouldn't.
Fenty, by contrast, was voted out despite a recent Washington Post poll in which most voters said they thought the District was on the right track. Indeed, the city's murder rate is down, funding for his youth job programs was up, and his nationally famous, though controversial, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was clearing out low-performing teachers, principals, school buildings and bureaucracy in ways that made other big-city superintendents jealous.
Unfortunately, Fenty had a deficit of people skills. He turned out to be great at governing, but lousy at politicking. Even bad schools and bad teachers have their constituencies. Old school alumni, for example, are quick to believe the worst unless you take time to explain what you're doing and why. Instead, Fenty's and Rhee's hard-charging style offered no spoonfuls of sugar to help the harsh medicine go down.
There are lessons in these examples for President Obama. Although his black support remains strong, it is partly because his supporters are circling wagons against cheap-shot attacks tinged with race, even if they don't explicitly use the words.
A recent Forbes article written by conservative Dinesh D'Souza — and amazingly endorsed by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich — offers the bizarre notion that Obama somehow is channeling Kenyan revolutionary beliefs from his dead father, whom Obama hardly knew.
Until now, both Gingrich and D'Souza at least were known for well-researched, thoughtful ideas, whether you agreed with them or not. I even had the pleasure of debating D'Souza on a couple of radio programs after he wrote a well-researched best-seller in the 1990s called The End of Racism . We're not there yet, I suggested. His strange take on Obama's thinking serves to prove my point.
Clarence Page is a columnist with the Chicago Tribune. His email address is cpage@tribune.com.
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