Gender and Race in the 2008 Presidential Primary Campaign

Introduction: A Historic Primary Field

The 2008 presidential campaign in the United States was unique in that never before had voters in the Democratic primaries been offered a choice between a woman candidate and an African-American male candidate. It can be safely stated that never before had race and gender played such a major role in American presidential politics. While the Republican candidates were all white males, the major Democratic candidates included two men — African-American Barack Obama and Caucasian John Edwards — and one woman, former First Lady and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In January 2007, Washington Post reporter Dan Balz wrote, "For all the potential history-in-the-making of their candidacies, neither Clinton nor Obama enters the campaign primarily because of race or gender" (Balz 2007). Balz went on to note that Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, was not the first African-American candidate to enter the presidential primary field. Jesse Jackson ran in 1984 and was seen more as breaking a racial barrier than seriously contending for the presidency. Obama's appeal, Balz wrote, "appears not fundamentally based on his race."

African-American Voters and the Clinton–Obama Choice

Clinton, Balz continued, had ascended to near the top of the Democratic field "not principally because she is a woman" but rather because she was part of the Bill Clinton family and because, as First Lady, she had been more of an activist than most first ladies are expected to be. That having been said, there was "no way" one could safely underestimate the "significance of race and gender in the coming campaign," the writer asserted.

By October 2007, a New York Times article reported on African-American voters in South Carolina, site of the Democratic primary in January 2008 (Seelye 2007). Beauty shop owner Clara Vereen, an African-American, said that she would love to see a black man become president someday: "I would love that, but I want to be real, too." By that she meant that a black president "would not be safe." "I fear that they just would kill him," she said. As for Clinton, Vereen said, "We always love Hillary because we love her husband," but when it came to a woman being president, she added that as a Christian who accepts what is written in the Bible, she believed "the Lord has put man first — a man is supposed to be the head."

Obama's Racial Identity and Political Style

Another hair stylist in South Carolina, Vanessa Gerald, 38, said she was "torn" because while Obama was "trying to help his people," Hillary "is too." No matter which of the two candidates won, Gerald said, "this is history here — so let's see what history going to bring in." Maria Hewett, a Black retiree in another hair salon visited by the Times journalist, said she would vote for Obama "despite her fear that he could be a target" once elected.

A separate New York Times article described Obama as a member of "a new class of black politicians" — he was too young to have felt the sting of Jim Crow laws and segregation, and he had been educated in predominantly white institutions (Scott 2007). "His style is more conciliatory than confrontational, more technocrat than preacher," Scott wrote. Obama tended to speak about race "indirectly, or implicitly." For example, after Hurricane Katrina, Obama did not criticize the federal government's disastrous response on the basis of the ethnicity of those most seriously impacted. "The incompetence was color-blind," he said, adding that "the real stumbling block was indifference to the problems of the poor."

Conclusion

The 2008 Democratic primary demonstrated, as no previous American campaign had, that race and gender could simultaneously function as both assets and liabilities for major candidates. The contest between Clinton and Obama forced voters, journalists, and the candidates themselves to confront questions of identity that American politics had long deferred. Whether those questions would ultimately determine the outcome of the nomination remained to be seen, but their presence in the national conversation was, by any measure, historic.