As I was trying to stay awake during the Democratic debate Sunday night (I so wish they would let Trump participate), I noticed that frontrunner Hillary Clinton was figuratively hugging President Obama like I've never seen her do before. She went after Bernie Sanders for attacking the President several times and defended President Obama's positions vigorously. Hillary Clinton is one of the smartest politicians I've ever seen and I personally don't think she says anything publicly without it being carefully planned and tested beforehand, so I was puzzled. She didn't say Sanders disagreed with the President, as she herself has done on numerous occasions, she said "Senator Sanders called him weak, disappointing. He even, in 2011, publicly sought someone to run in a primary against President Obama." Then it hit me. She's playing to black voters. She knows that black voters overwhelmingly not only support this first Black President, but that we also immediately become leery of those who attack him. And she knows that black voters will ultimately pick the Democratic Nominee for President.
As much as we all value the ideal of being a society that bases political choices on platforms and ideas, political professionals know that demographics are key. That's the way political scientists study elections, by evaluating which demographic voted for which candidate. For example, polling shows that on the Republican side, Donald Trump is surging because of the working class, non college educated, older white voter. He is dominating that demographic and that's why he's leading in the polls. Likewise on the Democratic side, Hillary is dominating the black vote. A Gallup Poll taken in August showed Hillary with an 80% favorable rating among black Americans, while Bernie Sanders only had a 23% favorable rating. That's huge because after the first two primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic primary race moves to states where black voters will determine the winner.
It now looks like Bernie Sanders could win both Iowa and New Hampshire. The only person to lose both those states and win the Presidency is President Bill Clinton, and he enjoyed tremendous support in the black community. The Democratic calendar then moves to Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, and Georgia. If Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire and can use that momentum to win Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas, Clinton could be facing a repeat of her race against President Obama eight years ago. All of those states, unlike the first two, have a large number of black voters. It looks which candidate does better with black voters will be the single largest factor in deciding the Democratic nominee. Which brings me back to the debate.
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| President Obama |
Once President Obama won the Iowa Caucuses eight years ago and black Americans began to believe that he actually might win the nomination, he pretty much had a lock on the black vote. I'm not saying that black voters voted for him just because he was black (I'm still looking for the black person that supports Ben Carson), but it certainly didn't hurt his cause. Hillary knows this, and she knows that she and President Bill Clinton have a huge amount of goodwill in the black community. She also knows that Bernie Sanders does not. Sanders knows this as well. What I saw in the debate Sunday night was both candidates acknowledging the importance of that demographic in a way that I don't remember ever seeing before.
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| Lester Holt |
When NBC host Lester Holt asked during the debate "are black lives being cheap a reality or just perception?" Clinton answered: "Sadly, it's reality." She specifically said "There needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system." Bernie Sanders, not to be outdone said that "if anyone dies in police custody, it should automatically trigger an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice." Sanders also said "51 percent of African American young people are either unemployed or underemployed,” and that the U.S. prison population is “disproportionately African American and Latino.” These are issues that generally don't come up in Presidential debates, and when they do, rarely if ever do I recall any Presidential candidate, including Senator Barrack Obama, speak in such absolute and definitive terms. It's because both campaigns realize that black voters will probably determine which of them gets the nomination.
As a black voter, I am pleased to see the attention being given to the #blacklivesmatter movement. Personally it's the biggest issue in the campaign for me. But the skeptic in me wonders if either candidate is willing to repeat that same message in a future Presidential debate when their opponent is not another Democrat but Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Will they speak of the reality of systemic racism in the criminal justice system or federal investigations for those who die in police custody when the debate isn't sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus foundation as it was Sunday night? Will they be as willing talk about disproportionate incarceration rates for minorities when the debate is on Monday night primetime two weeks before the election and all voters are paying attention as opposed to when they are on Sunday night when most voters are watching the new episode of The Good Wife, and Trump or Cruz or Rubio is on the other side of the stage daring them to try to appeal to black voters?
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| Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton |
The Cook Political Report calculated that black voters accounted for President Obama's entire margin of victory in seven states, including the three most coveted battlegrounds: Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Neither Sanders nor Clinton can realistically expect to win the White House if they don't win two of those three states, and they probably need to win all three. I like what both candidates said Sunday night. I thank Lester Holt for asking the question that's been missing from every Presidential debate that I have watched so far. But this black voter will be watching to see if they say the same things in places like Mississippi in October that they said in South Carolina Sunday night. Will they tell Texas voters who elected Ted Cruz to the Senate that there is systemic racism and that black lives being cheap is a reality. Or will they move to the center in order to not be so offensive to the Trump and Cruz voters who believe we need to "Make America Great Again". One thing is for certain though, Sunday night showed that both Democratic candidates are fully cognizant of the fact that if they want to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, #BlackVotesMatter.
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