R&L 2008 Election Blog

Hillary Clinton’s Loss is a Victory for Women and Power in America

By Nichola D. Gutgold

Hillary Clinton's campaign for president started when she ran for senate. Though it wasn't the official start of her presidential campaign it was the moment when most Americans, and rhetorical scholars realized: "She's serious; she does want to run for office, and maybe she won't stop with the senate. Maybe she wants to be president." And of course, we all know, that yes, Hillary Clinton would like to be President of the United States.

Given America's very nervous relationship with women and power and the Hillary hating that has practically been a national pastime since Hillary Clinton became first lady, no one should have expected that her presidential bid, and all the images that a media obsessed nation could provide, would be less than provocative.

There has been non-stop commentary on Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid on the Internet, late night television and on the news and parody-news shows. Some was clearly sexist (The Facebook Group “Hillary stop running for President and make me a sandwich”); some that was cruel (Rush Limbaugh’s aging woman remark); Some that was hilariously funny (Saturday Night Live bits); and some that was serious and important (the nuances of her healthcare reform; her stance on the Iraq war; the economy). All the commentary forced us to think a lot about how we feel about women-- especially a former first lady that has been called “The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock”-- who makes a bid to be the leader of the free world. Everything from the necklines of her clothing (Cleavage-gate); and her laugh, (The Clinton Cackle); the Apple-computer commercial inspired homage; The (alleged) Cry; the post-S.C. primary where Bill Clinton compared Obama to Jesse Jackson; The Bosnia Trip Exaggeration; and the Political Cartoons (one most recently that had her searching for delegates on Mars). In a campaign season teeming with symbolism and imagery and firsts, there was no shortage of ways to interpret the presidential bid of Hillary Clinton. And it lives on, because everyone has You Tube immortality.

The day of Hillary Clinton’s presidential announcement arrived on January 20, 2007. Seated on a stylish sofa in a well appointed room, the former first lady and Senator of New York invited Americans to "have a conversation." She promised that her bid was serious and that she was "in to win." Well, we could have predicted that the tension between those wanting to support Hillary Clinton and those wanting to criticize
her would be intense.

Catalyst, a group that studies women’s economic advancement, notes the double bind of women leaders. In the report, the oldest stereotypes are revealed again in the newest research: “When women act in gender-consistent ways—that is, in a cooperative, relationship-focused manner—they are perceived as ‘too soft’ a leader….When women act in gender-inconsistent ways—that is, when they act authoritatively, show ambition, and focus on the task—they are viewed as “too tough.” …they might be acting leader-like, but not lady-like. Hillary Clinton had a tough job to counter the double bind of being a woman leader. Perhaps especially for one who was First Lady first.

We must not forget for a moment the historical significance of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. She navigated a difficult gender terrain that directly confronted the challenges that women have faced in their bids for elective office. John McCain noted: “I have great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received. As the father of three daughters, I owe her a debt for inspiring millions of women to believe there is no opportunity in this great country beyond their reach.” Barack Obama noted: “Senator Hillary Clinton has made history not just because she’s a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she is a leader who inspired millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.” Indeed, as the first woman in American history to compete so closely for the nomination for president, Hillary Clinton has come closer to shattering the glass ceiling than any woman before her, including Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. And 18 million votes later she didn’t win the nomination, but what she won is a victory for women in America that extends far beyond one presidential cycle. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, by being seen and heard in their history making campaigns have likely inspired one of our children with her phrase: “See, you can be anything you want to be.” Sometimes not winning still offers a grand prize.

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley and author of Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books, 2006) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books, 2008).

Obama and the South

by Charles S. Bullock, III

The South, which for generations served as the base for the Democratic Party, has now been solidly in the GOP column for most of the last 40 years, largely in presidential elections. In only three of the last ten presidential elections have more than one southern state voted for the Democratic presidential nominee. When Democrats get shut out of the states of the old Confederacy, they must win 70 percent of the electors from the rest of the nation to capture the White House. The Democratic road to the White House becomes smoother if they can take some states from the “Solid Republican South” thereby reducing the share of the rest of the nation they must win.

Barack Obama’s best prospects this year are Virginia and Florida. The Sunshine State has been closely contested in each of the last two presidential elections and will likely be so again in 2008. Florida’s diverse electorate that includes many who have come from other parts of the country helped reelect Bill Clinton and might back Obama.

Democrats have won Virginia’s last two gubernatorial elections. Senator Jim Webb ended George Allen’s presidential ambitions in 2006, and the Old Dominion seems poised to replace retiring Senator John Warner (R) with Mark Warner (D) this fall. Democrats also managed to take back control of the state Senate last year for the first time since 1993. Partisan changes emanating out from Washington may make Obama the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to carry Virginia.

Even if Obama fails to carry a single southern state, his efforts this year can help his party rebound from a series of weak performances extending back to at least 1994, when Democrats lost control of the South's House and Senate delegations. Strong Democratic turnout might help some marginal members hold on to congressional seats. Republicans had hoped to recapture seats held by Tom DeLay (TX), Mark Foley (FL), and Charles Taylor (NC), but lost in 2006. They also hoped to retain the Florida seat that Vern Buchanan won by just a few hundred votes in a contested election. Democrats may win all of these seats if Obama inspires additional Democrats to go to the polls.

Other Democrats like Georgia’s John Barrow and Jim Marshall, who represent districts with sizable black populations, may be able to breathe easier. In 2006 these members of Congress won reelection by fewer than 2,000 votes. The Democrat whose reelection to the Senate seems most precarious, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, might be another beneficiary of an enthusiastic response to the Obama candidacy.

Heightened Democratic turnout may have similar beneficiaries in southern legislatures. In states that have been trending Republican the drift may be reversed. In states where Republicans have now taken control of the legislative branch, Democrats may succeed in displacing some Republicans.

The only problem in the scenario set forth above comes if Obama’s candidacy stimulates an equal or greater reaction among conservative voters. A conservative backlash–-which did not develop in the special congressional elections recently won by Democrats in Louisiana and Mississippi—might offset the increases in Democratic registration

CHARLES S. BULLOCK, III, is the Richard B. Russell Professor of Political Science and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia. He is co-editor, with Mark J. Rozell, of The New Politics of the Old South: An Introduction To Southern Politics, Third Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and co-author, with Ronald Keith Gaddie, of Elections to Open Seats in the U.S. House (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).

The Media’s Rush to Push Hillary Clinton Offstage

By Elizabeth A. Skewes

Yes, it’s been a long nomination season for the Democrats. And with Hillary Clinton’s victory in West Virginia, it’s likely to continue, at least until early June.

And yes, the drawn-out battle between Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination may make it harder for the eventual nominee to gear up for the fall campaign against Republican nominee John McCain. After all, he’s been the de facto party nominee since Super Tuesday in February, so he’s been able to fundraise and focus on the fall election.

But does that really mean Clinton should drop out of the race to make the path to the White House easier for Obama, as some Democrats have argued? And more to the point, have the media made it harder for Clinton to succeed in this contest by focusing so much attention on the calls for Clinton to make a graceful exit?

The answer to the first question is one for the partisans to debate, although Time magazine this week declared Obama the winner … so clearly the contest must be over.

But it’s the second question that is the more interesting one. Since late February, news organizations—often citing “Obama supporters” or “leading Democrats”—have been talking about the idea that Clinton should drop her bid for the nomination so that Democrats can rally behind Obama.

Even with nearly 1,200 delegates still at stake and 16 nominating contests to go before the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, the media weren’t wondering whether Clinton could pull it off, but how soon she should exit the race.

And, as research has shown, how the media cast an election can have a significant impact on how news consumers perceive it. The repetition of the message across media markets – the Boston Globe on Feb. 28 talking about leading Democrats urging Clinton to drop out, the Washington Times on March 22 saying Clinton is being advised to drop her bid, Tribune News Service on March 28, the Wall Street Journal on March 29 – inevitably has had an impact.

The media have long had a role in the nomination process. Thomas Patterson, in Out of Order, argues that the road to the White House now runs through the nation’s newsrooms, and getting traction in the media early on in the election—even before the primaries begin—is critical to fundraising and poll ratings. Just ask John Edwards.

But in this year’s election, the media seem to be expanding their influence beyond the pre-primary season and into the nomination itself. Now this may be an artifact of a close contest. The 2004 race didn’t see the media pushing anyone to leave the race, but Bush was an incumbent president, and Kerry was the last person still standing after Super Tuesday.

Still, there seems to be a rush to push Clinton offstage, to “tidy up” the race so that there’s one Democrat and one Republican, and so that the narrative can fall into familiar rhythms again. But democracy is messy, and even though it’s inconvenient for the press, perhaps we should simply let the process work the way it’s designed to and let the voters decide.

Elizabeth A. Skewes is assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the author of Message Control: How News is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail.

Political Dialogue in the 2008 Campaign—More of the Same?

By Carl R. Ramey

In a New York Times Op-Ed this week, Elizabeth Edwards, fresh off the campaign trail herself, blames America’s mass media for debasing the political dialogue in this year’s presidential primaries. Her message, a common one, is that candidates have serious intentions, but they go unreported (or under-reported) because our media messengers are more enamored with campaign strategy, polling and personal peccadilloes. The implication is that if only our mass media would act more responsibly, treating issues more seriously and in greater depth, our political dialogue would be magically transformed.

For years, media critics and academic scholars have railed against the tendency of popular media to obsess over the horse-race element of political campaigns, while ignoring more important information about a candidates’ priorities, policies and principles. While the criticism is legitimate, it must be said that what is important to voters is not always conveyed or discerned by focusing on policy, to the exclusion of what candidates actually say and do. For example, who would argue that assessing Hillary Clinton’s integrity, Barack Obama’s authenticity and John McCain’s temperament are not at least as relevant as examining their positions on energy or the estate tax? And, such qualities are usually measured by weighing personal conduct.

Nevertheless, fundamental changes have occurred that threaten the health of our political dialogue as never before. First, the media environment of 2008 is fully 24/7, with the information flow virtually endless and the noise level wildly amplified. It is a YouTube and cell phone video world where every candidate’ s action or reaction is subject to instant viewing and analysis. Second, the contemporary proliferation of media sources competing to hold onto highly fragmented audiences and advertisers significantly dilutes political content on many outlets. Mushrooming media sources chasing the same political stories with reduced staff and dwindling revenues simply runs counter to producing serious journalism. Third, the different ways in which modern political campaigns are conducted, combined with the different ways American audiences now obtain political information, vastly complicate the problem.

Yes, commercial television, cable networks and radio talk shows continue to minimize meaningful discussions of serious public issues. But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that, if only those media sources would allow more time for serious discussions, our political dialogue would suddenly be uplifted. That is because, even if popular media could be reformed in this fashion, little would change unless the tendencies and habits of both political candidates and American audiences were also to change, a likelihood of near herculean proportions.

The sad truth is that political candidates and their handlers typically prefer the slick, shallow and safe sound-bite over extended, in-depth conversations. And, like McCain, Clinton and Obama in the current campaign, they repeatedly pander to the electorate—shifting positions on trade, jobs and tax relief, depending on what primary contest is at stake—instead of addressing issues directly; believing, perhaps legitimately, that revealing too many uncomfortable specifics might represent political suicide. For example, even though Obama has the weight of evidence on his side in opposing a gas tax holiday this summer, he could easily be “buried” with the issue by Clinton and McCain, both of whom are supporting the idea by ignoring facts and appealing to voters’ momentary distress.

Another sad truth is that, despite more in-depth coverage of political issues by leading national newspapers, weekly news magazines, public issue periodicals and public broadcasting—all of which are experiencing losses not gains—most Americans seem to prefer the speeded-up, less reflective, headline treatment of those issues found on commercial TV, cable and the Internet. Younger Americans, particularly, look to the Internet and satirical news features like the “Daily Show” for a quick political fix.

If, as critics claim, our dominant mass media are largely to blame for the deterioration of our political dialogue, why do the more serious media outlets—and there are still many—not attract more stable audiences, catching at least a few of the readers and viewers retreating from the political pabulum served by commercial television, cable and talk radio? Part of the problem is that, even as we are threatened from the outside world as never before, we live in a society where the dominant lifestyles have become less compatible with the mission of serious newspapers, magazines and broadcast journalism. In short, the problem of an increasingly dysfunctional political dialogue goes deeper than just indicting some of our most prominent, pernicious media sources.

Carl R. Ramey is a retired communications lawyer and the author of Mass Media Unleashed: How Washington Policymakers Shortchanged the American Public (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)

The Fresh Faces in American Politics

By Gary A. Donaldson

This election cycle has exhibited an important American political phenomenon: the fresh face, the political outsider, the candidate who is the antidote to politics as usual. Accompanying the fresh face is the rhetoric
of renewal, change and the implied promises of new ideas and attitudes and solutions toward old problems.

Since the end of World War II both parties have looked in the direction of the political outsider and the fresh face to bring renewed excitement and victory to their parties. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a political fresh face was Eisenhower. Ike had been in the public eye for some time, but he had only been discussed seriously as a politician since the end of the war. He was always perceived in the American mind as someone outside the political spectrum; and in fact, Ike worked hard to show his disdain for politics by insisting often that he would not run for office, that he had no intention of
getting down into the mud and slugging it out with politicos like Truman. At one point, he even admitted that he had never found a need to cast a ballot, and he often let it be known that he had no party affiliation (although behind the scenes he told those close to him that he was a life-long Republican.) In 1953, when Ike became President, he brought to Washington the new outlook he promised—perhaps the fulfillment of the fresh face in politics.

In 1960 the Democrats tapped John Kennedy, the freshest of all fresh political faces. Although Kennedy had been in national politics since the end of the war, he campaigned in 1960 as a political outsider who would bring a new atmosphere to Washington, take the nation in a new direction, and change the old rhetoric—then portrayed by the eight years of the now stale Eisenhower administration. He worked hard to cast Nixon, the presumptive successor to Ike and the Republican nominee that year, as the keeper of the ancien regime, the man who would carry on the old Eisenhower policies.

This placed Nixon in an awful position as the 1960 election approached. Kennedy was winning points (and presumably votes) with his “let’s get American moving again” slogan. If Nixon tried to step out on his own
by proposing new ideas he appeared to be criticizing Eisenhower and his policies, even ungrateful to his mentor. If he simply parroted the Eisenhower line, he appeared to have no new ideas, and was little more than Ike’s “lapdog with a five o’clock shadow,” as one pundit described Nixon in this period. So, Nixon fought the 1960 campaign mostly with one hand tied behind his back.

By portraying himself as an outsider and a new comer with new ideas, Kennedy also placed himself at a disadvantage—although he did not have nearly the problems Nixon had. Kennedy found himself answering claims that he was too inexperienced to be president. Clearly, Kennedy could not have it both ways. He could not be the new young fresh face in politics and an experienced politician as well. He spent much of the campaign defending his record in Congress and making such statements that he was older than Christopher Columbus when he came to American, and older than Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Kennedy spent much of the 1960 primary season trying to show that he was experienced enough to attract votes. In office, JFK’s promises and hopes translated into very little legislation, despite a
Democratic Congress.

In 1976 the Democrats turned to another outsider, Jimmy Carter. The nation was clearly fed up with the antics of Washington insiders in those years. The conduct of the war in Vietnam and then finally the Watergate scandal had turned the nation away from Washington insider politics. Carter stepped into the breach. A Georgia governor and peanut farmer, Carter actually prided himself on not understanding the workings of Washington—and that seemed to endear him to voters. He was a wonderful campaigner. He spoke good words; he energized the Democratic Party and the nation. But when Carter got to Washington he could not work his will, and to most observers it was because he did not know the nuances of Washington politics. And he foundered. Four years later he was vulnerable to attacks from a Republican outsider, a new fresh face with new ideas from the other side of the political spectrum, Ronald Reagan. Carter went from the outsider to the insider, from the new fresh face to the old politico who needed to be bumped from office.

That brings us back to the current election cycle and Barak Obama, the new fresh face, the candidate with the charisma and the good words. He has energized the Democrats with talk of new ideas and change.
Democrats have to ask, will that translate into a good president?

Gary A. Donaldson is professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana. He is the author of many books on American history in the 20th century, including The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon,
and the Election of 1960.

McCain, Obama, and the Reform Argument

By Steven E. Schier

Much of the coverage in the political media this year fails to address widespread public concerns about politics. The media talk is often all about issues. The tone is one of constant conflict and squabbles.

Both are big turnoffs to many in the public. The candidate who wins the White House in 2008 will employ a way of communicating with voters that the political media often misses. So far, John McCain and Barack Obama have done the best job of communicating to voters in this way.

Call it the “reform argument.” Ross Perot milked surprising success from it in 1992. The public hates political disagreements and squabbling, desiring instead a government by a trustworthy set of guardians who won’t shove complex policy substance in their faces. Citizens don’t make time for much issue content and hate political fights.

These conclusions come from a landmark book depicting how the American public views their government: Stealth Democracy by John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. Employing a detailed survey they commissioned from Gallup and focus groups in four American cities scattered in all regions of the country, they discovered that citizens view politics in ways media and political elites wouldn’t recognize.

First, Americans hate political disagreement, and aren’t much interested in policy substance. So much of politics as usual is a snooze for them.

Second, they are most concerned that political leaders are granting unfair advantage to special interests in corrupt ways. To the public, special interests—defined as interests that are not their own—are all bad. The public views campaign contributions as direct payments into politician’s pockets. Washington, to them, is a cesspool of illicit funds.

Most candidates talk abstractly about policies, raise big campaign money, and fight over issues. To the extent they become deeply identified with such behavior, they fit the negative public stereotype of what is wrong with politics.

Instead, as Perot did, they need to stress their separation from politics as usual, their desire for process solutions like more direct democratic institutions, campaign finance reform and strengthened lobbying regulation. And they need to have “walked the walk” on these issues over their careers.

It helps if you are wealthy enough to self-fund your campaign. Then, in the public mind, you can’t be bought and your spiel is likely to be viewed as more sincere. Michael Bloomberg, take note.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse find that the public wants to be governed by ENSIDS—
(Empathetic Non-Self-Interested Decision makers). With ENSIDS guarding governmental institutions, citizens can feel comfortable paying less attention to politics, which is a widespread desire.

It’s no coincidence that two presidential leaders with the most ENSID-like qualities are prospering this year. John McCain, Mr. “straight talk” and a fervent campaign finance reformer, seems headed for the GOP nomination. Barack Obama, new to Washington and sporting the freshness of an uncorrupted agent of “change,” is faring well in his pursuit of the Democratic nomination.

The reformer label—Mr. or Ms. ENSID—is an invaluable asset in contemporary electoral politics. It’s time more reporters, candidates and consultants recognized that.

Steven E. Schier is Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Conventional Wisdom and the 2008 Election: The Nomination Fight

by Jody C. Baumgartner and Peter L. Francia

A recent article in the New York Times ("Soothsaying: A Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom,"March 9) provided a scorecard surveying what political pundits have gotten right and wrong in the election of 2008.

The article's author, Mark Leibovich, takes issue with the conventional wisdom that "money is everything." On this point, we have no substantive disagreement with Leibovich, only a point of emphasis. Leibovich is correct to note that this oft-repeated claim has been wrong--at least on the Republican side--in 2008. However, some developments have been more surprising than others. The failure of Republican millionaire Mitt Romney, for example, is not unprecedented. Many well-funded candidates have failed in the past: Howard Dean in 2004, Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000, and John Connally in 1980 immediately come to mind. What is surprising is that Dean, Forbes, and Connally all lost to other very well-funded candidates. This makes John McCain's victory the real head-scratcher in 2008. As recently as the past summer, the McCain campaign was effectively broke, forcing him to make major changes to his campaign staff. McCain's ability to persevere under these circumstances is almost unheard of and certainly did break with the conventional wisdom. In short, the "money" story of 2008 is not the failure of Mitt Romney and his large wallet of money, but the success of John McCain and his comparatively limited resources.

Leibovich also argues that the "Iowa is everything" assertion is overblown. Again, we mostly agree with Leibovich, but would add an important caveat. The Iowa Caucuses may not be everything to everyone, but they are everything to some. After all, Iowa did serve to narrow the field of presidential contenders in 2008. Democrats Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, for example, were officially finished as presidential candidates after their poor showings there. For them, Iowa certainly was everything. Indeed, for other long-shot candidates, such as Jimmy Carter in 1976, success in Iowa was critical to his eventual nomination victory. For frontrunners, however, Leibovich is correct about Iowa. In addition to John McCain, who finished fourth in Iowa in 2008, Bill Clinton (1992), Michael Dukakis (1988), George H.W. Bush (1988), and Ronald Reagan (1980) all survived Iowa defeats and went on to win their party's presidential nomination. Put simply, "Iowa is everything" for underdogs, but not so for frontrunners who have the resources to overcome any early troubles.

Finally, Leibovich writes that the "young people don't vote" claim has been incorrect for the 2008 primaries. While the early returns are undeniably promising for a large youth turnout in the general election, November is still months away. And past history does make clear that young people vote--consistently--at lower rates than their older counterparts. This has been true ever since the 1972 election--the first to follow the ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the voting age to eighteen. The excitement that Senator Barack Obama's campaign has generated may certainly change this if he is the Democratic nominee; however, that still remains to be seen.

Jody C. Baumgartner and Peter L. Francia are assistant professors of political science at East Carolina University and the authors of Conventional Wisdom and American Elections: Exploding Myths, Exploring Misconceptions
(Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).

Obama's Religion and the 2008 Campaign

by Kenneth D. Wald

While teaching Religion and Politics in the fall of 2007, I told my students that the most interesting aspect of the 2008 presidential election was likely to be the absence of a strong Republican candidate who could galvanize religious conservatives, the party’s base. Although that was (and remains) an important dimension of the campaign, I was as surprised as most observers by the controversy that has swirled around the religious identity and experience of Senator Barack Obama.

Three issues have gained “legs” during the primary season. First was the widespread misapprehension of Senator Obama’s religious affiliation. Many political scientists who discuss religion have probably had experiences similar to mine, being asked repeatedly whether a Muslim can be elected or not. (Obama is of course a Christian, a member of the United Church of Christ). The second issue involved the Jewish community, a mainstay of the Democratic coalition despite its relatively small numbers. Almost from the first contest in Iowa, Jewish voters were targeted by an email smear campaign against Senator Obama, questioning his commitment to Israel and attributing to him anti-Semitic statements made by Louis Farrakhan and other religious leaders. As this is being written, a third issue has unfolded. The former pastor of Senator Obama’s congregation has himself become a target of harsh criticism for his unsparing critiques of the United States in both its domestic and foreign policies. This has forced the Senator to distance himself from Reverend Wright, emphasizing that the pastor’s influence on the candidate is confined to the spiritual rather than political realm. Even that was not enough to quiet the critics, prompting Senator Obama to emphasize his disagreement with Pastor Wright in a recent speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Why have these issues arisen? In my judgment, they all represent solutions to the problem Senator Obama’s candidacy poses to Republicans. To begin with, the Republican candidate will go into the election with the heavy baggage of George W. Bush’s low approval ratings. Moreover, Senator McCain has not been enthusiastically embraced by either economic or religious conservatives. If the Republican party had not become a church where any difference of opinion is defined as heresy, McCain would be understood as a fairly orthodox Republican with minor differences from his peers. But that’s not today’s GOP and McCain thus faces a formidable set of hurdles no matter who the Democratic nominate.

To make matters worse, Obama as a nominee is very hard to position and pin down. Lacking a record in national politics, a real advantage during primaries, he presents less of a target. Mindful of the national norms regarding racially charged rhetoric, the GOP also has to be careful about how it approaches a black candidate.

The solution is to swift-boat Senator Obama, distort his record, play up his associations with controversial figures, and try to bring up the Senator’s negatives. This cultural politics “script” has been clear in the three religious issues discussed above. Suggesting that Sen. Obama is Muslim associates him with “The Other,” those who are not of us, who are not like us, who in fact hate us. After all, the man doesn’t wear an American flag lapel pin, has a wife who isn’t proud of her country, and a pastor who damns America. For the Jewish community which has little experience with the Senator, critiques of his association with Farrakhan are played up and the candidate’s own statements on the Middle East are ignored. Precisely because he’s an unfinished template, these attacks leave him vulnerable. The recent obsession with his pastor reinforce the other concerns and may well amount to a coded effort to raise racial concerns. By painting the Senator as a tool of black nationalism, these charges undermine his claim to transcend the traditional politics of race.

We won’t know how much these things matter until November, but they have already revealed a press that is once again driven by the herd mentality and which largely buys into the frame developed by publicists. Lest he be perceived as an Afrocentric Christian, Senator Obama must distance himself from Pastor Wright. Yet no such call has sounded that demands a similar disavowal by Senator McCain of his Christian Right supporters.
Anybody who listens with an educated ear to Pastor Wright will hear a familiar prophetic Christianity that speaks in the harsh cadence of the Jeremiad. America cannot be a “nation under God” if it treats people of color badly, engages in violence, and otherwise violates the Covenant. While the details are different, this is the same idiom used by people like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson. Recall their statements that America was smitten by God’s hand on 9/11 because it had strayed from the proper path. Both critiques hold US behavior up to scriptural standards and condemn the nation for its transgressions. A better journalistic corps would note this rather than simply echo the charges against Senator Obama.

Kenneth D. Wald is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and co-author, with Allison Calhoun-Brown, of Religion and Politics in the United States, Fifth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)