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TWELVE The New Negro in African American Politics Barack Obama and the Politics of Racial Representation RONALD wiLLiAMS ii Barack Obama’s success in American politics presents an unparalleled opportunity to reconsider the salience of race and the politics of racial representation. Obama’s victorious bid for the U.S. Senate in 2004—becoming only the fourth African American elected to upper house in American history—and, of course, his unprecedented and arguably surprising victory in his bid for President of the United States underscore the changing dynamics of race in American politics. It is important to recount that Obama, an African American, succeeded at defeating a sea of white candidates for his party’s nomination, including Hillary Clinton, who was understood as the “guy to beat” at the beginning of the campaign. However, the significance of his victory is magnified by his successful defeat of senator John McCain in the presidential election. Playing on a term that Obama has been jokingly ridiculed for frequently using in his speeches, “let me be clear,” Barack Hussein Obama—an African American—scored a landslide victory over John McCain, a white man, for the American presidency. Regardless of what historians may write of his administration, his campaign succeeded in disrupting the notion of American politics being an “old boys’ club” at all levels. Notwithstanding the sheer political genius of Obama and his well-assembled campaign team, the question remains: How did they pull this off? How, THE POLiTiCS Of RACiAL REPRESENTATiON . 201 in just a short fifty-four years after the desegregation of schools through the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a mere forty-three years following the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, did an African American succeed at breaking the proverbial glass ceiling on the nation’s highest office, becoming by some measures the leader of the free world. There are a number of prominent events from the 2008 presidential election campaign that speak to the changing dynamics of race in America. Yes, Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president and his landslide win over John McCain in the November election reveal a general shifting trend in attitudes about race. Still, there is one event that stands out from the campaign that reveals something intriguing about the nature of race and race relations in the United States. Recall, if you will, when Hillary Clinton’s campaign ran the television commercial asking the American people who they wanted to answer the phone at the White House when it rang at three o’clock in the morning. Although not entirely germane here, Clinton’s point through this advertisement was consistent with the theme on which she sought the presidency—that she was somehow more “prepared” than Obama to be president and thus should be elected. In short, it should be the more “experienced” candidate to win the election and thus answer the now-famous phone call at three o’clock in the morning. Noteworthy about this commercial was the image of a young white girl (who could have been no more than eight years old) in the background. Not long after this commercial aired, there was a special aired on ABC News Good Morning America that located the girl from the Clinton campaign ad. This girl had matured to an age where she was comfortable making a television appearance , and in it she critiqued the Clinton ad, contending that though she was featured on this ad with an image of her from childhood, as a seventeenyear -old, she was clear that it was Barack Obama—not Hillary Clinton—who would be her choice for president. She would be able to exercise this choice as she would turn eighteen years old one month before the November 2008 election.1 This instance shows us, that, in 2008, race relations have changed such that a young white girl claims to identify more with an African American male presidential candidate than with a white female candidate. While this instance can be critiqued for its methodological value and propagandist overtones, when considered in concert with the support Obama enjoyed among American whites during his campaign, it is emblematic of a trend in American politics and serves as the foundation for the central question with which this chapter is concerned. That is, how was Barack Obama, an African American able to achieve the support of American whites, enough to win not only his party’s...

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