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FOUR what Trumped? Race, Class, Gender, Generation, the Economy, and the 2008 Elections JULiANNE MALvEAUx How did Barack Hussein Obama earn the presidency of the United States of America? A decade ago, he was a little-known state senator from Illinois. By his own admission, he was frustrated by state politics and anxious for the “upgrade” of national office when he first challenged Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and then took on the uphill battle of the 2004 Senate race. Buoyed by an exceptionally well-reviewed speech at the Democratic convention, by the re-release of his biography (Dreams from My Father), and by a well-written policy tome (The Audacity of Hope), Barack Obama was pivoted into the public eye, propelled by well-managed charisma and media attention into the run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, and honed by a combative campaign into having the skills necessary to run a winning campaign. While the Electoral College vote was a virtual landslide, the popular vote suggests a closer race and more divided nation than the electoral vote. This is relevant because there were pivotal points along the way to the Obama victory when critical factors—race, class, gender, and generation —impacted the outcome of the election. Which trumped? In reviewing the factors that were cited and also relevant, I will argue that there was “no trump” in the outcome of the election. In other words, the election of Barack Obama represented a conflation of forces, where the conventional wisdom around matters of race, class, gender, culture, generation, and the economy RACE, CLASS, gENDER, gENERATiON, ECONOMy . 83 could only partially explain the Obama victory. Thus no factor dominated, and every factor mattered, as this historic victory unfolded. The 2008 electoral cycle was bound to be historic, regardless of its outcome. Before the January 2008 Iowa caucuses, an African American man (Barack Obama), a white woman (Hillary Rodham Clinton), and a Latino man (Bill Richardson) were among the eight candidates that vied to be the Democratic choice for president. Additionally a white man (John Edwards) focused on class issues in ways that other candidates did not, adding conversation about “two Americas” to a campaign season that scarcely mentioned the poor. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dominated contests after Iowa, and as the others dropped out of the race, the close contest between Clinton and Obama ensured that one or the other would lead the Democrats’ presidential ticket. While it was certain that either an African American or a woman would have the possibility of becoming President of the United States, there were questions about which history would prevail and which community’s systematic exclusion would be rectified through the 2008 election. History is something that is best viewed in retrospect, not made in “real” time. In other words, either the candidacy of Obama or Clinton would be history enough. That both vied at the same time has the effect of a collision between matters of race and matters of gender. The leadership of the New York National Organization for Women are among those who insisted that those who supported Barack Obama have “betrayed” women.1 At the same time there are African Americans who have questioned others people’s blackness based on their support of Senator Clinton. For a time, there was little civility or dignity in this high-stakes, combative race. A group of multicultural women, disgruntled by their perception of Hillary Clinton’s treatment by the Obama camp, described themselves as PUMAs (or, Party Unity My Derriere). And in the spirit of the spoils system of Chicago politics, there are “victors” in the Obama camp who have reportedly denied access to those perceived as Clinton loyalists, including African American icons whose close ties to the Clinton administration shaped their support for Hillary Clinton. The appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, the third-ranking position in government, has defused some tensions between those who supported Clinton and those who supported Obama. And it is a mistake to perceive that Clinton supporters were only white women and Obama supporters were only African American (with African Americans at a scant 13 percent of the population, Obama had to earn broad support from all demographic groups to earn his victory). Still, for part of the primary season, the collision between race histories and gender histories was both “frontal” and subtle in the primaries. In a capitalist patriarchy that has, at its foundation, the exploitation of the surplus value of work...

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