Copyright

By Connie Young-Johnson 2013

The Dissertation Committee for Connie Young-Johnson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of a Black President

Committee:

Barry Brummett, Supervisor

Dana Cloud

Natalie Stroud

Stephen Marshall

Omi Osun Joni L. Jones

Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of a Black President

by

Connie Young-Johnson, B.S.; M.A.

Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin

December 2013

Dedication

This work was a labor of love and is dedicated to my entire dissertation faculty committee, family, and close friends. Faculty members include Barry Brummett, Dana Cloud, Stephen Marshall, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, and Natalie Stroud. Much thanks to my mother, Tennessee T. Young, sister, Sandra K. Young, and father, Wesley “Sonny” Rawls, as well as my stepmother, Myrtle Rawls, for their loving guidance and inspiration.

I owe a very special thanks to Jamie R. Young, my step-father and the man who raised me, may he rest in peace. I’d be remiss if I failed to thank Travis G. Lemle for his critical eye in helping me to edit the manuscript, particularly as it relates to important historical events. This project has been one of the greatest achievements of my life and would not have been possible without everyone’s support and encouragement. Your thoughts and wisdom served as the catalyst for what I was to become and who I am today. I am eternally grateful for all that you have done for me.

ABSTRACT

Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of a Black President

Connie Young-Johnson, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013

Supervisor: Barry Brummett

This dissertation analyzes the discourse of Obama’s speeches to argue my thesis that Obama won election by virtue of his rhetorical speechmaking but more specifically, his ability to manage race in those speeches. I define and refer to Obama’s rhetorical handling of race in his speechmaking throughout the campaign as the rhetoric of race management. By rhetorical race management, I mean the strategic use of race (or obfuscation of race) in one’s discourse to manage or affect the audience’s beliefs or opinions of the listener. From a communication-based standpoint, understanding how race operated in this election requires us to examine the history of racism in the United

States as well as critical scholarly work on the subject.

Understanding how Obama was able to manage race in his rhetoric is necessary because it forces us to perhaps reexamine and scrutinize the 2008 Presidential election more carefully for several reasons. As rhetorical scholars, if we are in the business of understanding how our icons and politicians can potentially manipulate and use our rhetorical signs and symbols against us—or in spite of us--it is in our best interest to understand why the process occurred and why we allowed it to happen. v I suggest that Obama’s deliberate attempt to weave ideological constructs like patriotism and the American Dream into his campaign strategy obfuscated his representation as the marginalized “other” and created a new political identity that has little to do with marginalization. By examining the theories of scholars like Kenneth

Burke, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Walter Fisher, and Dana Cloud, I outline how race and racism historically operated in our political elections, from both a sociopolitical, or quantitative perspective, as well as a critical perspective. By using a multimethod analysis, we are better positioned to understand how Barack Obama successfully played the race card in the Presidential Election of 2008. More importantly, I argue in my conclusion why his use of rhetorical race management, was absolutely necessary if he were to become the first African-American president in a historically racist country.

vi Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Rhetoric of a Black President Introduction ...... 1 Research Questions ...... 6 Racial Attitudes Prior to the Age of Obama ...... 9 Understanding Why the Rhetoric of Race Management is Important ...... 28 Literature More Focused on Personal Identity than Substance ...... 33 Going Beyond the Conventional Lit Review on Obama ...... 42 Chapter Preview ...... 50

Chapter 2: Methodology: Unpacking Race Management ...... 56 Using the Tools of Ideological Criticism ...... 60 Biesecker's Take on Burke's Dramatism ...... 66 Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm ...... 73 Managing the Invisible Power of Whiteness ...... 76 How Race Influences Politics and Media Framing ...... 94 Conclusion ...... 106

Chapter 3: Historicizing Race Management Prior to Obama ...... 108 Crossover Politicking and the Framing of Tom Bradley ...... 111 The Wilder Effect and Jesse Jackson's Issues ...... 119 Challenging Conventional Thought in the Presidential Election of 2008 ...... 130 Understanding Racial Suppression…………………………...... 133 Conclusion ...... 142

vii

Chapter 4: The Politics of Ideological Construction ...... 146 The First Crusade: Victory Speech in Iowa ...... 152 Acceptance Speech at the 2008 DNC in Colorado ...... 156 Obama's Election Victory in Grant Park, Chicago ...... 158 The Birth of the American Dream ...... 162 ABC Spawns a Cultural Hero: Obama's Rhetoric Based on Burkean Tropes ...... 177 A Tale of Two Cities: The Ironic Investments of MLK vs. Obama ...... 190 Conclusion ...... 195

Chapter 5: How the Media Managed Race for Obama and Why ...... 198 Media Framing in the 2008 Election ...... 202 Media Bias ...... 207 Soft News versus Hard News: Impact of Both in the Voting Process ...... 223 The Internet King ...... 232 The Marketing of Barack Obama ...... 236 Conclusion ...... 239

Chapter 6: Racializing Postmodernism in the Age of Obama ...... 241 A Chicken in Every Pot: The Culture Industry ...... 245 Performing Post-Racial Prophecy ...... 250 Confirming and Disproving Assumptions and Beliefs ...... 257 Grappling with the Politics of Race in 2012 ...... 260 Research Questions Revisited ...... 268 Rhetorical Race Management as a Theoretical Contribution ...... 272 Conclusion ...... 279

Bibliography...... 282

Vita……………...... 298

viii Chapter 1

Introduction

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Barack Obama Victory speech in U.S. Presidential election Grant Park, Chicago, November 4, 2008

On November 4, 2008, the United States ushered in one of its greatest moments in race relations when Barack Hussein Obama was elected as this country’s first African-

American president. Unfortunately, any assumption that race relations had now reached its zenith height of racial harmony where all men were now equal belies many of the unpleasant truths about race and racism that continue to persist. Even as early as 2008, shortly before his election, one scholar suggested that the possibility of Obama as the first black president offered a “feel good scenario” of dubious racial equality. In this case, although Obama’s election clearly signaled an embrace of the symbolic representation of racial equality, the embrace was little more than just that: symbolic and certainly not real

(Harlow 164).

As Jacobsen (2010) suggests, the Obama presidency was primarily a legacy of

George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, popular disenchantment with the war, negative views of Bush's performance, and the economy (p. 207). But what is seldom addressed in

1 the literature is that Bush's failing economy and contentious Iraq war, theoretically, should not have been enough to erase almost 300 years of historical and institutionalized racism and elect a black man as U.S. President, especially right on the heels of a conservative Republican administration. Political attitudes and beliefs are hard-wired, to some extent, and do not readily change. And while a common assumption like the unpopularity of the war in Iraq might be perceived as sufficient grounds for Obama’s election, in reality, it probably was not.

How do we explain Obama’s ascendancy to the U.S. Presidency in a country that, historically, has supported and perpetuated institutionalized racism for over three hundred years? Commenting that it was inconceivable that racial exclusion dating back for more than six centuries could suddenly become inconsequential, Smith and King suggest that any talk of racial issues was deliberately avoided and moved to the back-burner by modern alliances within the Democratic Party (2009, p. 26).

I posit that Barack Obama’s nomination, candidacy and election to the U.S.

Presidency in 2008 circumvented historical and institutionalized racism primarily by assiduously avoiding any mention of racial grievances or obligation throughout his campaign. This deliberate decision to avoid racial contention or acrimony in a political speech, in and of itself, may not be problematic. What is problematic and perhaps, even egregrious, was his almost knee-jerk reaction and reliance on the healing balms of Dr.

King’s rhetoric during times of crisis, particularly during the “A More Perfect Union” address. While King’s rhetoric was exclusively targeted at racial victimage and reparations, Obama chose to invoke and even manipulate King’s rhetoric to fit his own 2 predicament (e.g., the Reverend Jeremiah Wright imbroglio). The irony is that by invoking legacies and sacred cows, Obama was stylizing a particular brand of rhetoric that is consistent in maintaining the same status quo that his predecessors sought to diffuse. Unlike King’s, Obama’s rhetorical agency is remarkable in its absence of any direct reference or explication of racial obligation or injustice suffered by other African-

Americans. Instead, Obama’s rhetoric is inclusive of all. Wholesome, upbeat, perhaps even refreshing, Obama’s words seem more intended to soothe and placate than remonstrate or criticize. In retrospect, one must stop to reflect: is it wrong to preach a sermon that is constitutive of all versus an aggrieved few? Is this not reflective of a truly postracial America? Just as importantly, isn’t the global narrative necessary if an African-

American male’s election is to see the light of day? Perhaps an even greater question is thus: must an African-American political candidate invoke racial guilt to win an election?

This dissertation analyzes the discourse of Obama’s speeches to argue my thesis that Obama won election by virtue of his rhetorical speechmaking but more specifically, his ability to manage race in those speeches. I define and refer to Obama’s rhetorical handling of race in his speechmaking throughout the campaign as the rhetoric of race management. By rhetorical race management, I mean the strategic use of race in a speech. Here, the strategic use of race can mean the obfuscation of racial issues for certain audiences vs. the deliberate mention of race for the benefit of others. This deliberate invocation of race and/or racism in one’s discourse is used to manage the audience’s beliefs or opinions of the listener, particularly if that individual is personally vested in race (as is Obama in his own ethnic identity as an African-American). Of 3 course, whether or not one chooses to even see race in this election, or the lack thereof, requires a level of circumspection that is both evenly balanced as well as critical. First and foremost, I want to be perfectly clear that I am in no way castigating, condemning or passing judgment on Barack Obama’s performance during the Presidential Election of

2008. I don’t come armed with nefarious theories on race, intended to destroy his character. As a rhetor, I have been taught to study our environment and identify rhetorical symbols, words, and messages which might imply hidden or new meanings. As an example, just as I can search for clues that might imply Obama’s embrace of whiteness, I can just as easily identify others that suggest a very strong commitment to Obama’s identity as a black man.

One need only read his story in Dreams from My Father, an autobiography written in 1995 while Obama was still a Congressman for the State of Illinois, to appreciate this faith. In the text, the reader might very well be moved to tears as they experience some of the tragedies and triumphs in Obama’s life as he endures the small and large injustices of growing up black in America. A bildungsroman or “coming of age” story, in many ways, the book is dedicated to his father, a man of pure Kenyan descent who was obviously quite pivotal in Obama’s life. If nothing else, this sense of pride, this belief in one’s identity as an African-American can be evidenced by something as small as his name. While raised as a boy, Obama went by the name of “Barry” throughout his youth and as a young man. In the early 1980s, he officially changed his name back to Barack Obama, the name given to him by his father, Barack Obama Sr.

This name change came at a cost, unfortunately. In the book, Obama references the 4 subtle, almost constant infighting with Republican Congressmen on something as small as an African moniker and something as large as his struggle to be heard in the halls of the nation’s capital as the black Congressman with the funny-sounding name and African roots. This project is not about passing a priori judgment or fabricating trumped-up theories, using ill-fitting methodologies. My objective in this paper is to use rhetorical criticism to identify artifacts and evidence which might give us clues as to how dominant ideologies are expressed while silencing opposing or contrary ideologies at the same time. Of course, basing one’s decision on an autobiography written by the rhetor in question is also suspect and can be equally dangerous in the study of rhetorical criticism.

Much like believing the conviction in words written by Adolf Hitler in his own autobiography, one must be careful to balance any evidence or testimony from a number of sides in any sound argument. This project is no different.

From a communication-based standpoint, understanding how race operated in this election requires us to also examine the history of both race and racism in the United

States as well as critical scholarly work on the subject. My argument, here, is that by mining how race and racism have operated in our political elections, we are better positioned in understanding how Barack Obama successfully played the race card.

Explicating a full history of race and politics is beyond the scope of my argument nor is it the question being addressed in this dissertation. Nevertheless, understanding how

African-American political candidates fared in previous elections is useful for several reasons. One, it gives us a roadmap from which we can form and make assumptions regarding probable reasons for Obama’s success at the polls and, two, it tells us what 5 black candidates can and cannot do with regard to constructing a racialized persona to win election.

Research Questions

Although the literature review documents a number of scholarly papers and books that generally focus on Barack Obama’s election from an empirical or identity perspective, none really answer my question. In researching many of the papers delivered at major NCA conferences, both in 2009 and 2010, well after his election, none really explain how and why Obama was successful in surmounting historical racism. In a country that had previously supported a neo-conservative Republican administration in not one but two consecutive terms, immediately prior to his election, Obama’s ability to overcome these obstacles is not only an anomaly, it is one that is deserving of study and serious research. Addressing the following questions might lend insight to a topic that has rarely been discussed.

Primary Questions

RQ1: How did Obama manage race within his rhetoric in the campaign?

RQ2: What theories might explain Obama’s success at the polls? Are there theories that may offer insight into the possible reasons for Obama’s electoral success in a country that, historically, has brooked no favors with African- American citizens?

RQ3: How can we best explain Obama’s election, both from a historical perspective as well as a scholarly perspective?

RQ4: How did the media’s avoidance or romanticization of race and race issues possibly contribute to Obama’s marketability and success at the polls and becoming electable as an African-American candidate?

6 RQ5: Methodology: why might conventional textual analysis be insufficient in this study versus that of ideological discourse analysis instead?

Because I am seeking to understand how Obama won the U.S. Presidency based on his ability to maintain a raceless political campaign, limiting ourselves to textual analysis of his rhetoric or the messages and cues embedded within those speeches fails to take into consideration a number of factors. Obama’s audience and the historical ramifications surrounding the election of an African-American president in a historically racist country are but a few. Understanding how the actors, audience and social expectations factor into a true cultural critique of Barack Obama rely on a construct referred to as ideological discourse analysis, “a specific type of socio-political analysis that attempts to relate structures of discourse to structures within society, e.g., class, gender or ethnicity.” More specifically, ideological discourse analysis examines the social assumptions and expectations embedded within the political and cultural relationships between social organizations, groups, roles and power, on one hand, and the actual discourse or response that must be generated, on the other (van Dijk, 1995, pp.

135-136). Roles and positioning of the players themselves are also relative in where subjects, or in Obama’s case, politicians, are located within power structures like the

White House or Congress. When read through the lens of ideological discourse analysis, outside constructs like gender and race must contend and oftentimes bend in the struggle over power (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 2000, p. 24).

Obama’s penchant for eschewing the topic of racial friction or issues of race, poverty and class can be described as a variant or perhaps politicized version of the 7 rhetoric of silence. In the “Null Persona: Race and the Rhetoric of Silence in the Uprising of ’34,” Dana Cloud defines the rhetoric of silence as “a discursive pattern in which speakers gesture incompletely toward what cannot be uttered in a context of oppression”

(Cloud, 1999, p. 178). In a project which examined the transcripts of African-American mill workers who participated in one of the largest labor strikes in memory, Cloud’s rhetorical analysis of those transcripts is telling and warrants more careful investigation.

In her analysis of the interviews following the bloody labor strike in 1934, she found that many were hesitant or reluctant to talk, some even refusing to discuss the acts of violence or instances of oppression levied against them decades after the strike had occurred. This, in many ways, can be seen as an erasure of the accountability or culpability of which the white mill owners were guilty. Just as troubling, perhaps, one can only speculate as to what these survey participants had to fear in not being forthright in their responses. What were they fearful of after an event which had occurred more than 60 years ago?

Obama’s decision not to discuss racial tensions or the war on poverty during his campaign might also be seen as a strategic silence. Here, it, too, might have been a deliberate decision to avoid alienating white voters while retaining disenfranchised

(black) voters, at the same time. While African-American orators and politicians like Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson were outspoken regarding the rights of blacks and the disenfranchised some twenty and forty years earlier, Obama was silent. Thus, for

Obama, the rhetoric of silence works in stark reversal. As an African-American candidate, Obama was mindful of what he said, but more importantly, he was deliberate in what he did not say. Not unlike the mill workers in Cloud’s project, Obama, too, must 8 suppress and silence any contentious discussion of race to win favor with the ruling class as well as a working class of white and black voters. Here, questions of power are trumped by the realities of historical racism. Obama’s decision not to address race speaks to Henry Giroux’s notion of racism as a discursive factor which can be used to control and manipulate the public. I explore Giroux’s theory of hegemony and the ruling class’ need to manage discourse to effectively maintain social order in Chapter 2.

Racial Attitudes Prior to the Age of Obama

During the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Obama commanded 52.92% of the

U.S. vote as compared to John McCain’s 45.66%. 1 If one studies the Federal Election

Commission voter statistics more carefully, one notes that the number of actual votes for

Obama exceeded those for Republican candidate John McCain by almost 10,000,000 votes. How might we explain this remarkable turn of events?

Representative of a social group that has probably been one of the most vilified in human history, Obama’s ability to overcome innuendo, mistrust, stereotypes and a deep- seated prejudice against African-Americans that has been ingrained in the American psyche of millions for centuries is the question underlying this study for several reasons.

Discrimination and racism in this country did not magically evaporate once Obama was elected to office just as it never really disappeared following government intervention during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Instead of disappearing, it merely assumed

1 Voting statistics based on reports from the Federal Election Commission. Access following website for more detailed voting statistics (http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf ).

9 more subtle forms that not only made it acceptable, many of the laws that were created to do away with discrimination only exacerbated other problems. Stuart Hall refers to this phenomenon as inferential racism. Here, representations of events and situations which have racist premises or propositions inscribed in them also support a series of unquestioned assumptions about those events taking place (Hall, 2003, p. 91). This distinction between “old” or overt racism versus and a more modern racism where bigotry is masked under notions like self-reliance or hard work is further discussed in

Chapter Two.

In the wake of scholarship that cites white animosity to black leadership as a form of prejudice or “as an emotional, rigid attitude” that is too deeply embedded to be easily discarded (Pettigrew 1972; Fazio et al. 1995, Hajnal 2006 p. 21), Obama’s decisive victory might be interpreted as the precursor and marker of a very decisive shift in racial attitudes for U.S. politics. On the other hand, Obama’s victory should not come as a complete surprise, either. Gallup poll surveys have consistently documented falling levels of hostility towards black candidates as early as the 1950s.

In a Gallup poll survey conducted in 1958, while 53 percent of white survey participants indicated that they would not support a qualified black for president, 77 percent of respondents said they would support a black candidate in 1988 (Cavanaugh

1985; Williams 1990 p. 52). Even so, this substantial jump in black candidate approval ratings should be taken with a grain of salt. One must take into account the number of undecided participants, as well. In this case, 16 percent answered “no response” and another 7 percent answered “no reply/don’t know.” Oddly enough, it is this 23 percent of 10 “undecided” voters that we are most interested in because they are relevant to our question: why the unprecedented level of white voter support for Obama, now, versus 10 or 20 years ago? According to Cavanaugh and Williams, given these statistics for the

“undecided” vote, a black candidate would need to win a voting bloc majority of 65 percent if he or she expected to win election. Since no presidential candidate, black or white, has won more than 61 percent of the entire vote, the outcome of the 2008

Presidential Election gives room for pause (Cavanaugh 1985; Williams 1990, p. 53).

And while this project does not focus on the politics of civil rights or legislation, a little history is in order to better understand the context and dramatic reversal that

Obama’s election represents.

Some 40-odd years prior to Obama’s election, the mere idea of a black man or woman casting a ballot during a political election—much less running for office--was grounds for justifiable homicide. As an example, while the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were hailed as landmark legislation, their passage came with a price. Three voter registration workers--Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and

Andrew Goodman—were brutally beaten and killed by Klansmen in Neshoba County,

Mississippi, following their voter registration of local blacks. When the case was closed in 1967, following a dead-locked all-white jury, one of the alleged conspirators later confided in a 1980 interview that the Klan murders were justified and that “citizens not only have a right but a duty to preserve their culture” (Cagin & Dray, 2006, p. xvi).

Evidence of police involvement and knowledge of the murders remained concealed in

11 Mississippi state agency government files for almost 40 years before the case was reopened in 2004 (p. xiii).

The anti-civil rights violence that erupted in many parts of the South might very well be placed on a “continuum with lynching on one side and hate crimes on the other”

(Burnham, 2009, p. 1). In states like Alabama, offenders who burned, bombed or murdered blacks went unchecked and Southern law enforcement officials generally refused to arrest violators. A bastion of segregation, much like Mississippi, in Alabama it simply was “not a punishable crime to kill a Negro or a civil rights worker (Belknap,

1984, p. 93). In response to the ongoing violence and rigid discrimination which persisted, Congress and President Johnson launched both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Meant to establish racial equality and provide federal oversight of elections, both measures met with a disconnect. While the federal government assumed racism could be assuaged and dismantled with a mandate or legislation, in reality, the existing racial attitudes of blacks and whites could not support it. Post-World War II integration sparked race riots in urban cities like Chicago and

Cicero, Illinois as early as the 1940s and the 1950s, yet it would be the Watts riots that would grip the public’s imagination given its magnitude and controversy surrounding it

(Davis, 2000, p. 66).

After signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law on August 6th, Johnson’s efforts suffered a curious fate. Less than a week later, one of the worst race riots in U.S. history exploded in Los Angeles, California. The Watts riots resulted in more than six days of looting, fires, violence and approximately 4,000 police arrests (Schuman, 1998, p. 12 31). From the ashes of Martin Luther King’s peaceful civil rights demonstrations, the rancor of race riots and the Black Panther Party movement rose and swept the country.

The Black Panther Party’s (BPP) “willingness to respond to violence with violence” had a profound effect on both blacks and whites (Schuman, 1998, p. 34). Perceived as the radical, militant offshoot of King’s civil rights legacy, “the Black Panther Party made white Americans feel many things, but safe wasn't one of them” (Abu-Jamal, 2004).

Described as “the most active and dangerous black extremist group in the U.S.,” the BPP remained under intense FBI investigation and surveillance from 1968-71 (Churchill &

Vander Wall, 2002, p. 63). J. Edgar Hoover would launch his own clandestine political repression attack under the guise of law enforcement and counterintelligence against the

Black Panthers. The FBI’s investigation would later end in the prison sentencing of BPP leader Huey Newton and the violent ambush of BPP member Fred Hampton, shot to death in his sleep by Chicago police in 1969 (72). In many ways, these seemingly isolated acts of violence perpetrated by government agencies and city police officers against African-Americans, have greater implications than being problematic in themselves. Probably the most egregious observation is that these (African-Americans) were the very group of people that the executive government was trying to placate in the first place. Not surprising, this “disconnect” can be extended to white voter perceptions and attitudes of white Americans, as well.

David Sears, Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo suggest that conventional Jim

Crow racism and bigotry merely evolved into a new form of racism where white opposition to blacks was filtered, becoming a politically correct resentment versus the 13 Jim Crow violence and hatred of the 1930s and 1940s (Sears, Sidanius, & Bobo, 2000).

Instead of lynchings and separate drinking fountains, “the socialization of negative affect and stereotypes about blacks continue[d], leaving a reservoir of racial antipathy decoupled from racialist beliefs” (p. 17).

Although political voting findings and more detailed explanations of the “new racism” or “symbolic racism” that emerged in the 1970s are further detailed in Chapter

Two, Donald Kinder and David Sears document racism’s effect on white voter preferences for black candidates by analyzing voter opinion on seemingly unrelated issues like busing and school desegregation as far back as 1981 (Kinder & Sears, 1981;

Sears & Kinder, 1985; Kinder & Sanders, 1990; Kinder & Mendelberg, 1995). Surveys where white voter opinion were measured in National Election Studies (NES) surveys showed white aversion to federal assistance and affirmative action with more oblique, indirect questions, e.g., “do you think the government should make an effort to improve the social and economic condition of blacks in this country” (Sears, Sidanius, & Bobo,

2000, pp. 66-67). Even in studies conducted in 1987, results indicate that whites harbored some level of prejudice towards African-Americans. In a question that asked whites to consider the merits of government assistance to blacks, 49.8% of respondents felt that blacks should work harder, stop complaining and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (p. 67). By extrapolating white voter opinion on abstract concepts like individualism (e.g., should people work harder?) and authoritarianism (e.g., should the government enforce stricter crime laws), Sears suggests that “prejudice mixes together racial animosity and individualistic values,” thus providing a safe haven for whites to 14 voice racial resentment and prejudice (pp. 67-68). Thus, it is not surprising that the

Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) and the government’s benevolence in passage of legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took a precarious turn not two decades later, mirroring the sentiments of white voters.

When Ronald Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination in 1980, he chose to make his first campaign speech in Neshoma County, Mississippi, the same county where Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman had been brutally beaten and murdered by local

Klansmen in 1964. Welcomed by a raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000 supporters, chanting “We Want Reagan, We Want Reagan,” it’s not hard to see that a decided neo- conservative shift in the American publics’ politics had occurred (Herbert, 2007).

Elected not once, but twice (1980 and 1984), Reagan’s election signaled what perhaps might be called the new Southern strategy: transforming the allegiance of white southern voters to the Republican Party (Scott, 2008). Reagan’s thinly veiled attempts at disguising his opposition to civil rights under the guise of state’s rights would later translate into his own assault on decimating the Voting Rights Act and his 1988 veto on a bill that expanded federal civil rights legislation. The American public’s decision to elect and support two Republican Administrations following Reagan’s tenure is paradoxical, given Obama’s election in 2008. Despite the fact that Bill Clinton served as U.S.

President from 1993-2001, the Democratic Party’s hold on the White House was short- lived. George H.W. Bush served in the U.S. Presidency from 1989-1993; his son, George

W. Bush, served in office from 2001-2008.

15 Obama was elected directly on the heels of a conservative, Republican president who was clearly indifferent to civil rights legislation or the needs of African-Americans and other minority groups.2 Of course, much of Obama’s popularity may have been due, in part, to the enormous unpopularity of Bush following his second term. The state of the economy, a fractious war in Iraq, a recession bordering on that of the Great Depression of

1929, and high unemployment rates certainly may have contributed to the voter’s decision to choose Obama over McCain. Yet the decision comes as a surprise given the

U.S.’s longstanding history of institutionalized racism. What other factors may have contributed to Obama’s election?

Some have suggested that the success of Obama’s campaign was based on class and not race (Pruitt, 2011; Schneider, 2008). Based, in part, on Obama’s gaffe at an Iowa speech where he asked his working class audience if anyone had gone into Whole Foods to price the arugula, this assumption that Obama rode on the coattails of class privilege because of his Harvard University education contradicts the numbers.

For example, although exit poll statistics reveal that large majorities of white voters supported Obama in certain states, suggesting a class-based support (e.g., 45%,

California; 57%, Illiniois; 57%, Oregon) the same numbers for states in the Deep South show a markedly racialized voting pattern. In these states, not only was white crossover support minimal, Obama lost in landslide numbers to McCain, in spite of his eventual

2 In The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (2002), Mark Crispin Miller cross- examines dozens of Bush’s speeches going as far back as the days of Bush’s role as governor of the State of Texas. Critical of both his grammatical gaffes and ideology, Miller cites specific references to Bush’s position on race, Affirmative Action and perceptions of minority groups on pp. 228-234. 16 electoral victory (e.g., 25%, Alabama; 16%, Arkansas; 23%, Kentucky; 29%, Oklahoma), clearly suggesting racially-charged voting patterns (Marable, 2009, pp. 247-250).

Marable comments that it was the shift in voter attitudes following disasters like

Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War that swayed voters to Obama’s side in significant numbers. What is most relevant to the thesis of this paper is Marable’s reference to

Obama’s mastery of the spoken word: Obama’s postblack, race-neutral rhetoric [that] reassured millions of whites to vote for a “black candidate”(8).

In a country that has a recorded history of lynching 3,437 blacks between 1882 and 1968, the magnitude of Obama’s victory and the repercussions of a black man in the

Oval Office are certainly indicative of an anomaly in American voting habits, particularly given the track record of black elected officials in this country.3

Although the number of elected black officials grew to more than 10,000 by 1991, their success was largely based on black voter support in jurisdictions largely composed of majority black populations and racial redistricting (Terkildsen, 1993, p. 1032; Lublin,

1999, pp. 183-186). Even after implementation of the Voting Rights Act, black candidates failed to win office in at-large elections because they were unable to attract a sufficient number of white voters (Bullock, 1984, p. 238). Terkildsen suggests that black electoral success was largely due to coalition formation between blacks and whites but, and perhaps more importantly, progressive attitudes of white voters themselves

(Terkildsen, 1993, p. 1032). While several black political candidates were effective in winning election at local and statewide levels (e.g., Douglas Wilder, Carol Mosely Braun,

17 J.C. Watts, Jr.) many others were not, particularly in nationwide elections (e.g., Jesse

Jackson, Tom Bradley, Harvey Gantt, and Andrew Young).

In a study conducted in 1992, Terkildsen found that white voter perceptions of black political candidates were clearly racially biased. Not only were black candidates penalized by white voters based on race, the actual candidate’s level of pigmentation

(e.g., dark-skinned black candidate versus a light-skinned candidate) was also key in voter decision-making (Terkildsen, 1993, p. 1033). To test her hypothesis, Terkildsen showed respondents photographs of three fictitious candidates running for governor of a nearby state. In this case, one candidate was a white male and the other two were

African-American males, one dark-skinned and the other, light-skinned. Based on the photographs and supporting fictitious biographical information, where all candidates were equally qualified for the position, the respondents clearly showed a preference for the white male candidate.4 Although Terkildsen focuses on the self-monitoring of stereotyping and the cognitive processing of racial stereotype and prejudice in her essay,

4 The methodology used for Terkildsen’s study is based on a random sampling of 409 adults drawn from a court jury pool in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Sampling is comprised of equal numbers of both men and women and 348 of the respondents are white; average age is 45. Both political parties were equally represented (e.g., 49% were Democrats) and the majority of participants were high school graduates. Respondents were asked to choose the best candidate based on fabricated biographies and histories supporting the qualifications of each candidate and stance of important issues (e.g., state taxes, the environment). Each candidate was equally represented with the exception of race and skin tone. The study was conducted between October of 1991 and January of 1992. From a statistical perspective, while Terkildsen supports her hypothesis with a number of tables and charts, data from Table 1, “Effect of Candidate Race and Skin Color,” are particularly relevant. Here, respondents gave the white male candidate a 6.4 favorability rating versus a 5.7 rating for the light-skinned black male and a 5.8 rating for the dark-skinned black male. The thermometer or range of measurement is based on a scale of 0-10. The reader can refer to page 1041 of Terkildsen’s essay for specifics (e.g., ANOVA analysis requirements, cell means, dependent variables considered, etc.).

18 what is most salient as it relates to Obama’s election are her final comments on the futility of an African-American ever winning election to a relatively high office as a political candidate in the U.S.:

At present, it is also highly unlikely that African-American politicians will be able to persuade racially intolerant whites to vote for them…Therefore, states where a sizable portion of the white population is racially prejudiced may continue to be outside the electoral grasp of black candidates for some time to come…Such findings seem to indicate that no amount of structural reforms can compensate for the deeply held racial beliefs and physically supported misconceptions white voters hold about black politicians. (pp. 1050-1051)

In spite of the fact that Obama won a clear majority in the Iowa Caucus where the state’s racial demographic is 93.9% Caucasian and only 2.8% African-American,5 even scholars were dubious in their belief that this country would ever elect a black president.

If conventional wisdom, racial polarization and historical tradition precluded minorities from winning political office, how do we explain Obama’s presidential victory?

(Highton, 2004, p. 2).

Just as importantly, one should keep in mind that Barack Obama was not the first

African-American to run for the U.S. presidency. Both black women (Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Carol Moseley Braun in 2004) and black men (Jesse Jackson, 1984 and

1988; Alan Keyes, 1996, 2000 and 2008; Al Sharpton, 2004) ran for the U.S. Presidency well before Obama’s campaign. But unlike his predecessors (none of whom won votes from the Electoral College or their party’s nomination), Obama not only won 365

5 See source at Iowa Quick Facts from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2009 statistics at this website http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/19000.html

19 electoral votes, his popular vote exceeded McCain’s by almost 10,000,000 votes.6

Although his electoral vote among white voters did not exceed McCain’s, his ability to command almost 45% of the white electorate was substantial:

Although Obama beat John McCain in the popular vote by an impressive seven- point margin, McCain beat Obama among white voters by an even more impressive 12-point margin. Obama got 53 percent of the broad electorate to vote for him but only 43 percent of the white electorate. When I say "white electorate," I don't mean the white working class, or white Southerners, or any other subgroup whose capacity for racial tolerance has long been held suspect. I mean all white voters. (Noah, Slate, 2008).

The fact that Obama won a majority percentage of the black vote (e.g., Obama won 95% of the African-American vote nationwide) may not come as a surprise, nor his overwhelming support from voters of other racial minority groups. Among Latino voters,

67% voted for Obama while 31% voted for Republican John McCain. Among Asian voters, 62% supported Obama and 35% voted for McCain.7 In contrast, white voters supported McCain (55%) over Obama (43%). But the fact that Obama won such a large percentage of the white electorate (white voters supported McCain by 55% over Obama’s

43%) is significant and worth noting.8

6 See the U.S. Federal Election Results for the Presidential 2008 Campaign at this website for actual details http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf

7 The Pew Research Foundation’s essay, “Dissecting the Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History,” comments that the 2008 Presidential Election was the most ethnically and racially diverse elections of all time. In this election, one-fourth of the voting population was non-white. Access at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election.

8 According to the Pew Research Foundation, exit polls in last year's presidential election reflected a candidate preference of non-white voters that was distinctly different from that of white voters. See the Pew Foundation’s findings in their April 30, 2009 abstract at this website: 20 Obama’s ability to upend historic racism on its head only 45 years after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law has proven to be paradoxical as well.

While noted black scholar Cornel West and broadcast journalist Tavis Smiley went on a

16-city “poverty tour” lambasting and criticizing Obama for turning his back on African-

Americans and the working poor in this country, the mainstream media was much kinder.9 Of course, romanticizing heroic journeys that are bereft of racial antagonism or discussions of race and politics is probably more entertaining and ties into theories discussed in Chapter 2. And with one notable exception, while such narratives likely sell more ad copy at the newsstands, they don’t answer our question: how was it that Barack

Obama was able to overcome historical racism to win an election whereas his predecessors were not?

Tim Wise, an anti-racism activist and writer of almost a half dozen books on white privilege, authored a particularly sobering piece that addresses this question in his text, Between Barack and a Hard Place. Released in 2009, shortly after Obama’s election, Between Barack and a Hard Place uses Obama’s election as the focal point for a much larger discussion on white guilt, white privilege, and post-racial hypocrisy. Wise seems to be the only popular author who is not afraid to call a spade a spade. By comparing the glaring inequalities between blacks and whites that continue to exist, in spite of an Obama presidency (e.g., ongoing disparities in income, jobs, housing,

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election

9 See Etan Thomas’s piece, “Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are wrong—Obama hasn’t failed the poor,” to understand how other blacks oppose Obama just as vehemently as many whites do. Go to this site for further details http://www.cnn.com/2011/08/31/opinion/thomas-obama-accomplishments. 21 healthcare, etc. that the election of a black president has not changed), Wise makes a case for the possible and all too likely justification and reification of racism, albeit racism in a different form:

For while the individual success of persons of color, as with Obama, is meaningful (and at this level was unthinkable merely a generation ago), the larger systemic and institutional realities of life in America suggest the ongoing salience of a deep-seated cultural malady—racism—which has been neither eradicated nor even substantially diminished by Obama’s victory. (8)

Although Wise is not a scholar, he hits the nail on the head when he argues the inherent hypocrisy of Obama’s election, something which the dozen or so scholarly authors discussed later in this chapter do not do. This, in itself, is somewhat disturbing given that critical scholarly literature is assumed to be just that: critical. His text is important and worth mentioning because his argument, in many ways, parallels my own.

Wise’s reference to Obama’s election as simply being a new-and-improved version of Sears’ and Kinder’s old racism of the 1950s comes full circle. If we, the people, (or at least those who voted for him) assume we now live in post-racial world, it is only an illusion. As Wise reflects it is “because a newer, slicker Racism 2.0” operates the controls in the Oval Office, a form of racism and white privilege that Obama, himself, is complicit in maintaining.

Obama surfaced from relative obscurity as a one-term Chicago Congressman to become U.S. President within the span of two years of active campaigning. How might this pièce de résistance be explained?

In this dissertation, I argue that Barack Obama overcame the obstacles and barriers of institutionalized and historic racism in order to win office and become President of the 22 United States in 2008 by ignoring the topic of race as a source of contention. Obama, essentially, employed a strategy of rhetorical race management by not talking about it until he was forced to do so following the Jeremiah Wright incident. Given that many of those strategies can be explained and even interpreted by the theories of Kenneth Burke, three of which I discuss in Chapter 4, this project relies on Burkean theory to help us interpret the meaning and probable intent of Obama’s words in his speechmaking.

A noted philosopher and critical scholar, Burke’s seminal work in symbolic meaning and human behavior is significant because it might explain the American public’s behavior and decision to elect an African-American president where traditionally no such election was believed possible. Although Burke’s theories are relevant to my argument, the reader should not misconstrue or assume that this project is based on Burkean theory alone. Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a very different interpretation of Obama’s vernacular in Chapter 2. Again, the focus is on locating and identifying scholars who might offer theories or ways of interpreting Obama’s rhetoric. While Gates’ notion of the signifying monkey is useful in reading or interpreting a political speech that Obama delivered in

2007 for the benefit of a primarily all-black audience, one must keep in mind that Obama did not win this election based on the black vote. Given that the U.S. population is majority Caucasian with only a 12.9% percentage of African-Americans, Obama’s election was decided by white voters—not African-Americans.

I am most interested in identifying those rhetorical theories that Obama used to align himself with white audiences. Specifically, I argue that Obama’s allegiance to the

“change” and “hope” mantra and propaganda preached during his campaign was largely 23 based on his claim on the American Dream, an illusory tactic which sublimates his commitment to his racial identity and reinforces his investment in the status quo. Other scholars have interpreted Obama’s “change” incantations a little differently. According to

William Jelani Cobb (2010), the sheer ambiguity of the word “change” forced each person to invent his or her own meaning of the word. Change became a ubiquitous buzz word:

The change doctrine proved so permeable, so viral, that even the most faithless practitioner of the democratic creed, the most lapsed citizen, knew to associate it with Obama. Change meant whatever you thought it meant; from Republican to Democrat, from a president who slouches to one with the posture of a pharaoh. And for a great many, it meant change from the old-model retail black leaders to something [quite] different. Jesse Jackson understood this better than most (43).

In this passage, Cobb’s mention of Jackson references levels of friction between

Jackson and Obama and the assumed generational divide between Jackson’s unsuccessful run for the presidency in the early 1980s versus that of Obama’s widely acclaimed and highly successful campaign in 2008. Cobb’s reference to Jesse Jackson as an “old-model retail black leader” suggests that Jackson’s embrace of issues like racial equality and entitlement had become passé and, more importantly, that Obama realized this in his own campaign. Instead, Obama was able to embrace issues like victimage and debts owed to other blacks by referencing the inherent pathos of landmark events like the Civil Rights

Movement but strategically so—in this case, usually in front of black audiences. Yet, by calling upon iconic figures like Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and the Civil Rights

Movement in front of mixed or primarily white audiences, Obama was able to embrace his audiences by creating a level of guilt that his white opponents could not. More

24 importantly, Obama invoked and resuscitated the “what-we-are-owed” or “what-King- would-have-wanted” sermonic linchpins but stylistically so and only at specific moments or occasions. This ability to resurrect racial pathos became glaringly apparent during

Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address in March of 2008. Just as importantly, it speaks to Obama’s ability to use race as a tool that primarily served his own personal need to handle a crisis versus speaking on behalf of the greater welfare of African-

Americans who, for the most part, continue to struggle much as they did during Dr.

King’s era.

Unlike Dr. King, who always spoke to the plight or circumstances of other blacks and people of color in his speechmaking, Obama never spoke to racial grievances or racial acrimony until forced to do so following the Reverend Wright imbroglio. True, he made racially contentious comments during a campaign speech delivered at the Brown Chapel

AME Church in Selma, Alabama. But this speech was delivered in front of a church congregation that was largely all black. As Kenneth Burke suggests, the ability of rhetoric to ingratiate is simply a device for gaining goodwill or deflecting attention of an intended purpose to a more real or urgent one. Obama’s talent for championing the legacy of the civil rights movement with only minimal reference to disenfranchised blacks in front of white audiences speaks to Burke’s theory on how the true rhetor must oftentimes deflect the audience’s attention for an underlying purpose (Burke, 1969, p.

52).

In a textual analysis of specific speeches given throughout the Presidential campaign of 2008, I attempt to identify precise moments and instances where Obama consistently 25 made use of rhetorical devices that were implicit in maintaining and perpetuating an illusion of normalcy and/or sustaining whiteness, at the same time.

Understanding what normalcy is and how it can be equated with whiteness is important in this study since it is the underlying core of my argument. Simply put, normalcy can be defined as those everyday life experiences that whites take for granted, many of which Obama subsumed within his own campaign to perhaps curry favor with white audiences (e.g., patriotism). These may be invisible rights or assumptions that nonwhites are excluded from or expected not to question. Case-in-point: Obama’s cross- racial appeal and ability to “transcend” race succeeds by appealing to white audiences at the expense of his own:

If large numbers of white folks embraced Obama, but only because of his ability to “transcend race,” by which we really mean transcend his own blackness, doesn’t this suggest the ongoing power of whiteness and racist thinking? (Wise, 2009, p. 86)

Wise goes onto to say that Obama, in effect, became the Cliff Huxtable of politics.

Referring to Bill Cosby’s character on The Bill Cosby Show of the 1980s, according to

Wise, Obama became the model or archetype of Black male acceptability to white voters. This “acceptability” was based on a black male who attended Harvard University, evinced a certain level of erudition and articulation in his speech pattern, and avoided any discussion of race or racial animosity in his campaign speeches (87-88). The fact that the large majority of African-Americans do not even remotely begin to reflect any of these characteristics is what makes this distinction particularly egregious. The presumption that the U.S. has now become a post-racial society based on Obama’s election is, in many ways, simply a socio-political construct of convenience for white supporters of Obama. 26 White voters are comfortable with electing Obama because he is like them in every way imaginable, save skin tone. Just as importantly, Obama’s general avoidance of race only perpetuates white denial of the ongoing social injustices under which all people of color must continue to operate, in spite of the fairy tale-like set of circumstances the first family has since inherited (35).

Put more bluntly, normalcy implies the everyday cultural trappings of whiteness under which all other racial, ethnic and cultural groups must subsume and operate whether they hold those same beliefs or not. Patriotism, saluting the American flag or pinning the American flag to your lapel are examples. “In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege,” Peggy McIntosh admits that her skin color allows her to see herself as belonging to society and thus being able to make social systems or ideologies work for her (Kimmel & Ferber, 2003, p. 154). And just as McIntosh understands that both she and other whites are able to make social systems work for them, Obama, too, was able to manipulate common systems traditionally associated with white Americans

(e.g., patriotism, the American Dream) to make the election work in his favor, as well.

Very simply, Obama did not merely win a political race; he also won a race of identity politics. Whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and other previous black rhetors and politicians have traditionally sought rhetorical refuge in slavery, human bondage and suffering, Obama did not. Thus, if Obama’s deliberate and very intentional decision not to reference or make appeals to victimage and discrimination in his speechmaking has been identified as suspect, why is this important and why should we

27 care? More importantly, how did he win election, in spite of historical odds like institutionalized racism and how did he manage race to do so?

Understanding Why the Rhetoric of Race Management is Important

Whether warranted or not, this question is necessary because it forces us to perhaps reexamine and scrutinize the 2008 Presidential election more carefully for several reasons. As rhetorical scholars, if we are in the business of understanding how our icons and politicians can potentially manipulate and use our rhetorical signs and symbols against us, it is in our best interest to understand why the process occurred and why we allowed it to happen.

Secondly, whether warranted or not, this question is necessary in that it reminds us that we shouldn’t expect Obama’s election to really solve or eradicate institutionalized racism, a sociological construction that has been woven into the fabric of society for centuries.

In this project, I am interested in using both Burkean theory and the theories of others to argue that Obama was able to construct a persona by using racial guilt and victimage both stylistically and strategically in order to overcome historical racism.

More importantly, Obama’s performance was that of a particularly “erased” racial persona who assiduously avoided the mention of race or racial contention at all costs.

Obama’s was a political election where skin color was ignored or at least certainly minimized during the campaign. Instead, race and racial obligation were sacrificed and replaced with metaphorical paradigms and a trajectory more focused on the American

Dream than social obligation. 28 Although race has certainly been addressed in dozens of magazine articles, essays and media coverage, Obama’s concerted effort to avoid the topic of race as a strategy has not. If a “politically correct” media views the topic of race as taboo (much as Obama did, himself, prior to the Rev. Wright imbroglio) or off-limits, a scholarly interpretation of the

“elephant-in-the-room” is, in this author’s opinion, certainly warranted. More importantly, in spite of the fact that Obama clearly ran a raceless campaign and probably would not have mentioned racial inequities or racial grievances had not the Rev. Jeremiah

Wright incident occurred, a significant number of Americans could not and would not see past his skin color or racial heritage. In many ways, this is due to no fault of his own. It is simply the most recent version of historic racism. Obama’s election serves as the mirror of a refracted image called latent racism that had lain dormant until challenged. A postmodern version of the “new racism?”

I suggest that Obama’s deliberate attempt to weave ideological constructs like patriotism and the American Dream into his campaign strategy obfuscated his representation as the marginalized “other” and created a new political identity that has little to do with marginalization. On the surface, there is certainly nothing wrong with this strategy, particularly since it proved advantageous and perhaps even necessary in ensuring Obama’s victory at the polls. But for this reason, and probably a dozen more, this rhetorical duplicity raises several questions: (1) must an African-American or any minority race candidate, for that matter, engage in race management in order to win office or acceptance in a predominantly white world? (2) What theories or scholarship can we use to measure and evaluate Obama’s rhetoric? More importantly, what other 29 implications might Obama’s election suggest, given that his political platform was essentially bereft of any mention of racial obligation from beginning to end?

Although a plethora of essays, articles and books have been written that document

Obama’s landmark election as this country’s first African-American president, what is glaringly absent from the literature, both mainstream or scholarly academia, is exactly how and why an African-American was able to surmount the obstacle of historically institutionalized racism, a phenomenon that has been endemic to American society since

1621 (Berlin, 2000, pg. 29).

In many ways, Obama obligated the American public to support him for two reasons. The first is historical racial prejudice. Voting for Obama would erase and rectify any racial antagonisms or animosity between blacks and whites and bring closure to an ugly racist past that could only be resolved with Obama’s election. Second, Obama was able to grasp and seize upon geographical sites of location and embrace historically significant political rhetors throughout his campaign. This tactic not only legitimized

Obama as the rightful heir to the White House but also helped to sanitize or ameliorate any doubt or misgivings a white voter might have had, given Obama’s African-American ancestry.

In spite of what might appear to be a racial reconciliation now that we’ve elected an African-American president, there is a hollowness in the conversation celebrating

Obama’s success. Hundreds of mainstream books, commemorative volumes and essays have been written, celebrating Obama’s victory and the resolution to this country’s

30 historically very stormy racial past, yet the literature on Obama fails to answer the question as to how a black man circumvented historical racism in order to win office.

If one were to walk into any major bookstore, local library or even research

Internet websites between 2007 to 2009, one would find that the books written on Obama not only dominanted bookshelves, they dominated the first page of a web search, as well.

Major bestsellers like The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American

Dream (2008) and Dreams from My Father (2004) proliferated the shelves of most any

Barnes & Nobles bookstore during that time period. With the exception of many stirring and perhaps heartfelt reflections on his own positionality as a black man operating in a white world discussed in his autobiography (Dreams from My Father), little of Obama’s racial angst has actually translated into any real activism. And while thoughtful memoirs and autobiographies can be inspirational and uplifting, they also skirt answers to our question. But if one conducts a very deliberate search for scholarly journal articles and essays that are perhaps critical of Obama and the changing tide of race relations that both preceded and followed his election, one will find exceptions.

In reviewing the literature on Obama, both before and after his election, one notes that even in critical scholarship, there was little focus on the politics of race relations that might offer any sort of rationale as to Obama’s ability to overcome what many thought impossible. Not surprisingly, much of any truly provocative or telling literature on

Obama was written shortly before his landmark election in 2008.

My rationale for reviewing the literature both before and after his election was based on the fact that many of his campaign speeches delivered in 2007, prior to his 31 election, were prime material for any appeals to racial harmony or race reconciliation.

Despite the fact that Obama referenced and even found refuge in the words of Dr. King on several occasions, the question that immediately comes to mind is Obama’s intent in maintaining MLK’s commitment to racial equality and social change. Did he intend to follow in the tradition of Dr. King’s civil rights legacy once elected? In light of this assumption, I chose to review scholarly work written both before and after Obama’s election for two reasons: (1) to gauge how literary themes on Obama (e.g., identity versus presidential platform) might change and evolve and (2) to identify those scholars who commented or critiqued Obama’s inclusion of race in his speeches and/or the impact of his election on historical racism in this country.

Examining scholarship on Obama’s election lends further credence to this argument that even critical scholarship is equally complicit in discussing peripheral or novelty issues that have little to do with the evolutionary impact of Obama’s election on race relations from a historical perspective.

Since I was most interested in understanding whether or not my argument was both significant and whether it truly addressed an unanswered question, I chose to decipher the relevant literature in three ways. First, I identified those essays and texts that had been published on Obama, both prior to and after his election in scholarly journals and texts. After finding that the scholarly literature was lacking in any real critical examination of Obama’s impact on race relations from either a political or historical perspective, I then reviewed roughly a half dozen National Communication Association

(NCA) conference presentations. Finally, I highlight the few texts and scholarly pieces 32 published after his election that address our question. There are several texts which allude to this enigma but indirectly so, and certainly not as exhaustively as I do in my own research.

Literature More Focused on Personal Identity than Substance

In Ron Walters’ (2007) Barack Obama and the Politics of Blackness, the emergence of the race question is certainly primary but its focus is more so on cultural identity than in tracing the historical implications of race that led to Obama’s ascendancy to office. Walters’ analysis of the cultural framework of “blackness” in which Obama was forced to operate centers on race but the analysis is based on current players in presidential politics versus any historical explanation. Walters’ comparison of the campaign fundraising tactics that Obama used versus those of Jesse Jackson is useful, given that it counters how earlier black politicians chose to operate versus Obama’s own strategy. Walters gives the reader some sense of the evolution or transition in campaign tactics that black presidential candidates employ now versus 25 years ago, yet he falls short in examining reasons for Obama’s groundswell of white voter support. Instead,

Walters’ focus on issues of political accountability and responsibility to the traditional black community are primary themes within the article (16-26). Walters is more interested in laying the groundwork for Obama’s obligation in servicing the African-

American community once elected. Thus, he neither addresses issues of historical racism or Obama’s ability to circumvent what Jackson was unable to do in 1984 and 1988.

Tracing origins of Obama’s “blackness” has been linked to the history of racial segregation in this country, as well. Several scholars frame Obama’s own personal story 33 within the context of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the civil rights movement (Jones

2005; Atwater 2007; Marable & Clarke, 2009). For instance, Amos Jones reflects upon

Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. By interspersing historical definitions of black ancestry (e.g., the one-drop rule) with a litany of the racial obstacles that African-Americans have overcome since the founding of the

National Association of Negro People (NAACP) in 1911, the March on Washington and the Voting Rights Act, Jones leads us to the greater question on black identity (90). Jones neatly aligns the contradiction of slavery and Jim Crow segregation alongside the election of Obama by citing the probable reason for his success at the polls: his dismissal, almost denial, of his race or African ancestry.

Obama is not African-American in the conventional sense given that he is not the offspring of African slaves. Instead, he is the product of a pure African father and a white mother. Consequently, it is because he carries none of the historical baggage that his counterparts like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson do that gives him this mass appeal (92).

Jones’ essay is helpful in providing the necessary cultural background history on the

African-American struggle that preceded Obama’s election, yet his focal point seems to be primarily on addressing Obama’s identity question. Is Obama justifiably “black” in the sense that he has one black parent, in spite of his chameleon-like ability to lay claim to his white heritage, given that his mother is white?

Deborah Atwater offers a textual analysis of Obama’s 2004 Keynote Address to the Democratic Party and his book, The Audacity of Hope, to “assess the overall roots of his rhetoric of hope” (122). By laying historical signposts (e.g., the groundwork lain in 34 Jesse Jackson’s campaigns in 1984 and 1988, Atwater analyzes specific passages in both

Obama’s 2004 keynote address and his text to pinpoint and identify words and phrases that might explain Obama’s ability to appeal to audiences worldwide but, again, her focus on the symbolic implications of Obama’s rhetoric fail to answer our question.

Manning Marable’s & Clarke’s text comes closest to making some sense of the

Obama enigma. A collection of essays by over a dozen authors, the text offers a panoptic perspective that provides an historical overview of how racialized politics undergirded

Obama’s victory. Marable’s reference to Jesse Jackson’s rainbow coalition as being too narrowly centered on serving only blacks to Tom Bradley’s vexing losses to George

Deukmejian in his 1982 bid for governor in the State of California (e.g., the notorious

“Bradley Effect”) are examples of the sociopolitical events that set the stage for Obama’s election but are seldom mentioned in essays on Obama (pp. 2-4).

Rogers Smith’s and Desmond King’s piece,“Barack Obama and the Future of

American Racial Politics,” also offers a searing analysis of the racial undercurrent of

Obama’s election. As early as the abstract, the reader is reminded, “The current structure of racial politics in the United States is [simply] a division between those who favor color-blind policies and those who favor race-conscious measures” (Smith & King, 2009, p. 25). Not surprisingly, those who were in favor of racialized politics were seen as political liabilities and were not supported in this election. Arguing that the election was based on modern alliances between opposing races where the topic of race was a tacitly agreed upon issue that would not be discussed in the campaign, Smith & King transition into the crux and core of what really transpired in the 2008 campaign (26). They make 35 their case by referencing an earlier conjecture, supporting this notion of a very deliberate and a purposeful intent to not enter the discussion of race in the campaign (28):

We contend that the structure of racial politics today, as in the past, is composed of rival racial institutional orders. These orders are durable alliances of political actors, activist groups, and governing institutions united by their agreement on the central racial issue of their time, which their conflicts help to define. They seek political power to resist or advance the measures that promote greater material race equalityband that are politically pivotal in their time. (King and Smith, 2005)

In reviewing the literature, most scholars examined the content and intent of

Obama’s rhetoric. If this is true, one notes that two of Obama’s speeches received the bulk of critical evaluation: his 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Party and his “A More Perfect Union” speech delivered in March of 2008. Deborah Atwater

(2007) identifies the symbolism and implications in Obama’s rhetoric of hope in both the

2004 keynote address as well as Obama’s autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, while

David Frank (2005) focuses on the promise of unity or consilience in the speech. Frank defines consilience as a post-civil rights discursive strategy designed to help all races come to a mutual agreement on social issues like race (571). “An upward-inflected assessment of Obama's speech as an act of "working through" [the] trauma [of slavery] with a rhetoric of consilience (572).

In a joint essay written by David Frank and Mark McPhail, “Barack Obama's

Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise,

Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation” is a curious blend of dueling viewpoints in which Obama’s silence on the race question is debated. In fact, there are several references made per Obama’s avoidance of race issues. What is

36 noteworthy in this piece is its balance of two very contradictory viewpoints as they relate to Obama’s handling of the race question, even as early as 2004. Instead of remonstrations or any innuendo of reparations suggesting what is owed African-

Americans, Frank sees the trauma of racial strife and segregation as a universal trauma shared by all equally. Not surprisingly, McPhail sees quite the opposite. For McPhail,

Obama’s greatest sin and transgression in this speech is his scrupulous avoidance of race as a central question and primary issue.

Unlike Martin Luther King Jr. who based all of his efforts on a civil rights activism that was always critical of race relations, according to McPhail, Obama effectively abandons the social contract and the social obligation owed to blacks by not including or referencing the struggle for black equality in his rhetoric. McPhail clearly sees and identifies Obama’s dismissal of race from his rhetoric as a dismissal of the race question, itself, and a sociopolitical issue that must be confronted and addressed even if he is only giving an ancillary political speech:

While King understood the salience and centrality of race, Obama invites the erasure of race instead of its re-signing, and this is where his oratory departs most radically and most unfortunately from the African American rhetorical tradition of "spiritually inspired militancy” (McPhail 2002). While there are certainly similarities between Obama and King in terms of rhetorical style, their substantive views on America's racial legacy reveal important differences between King's achievement of coherence and Obama's attempt to reach it through consilience (Frank & McPhail, 2005, p. 582)

Certainly more critical of Obama, McPhail is quick to note Obama’s talent for neutralizing potentially racially-loaded issues with harmless, non-threatening metaphors and caricatures. As an example, McPhail’s reference per “Obama's reduction of black

37 trauma to "slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs" romanticizes the historical realities of black suffering and borders on the stereotypical image of the "happy darkie" of traditional racism. Obama’s lack of any discussion of race, with the exception of a casual remark, is troubling for much the same reason: it ignores the structural and historical conditions that gave rise to such attitudes” (583).

In many ways, McPhail’s criticism gives rise to this disconnect or absence in the literature that might explain Obama’s ascendancy to the White House. Is it possible that this deliberate eschewing of race and social controversy had a role in Obama’s successful performance in the election?

In short, Obama's "politics of hope" might be read alternately as what Matthew Frye Jacobson describes as a "politics of disavowal," the rhetorical strategy of conflating the experiences of white ethnics with persons of African descent, and of denying the role of white power and privilege on the demoralizing conditions that continue to disproportionately affect the lives of black folk in America (McPhail, 583).

Both Frank and McPhail were critical of Obama’s rhetorical speechmaking and failure to address race as a political issue almost six years prior to Obama’s election.

While their critique is helpful, one must be careful to note that these comments reference his rhetoric in 2004 when Obama was only a Congressman for the State of Illinois—not the President of the United States. Written in 2005, McPhail’s argument parallels my own question but fails to adequately address or explain reasons for Obama’s election in

2008.

Instead of explaining the methods and tactics used to overcome obstacles to

Obama’s election, the majority of texts and scholarly literature focused more on semantic

38 analyses of the rhetoric in Obama’s speechmaking. James Darsey’s (2010) “Barack

Obama and America’s Journey” is one such example.

In his analysis of several of Obama’s speeches, Darsey’s findings illustrate the tactics and stylistic devices Obama used in his rhetoric to win public support. Darsey’s analysis is similar to David Frank’s in that both focus on the universality of Obama’s personal journey as an American journey where race is inconsequential. Unlike McPhail,

Darsey suggests that Obama’s references to Martin Luther King Jr. are purposeful and advantageous in bridging the gap or chasm that separates whites from blacks. Here, allusions to Martin Luther King Jr. are necessary in that they contribute to the American journey, a journey that is bereft of racial antagonism as well as the original intent and purpose of Martin Luther King Jr.’s rhetoric:

Obama’s repeated invocations of King seem inevitable, but this must not obscure the important rhetorical function King serves as Obama seeks, as he must, to extend the confluence of his journey beyond the African American journey to the flow of the larger American journey. (97)

There are several texts that explore the political campaign tactics that Obama employed to win election. Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s Electing the President 2008: The

Insiders View (2009) revisits Obama’s political campaign by interviewing the dozens of consultants and strategists who shaped Obama’s election. By interspersing commentary from Obama’s own strategists (e.g., David Axelrod) with a generous helping from those of his Republican opponent, John McCain, Jamieson provides both balance and real insider commentary relating to the campaign itself. The text is primarily concerned with business issues like advertising costs for television commercials, polling statistics, and

39 detailed commentary from consultants who measured Internet news cycles and focus group reactions to Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. The Jamieson text is helpful from a political science standpoint. If one is curious as to the inside story or day-to-day operations of the election, her collection of personal interviews with dozens of campaign strategists is insightful but it also skirts the race question and possible reasons for

Obama’s candidacy. Brief allusions are made to the value of race in a presidential election that is historic primarily because of Obama’s skin color, yet the text does not concern itself with explaining the root cause of Obama’s extraordinary feat. In fact, few race-related questions were posed in the text at all. One notable exception is the comment made by Joel Benenson, one of the lead pollsters for the Obama campaign.

When asked what the role of race played in the campaign, Benenson’s response was startling:

I should probably quote David Plouffe, who often said, “The number of meetings we had where we talked about race as an issue is zero.” Even in our polling and focus groups, we did very minimal probing of it. It was a reality. There are certain things you can control in a campaign and certain things you can’t. President-elect Obama would say frequently, “Look, I’m not going to win this because I’m African-American, and I’m not going to lose because I’m African-American” (104-105).

Was inclusion or exclusion of race a factor in his election? Several scholarly texts focused on Obama’s race from an identity perspective, yet there was no significant focus on the impact of race in the campaign itself nor its historical impact. One notes that

Obama’s presidential campaign was not based on race at all. As Cassano and Buono remind us, Obama did not run a race-based campaign:

40 We should also remember that Barrack [sic] Obama did not run as a black person, nor did he run a racialized campaign. Obama ran a campaign which attempted to cross the racial divide, not expand it. Obama also did not run on the old civil rights platform, or the democratic platform or the reform platform. Obama actually tried to align himself with a populist movement which was broader than the racial, class and gender divide which has historically defined politics in America. (101)

Jamieson’s second text, The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message

Shaped the 2008 Election (Kenski, Hardy & Jamieson 2010) does more of the same as her first. Party ideologies, market data analysis, and discussions of a troubled economy that Obama inherited from the prior administration are primary topics, yet Jamieson’s second text devotes a greater analysis to the importance of race in the election. As an example, the results from a National Annenberg Election Survey are discussed in the text, inferring that race played a role in the election. Jamieson’s findings suggest that while

Obama lost a percentage of white votes in several states, he easily made up the difference in others. While his greatest loss of the white vote occurred in southern states like

Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, “Obama’s campaign boosted black turnout and white votes outside the Deep South to compensate for these anti-Obama ballots. And outside the Deep South, Obama actually gained white support beyond that garnered by

John Kerry in 2004” (103).

Jamieson’s statistical measurements clearly document the watershed change in white voter sentiment versus the Gallup Poll numbers reported in 1959, but her text does not address possible reasons or explanation for this change. Given that Jamieson’s approach comes from a political science standpoint where the focus is more quantitative versus qualitative, this failure to address the sociopolitical basis of Obama’s election is 41 probably quite logical and certainly worth citing for a more important reason. Jamieson’s text is faintly reminiscent of Edward Carmines’ and James Stimson’s Issue Evolution:

Race and the Transformation (1990), a seminal text on the racial realignment and sociopolitical change wrought historically in presidential elections during the 1960s.

Even so, Jamieson only briefly comments on the racial implications of an Obama presidency, suggesting the need not only for a more comprehensive analysis, but a historical overview to understand the racial underpinnings from which Obama emerged prior to his election.

Going Beyond the Conventional Literature Review on Obama

Not content to limit my research to published texts on Obama, I chose to delve a bit deeper, this time by looking at essays that were presented at recent National

Communication Association (NCA) conferences. Although none of these papers have been published, to my knowledge, my hope was to at least identify any scholarship that might be more critical of Obama and address our question. Primarily interested in scholarship generated after Obama’s election, I focused on projects that had been peer- reviewed and chosen for the 2009 NCA conference. Unlike newsstand tabloids or nonfiction bestsellers which are primarily designed to appeal to mainstream audiences, conference papers can afford to be more critical, given that they are written for other critical scholars. This premise certainly holds merit but had its own set of limitations.

As an example, Dorothy Pennington draws comparisons between Booker T.

Washington and Obama in “Personal Identity and Religious Symbolism in ‘Crisis-Race’

Speeches: An analog between Booker T. Washington and Barack Obama” (Pennington, 42 2009). While her paper does examine the rhetorical exigencies in the race speeches that both orators delivered, she does not specifically target the evolution of race per se as it relates to Obama’s election. Deric Greene and Felicia Stewart looked at the self- monitoring habits that African-Americans embraced in the wake of the Obama’s election.

Here, both Greene and Stewart posit that blacks chose to monitor their reaction to

Obama’s election primarily to prevent lessen tensions between blacks and whites. Their measurement of the social contexts under which African-American voters were forced to operate, despite a racially-charged social climate, certainly holds merit but, again, it fails to address our question (Greene and Stewart, 2009).

In “Obama Time! Defining the Defining Moment,” Antonio de Velasco claimed that Obama’s use of kairos and time management allowed him to circumvent controversy in four of his campaign speeches. In his paper, Velasco suggests that by navigating historical moments in U.S. history like the Civil Rights movement, Obama was able to negotiate “conflicting trajectories into his rhetoric” by drawing parallels between himself and that of Martin Luther King Jr. To a certain degree, much of Velasco’s argument aligns with my own. In Chapter 5, I call upon several of Kenneth Burke’s tropes (e.g., victimage, identification) where Obama steers white audiences away from castigating

Reverend Wright following his divisive sermons to blaming himself, and America’s history of racism as the real villains. Ivie and Giner comment that “Obama's campaign strategically altered the mythic formulation of the operative, guilt-inducing terms of disorder” (Ivie and Giner, 2009, p. 294). In referencing Obama’s ability to shift blame of the war in Iraq and Islamic radicalism from American racism and imperialism to 43 American responsibility and democratic virtue, the authors notes how Obama’s discourse became a performance “by inflecting the mythos of mission with an egalitarian appeal to the ideal of practicality” (p. 295).

Papers delivered during the 2010 National Communication Association conference examined Obama on several levels but, again, none of them focused on possible reasons that might explain his ability to overcome this country’s troubled racial history. As previously noted, Obama was not the first African-American to run for U.S. president. How was it that he was elected while Jesse Jackson and other black candidates who sought high-level offices (e.g., Tom Bradley) less than 30 years prior were not?

In “Obama and the Rhetorical Chorus: Rewriting the Discourse of

Colorblindness,” Jessica Lu argues against attempts made to rationalize and reduce

Obama’s leap to the presidency as an anomaly from which all blacks can be compared.

According to Lu, Obama’s story is one of many, “a resounding rhetorical chorus,” from which all in the black diaspora also emanate. Lu’s take on the universality of Obama’s rhetoric is not without merit but does not address our question (Lu, 2010).

Marcia Dawkins comes somewhat closer in “Mixed Messenger: Barack Obama &

Post-Racial Politics.” In her paper, Dawkins also agrees that Obama was able to curry favor with blacks and whites, alike, by acknowledging racial injustice and racial reconciliation in his “A More Perfect Union” speech (Dawkins, 2010). As it relates to my argument on Obama’s deliberate focus on rhetorical race management throughout his campaign, I also make an argument that race and racial victimage only come into play during the “A More Perfect Union” speech. Dawkins’ comment that Obama’s apology 44 speech for Rev. Wright was merely a prologue to racial dialogue, addressing previous grievances and historical wrongs versus a post-racial epilogue, is certainly on the mark and parallels many of my own suspicions. Dawkins’ focus is on the interracial nature of

Obama’s racial ancestry and his ability to exploit that mixed ancestry to his advantage in a single speech. While helpful, her topic is perhaps too narrow, thus misses the mark on our general question.

The majority of these papers rightfully focused on Obama’s rhetoric but they did so at the expense of possible reasons and a rationale that might explain Obama’s ability to surmount historical racism to win election. Although the NCA conference papers were certainly more targeted and more critical than many of the mainstream publications discussed earlier, they were perhaps a little too narrow or even myopic, to some extent.

By focusing on only specific issues (e.g., only one or two of Obama’s speeches, the

Joshua Generation, the interpersonal implications of self-monitoring), they fail to answer our real question. There is certainly nothing wrong with this, but it lends greater credence to my own argument, my research, and the value of this paper.

Another drawback to analyzing papers written within the discipline is the limited exposure to outside audiences. Since only conference attendees were made privy to any actual critique of Obama’s rhetoric, limited access was the obvious shortcoming to this form of outreach. Were there any published texts or essays that were equally exacting yet more widely available to the greater public?

Certainly, Marable’s work (2009) and another text by Heather Harris et al. (2010) hit the nail on the head in their respective anthologies. Like Marable’s, Harris’ text is a 45 composite collection of over a dozen authors who focus on the irony of a black president in a postracial world. While the theme of essays in Marable’s text is more in alignment with the political formation of black pragmatism and black protest, even highlighting the biographies of key black political leaders (e.g., David Dinkins, Colin Powell), the Harris text contextualizes Obama and the race question on a much grander scale, offering a eclectic mix not necessarily based on any one issue. As an example, the chapters cover a range of topics including the media’s handling of the Obama campaign, Obama’s mixed- heritage identity, and even a full section on feminism and Michelle Obama’s portrayal as the first African-American First Lady. Many of the individual chapters or essays in each text are relevant to my question but fail to offer a more comprehensive analysis of

Obama’s ability to circumvent the impossible in the 2008 Presidential Election.

Ebony Utley’s and Amy Heyse’s analysis of Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech clearly articulates our naivete in assuming his groundbreaking rhetoric on race will have any real impact on race relations or social justice (p. 162). Much as I do in this project, Utley and Heyse also comment on Obama’s talent for parlaying Burke’s theories on identification in this speech and situating white America’s vitriol against Rev. Wright within the context of Obama’s personal relationship with Wright, the black community and, ultimately, the American community, as a whole (p. 157). Their piece certainly parallels many, if not all, of my own arguments, but their focus is limited to only one of

Obama’s speeches.

Roxanna Harlow suggests that the American public is naïve in their assumptions that any real “change” or “hope” will emanate with Obama’s election, given that much of 46 Obama’s ethos was only symbolic reification of the American Dream (Harlow, 2008, p.

165). Harlow further explains that if Obama should win the election, it will come as a result of white guilt and iron-clad proof that the United States is not racist:

He is the American Dream fulfilled—he is “proof” (especially for many whites, whether they vote for him or not) of the fulfillment of the promise of freedom and justice for all. He represents to people all over the world the ideal of equal opportunity and full inclusion, even for the group who has been most “problematic.” He is evidence that the United States is a meritocracy and now truly reflects “We the People” (166).

The majority of Harlow’s piece works in tandem with Tim Wise’s text in that they both transition to historical examples of the inequalities between blacks and whites that exist both currently and prior to Obama’s election.Both texts segue into an historical trajectory of past transgressions (e.g., the disparities in employment, criminal justice, prison sentencing, etc.), perhaps as a contrast to the true (illusory?) significance of a black man in the Oval Office.

As I stated earlier in the literature review, many texts focused on Obama from a racial identity politics perspective versus any real reflection on his penchant for erasing race in his speeches. Camille Nelson opines that the obfuscation of race as an issue and denial of the elephant-in-the-room (a black man running for election in a country that has traditionally been historically racist) should be seen only as a sort of comic relief: Thus, if

“[t]he 2008 political season provided us with sublime political spectacle, it was one replete with “transcendent colorblind theories” (Nelson 743-744). While Nelson examines the Obama phenomenon from a racial identity perspective where Obama must grapple with both his blackness and whiteness throughout the campaign, I focus on a

47 textual analysis of the words, content, and themes of his campaign speeches that speak to this notion of rhetorical race management, the very essence of the campaign rhetoric itself.

In summation, much of the literature on Obama focuses on race but more so on

Obama and race from a cultural or identity perspective. And while all of the literature is useful in helping us to understand symbolism and metaphorical construct, it fails to explain how he constructed race and appropriated whiteness in his campaign. None of these texts really explain how he circumvented and overcame historic racism to become this country’s first African-American President.

With the help of the mainstream media, Obama orchestrated a political election that was more akin to a heroic adventure or bildungsroman where racial antagonisms were muted and romanticized. Unlike Martin Luther King, Jr. and contemporary African-

American politicians like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Obama’s rhetoric was essentially raceless. This notion of rhetorical race management can be generally defined as the absence of race or racial obligation in one’s words or speech. Cassono & Buono add other dimensions like nationhood and unity to its meaning but more importantly, they also confirm that it is Obama’s almost deliberate effort to avoid even the mere mention of race from his speeches that most clearly supports my thesis:

For the whites who support him, Obama is the first “black” leader they feel comfortable supporting because he does not talk about racism…unlike black leaders hated by whites such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters and, of course, Minister Farrakhan; [he] does not make them feel guilty about the state of racial affairs in the country (55).

48 In none of his speeches is the white majority castigated or held responsible for past transgressions, racial inequality or needed reparations. Is this a marker or indication that racial inequities no longer exist and that we have finally entered a post-racial world?

What counts as evidence in this study are those rhetorical markers that lend credence to this notion that Obama was in the business of maintaining the status quo versus emancipating the proletariat as his campaign speeches might have implied. This evidence can be something as tangible as a direct textual comparison between the rhetorical phrasing in Jesse Jackson’s speeches versus those in Obama’s. This evidence can be searing yet equally as subtle in scholar Mark McPhail’s interrogation of the clues to rhetorical race management in one of Obama’s speeches (see Chapters 1 and 4). This notion of a “race-neutral” rhetoric is probably one of the key markers or pieces of supporting evidence but there several more. These “markers” consist of ideological signposts that include Obama’s reference and reliance upon the American Dream and patriotism in his speeches, an ideological framework that is markedly absent of any reference or allusions to racial identity or socioeconomic inequity. Although a number of research questions form the basis of my thesis in this dissertation, a more detailed preview, citing scholars and supporting arguments might also prove useful.

49 Chapter Preview

CHAPTER 1 – The Rhetoric of a Black President

This dissertation proceeds in the following manner. First, I open with general assumptions or reasons why Obama won the election but counter those assumptions with the reality of this country’s history of institutionalized racism. I also spend much of this chapter reviewing the existing literature on Obama’s election, drawing attention to what the predominant literature has covered and what it has not. By highlighting those topics

(e.g., cultural identity, rhetorical semantics) that have been covered, I make a stronger case for this project.

In Chapter 1, I not only discuss the general theme and focus of much of the existing literature on Obama, I provide greater detail on the historical backdrop that preceded Obama’s election. By citing major events like the Civil Rights Movement of the

1960s, segregation, and the neoconservatism of the 1980s, the reader gains a more accurate picture of the sociopolitical climate which Obama inherited and why his rhetorical trajectory—which I refer to as the rhetoric of race management--was not only deliberate, but perhaps almost necessary in order to win election.

CHAPTER 2 – Methodology: Unpacking Rhetorical Race Management

In order to help us better understand or “read” some of the messages used within political campaign speeches, my primary method for Chapter 2 is based on ideological criticism or qualitative analysis. First, I begin with a very general overview of ideological criticism and whiteness theory to help us understand the political climate for Obama’s

50 election. I then proceed to trace the identity politics of rhetorical race management. I highlight the work of the following scholars to support my theory on the deliberate silencing of race in one’s rhetoric: Norman Fairclough, Sonja Foss, Kenneth Burke,

Walter Fisher, Henry Louis Gates, Thomas Nakayama, Robert Krizek, Phillip Wander,

Dana Cloud, Audrey Thompson, and Henry Giroux. At the conclusion of the chapter, I explain why the theories of each scholar are relevant to my argument.

CHAPTER 3

Historicizing Rhetorical Race Management Prior to Obama

While Chapter 2 gives us a methodological basis or foundation to interpret

Obama’s rhetoric, Chapter 3 counters Chapter 2’s focus on ideological criticism with a more careful analysis of Obama’s campaign rhetoric

In Chapter 3, I discuss how race has been interpreted, manipulated, and used within the political system, by both the voter and the politician. By examining some of the landmark or substantive scholarly research that has been done in the area of politics and voting behavior, I attempt to track how definitions and constructions of racism have changed and how race has impacted political thought, in general. I am interested in identifying specific political themes that emerged as a consequence of race dynamics, whether it was as a result of empirical surveys, the repercussions of a campaign speech, or landmark voting decisions at the ballot box. All of these events, either directly or indirectly, affected Obama’s campaign and eventual election. Some discussion of the political landscape in which Obama both entered and inherited not only lends support to

51 my own argument but provides the reader with a historical foundation on race and politics in the U.S. prior to Obama’s election.

In addition to exploring previous scholarly research and voting outcomes, I look at previous black politicians who also ran for high-level offices (e.g., Tom Bradley, Jesse

Jackson, and Douglas Wilder) and how the media interpreted their campaign messages in

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 – The Politics of Ideological Construction

I further explore the construction and implications of the American Dream, an ideological trope which can be traced back to Walter Fisher’s essay on the narrative paradigm (Fisher 1985) in Chapter 4. And just as I provided a historical backdrop for

Obama’s ascendancy to the U.S. Presidency as largely the result of black politicians who ran before him, Obama’s penchant for the American Dream is no different; it, too, is based on the rhetorical trajectories of previous politicians like Ronald Reagan. I offer striking parallels between Obama’s American Dream and that of Ronald Reagan’s in

Chapter 4 and add more fuel to the fire per this notion of patriotism over race and social ills or social reform.

As it relates to Kenneth Burke’s work, I suggest that dramatism provides a more exacting framework for analyzing Obama’s speeches than traditional textual analysis.

Specifically, I posit that if we were to apply three of Burke’s theories to Obama’s “A

More Perfect Union” address, we are able to understand why his rhetoric was so convincing. According to The New Yorker, it was Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address that captured his audience and assured him the election in 2008 (Hertzberg 2008). 52 I suggest that many of Kenneth Burke’s theories are not only relevant but necessary in helping us to understand and explain Obama’s success in overcoming the contentious and his potentially career-threatening association with his then pastor, Reverend Jeremiah

Wright. Several of Burke’s theories can be applied to many of Obama’s speeches and I focus on victimage, identification, scapegoating and transcendence as primary tropes

Obama appropriated in his “A More Perfect Union” speech in Chapter 5.

CHAPTER 5- How the Media Managed Race for Obama and Why

Chapter 5 looks at the media’s perceptions and interpretations of Obama and how both were key factors in Obama’s ability to manage race. If the media is non-biased, was the media non-biased in their news coverage of Obama during the election? Here, I look at both major television networks as well as the cable industry to determine how the media’s perceptions of Barack Obama determined his fate in the news. Unlike previous chapters, this argument of Obama managing race deviates abruptly in Chapter Five. Since the media decides and determines how it will report news on a candidate, whether favorable or not, in this case, the media, itself, managed race for Obama. How so?

In examining the media, I look at a broad spectrum of the tools and methodologies that were at play during the Election of 2008. Certain to go down in history as the Internet King, given his deft mastery of social media and Internet technologies during the campaign, Obama was at the mercy of the media in a number of ways: horserace politicking and public media polling are some examples of the types of media that operated autonomous of Obama’s control in any respect. Still, one must be at least conversant with the traditional roles of the media during the campaign because they 53 certainly had much to do with our perceptions of Obama and his ability to effectively manage race in this election. Conservative, right-wing pundits claim Obama’s win was the product of white guilt. If this is so, how did white guilt contribute to the rhetoric of race management? A general overview of the media’s interpretation of Obama is addressed in Chapter 5.

CHAPTER 6 – Racializing Postmodernism in the Age of Obama

Chapter 6 investigates the dark side of political postmodernism. While the bulk of readily available mainstream media and research materials was largely positive regarding

Obama’s election, the responses from much of the American public tell a very different story. In the final chapter, I uncover news sources that identify the anti-Obama backlash that wasn’t covered in the New York Times. The number of racial slurs, racist websites and the string of violent crimes lodged against Obama supporters that quickly sprouted- up across the country following his election weren’t generally covered by the mainstream media. Why? This alarming resurgence in isolated hate crimes and a burgeoning growth in the number of hate groups that blossomed shortly after his election begs the following question: are we as post-racial as we thought we were? In Chapter 6, I not only discuss the racial backlash that erupted following Obama’s election, I map out his initial reaction to a hostile Republican Congress while tracking his performance in the White House. I outline some of the obstacles Obama faced both in 2008 and 2012 and the primary reason why he won both of those elections.

As an African-American, Obama was obviously mindful of the dangers and likely repercussions inherent in his election. His decision to avoid race was not only logical, it 54 was absolutely necessary if he intended to become this country’s first African-American

U.S. President. I cite the number of hate crimes, death threats and instances of retaliation that surfaced soon after Obama’s election as evidence that, sadly, our assumptions of a post racial America are only illusory, at best.

55 Chapter 2

Methodology: Unpacking Rhetorical Race Management

"The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends....the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents." Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives

The fact that the Civil Rights Movement did not do away with covert discrimination and replace it with a truly egalitarian system suggests that race continues to operate as the great divider in this country. In addition to disparities between income, wealth, and education levels, race operates as a performative construct, as well. Thus, if we are interested in understanding how an African-American was elected in 2008, we must identify a specific method that tells us how race is managed in a political election.

My primary interest in Chapter 2 is to develop a method that might help us understand and better “read” or translate some of the messages used within the rhetoric of political campaign speeches. Specifically, my methodological focus is the study of political ideologies that explain how certain groups move and operate within the political system and society, itself, but also how power is manipulated and navigated within a particular power structure (e.g., a corporation, an institution, Congress). If the symbols embedded in words, political speeches and campaign promises can be defined as a type of ideograph, then translating “the political language which manifests [that] ideology

[might] reveal interpenetrating systems or structures of public motives. Such structures 56 appear to be diachronic and synchronic patterns of political consciousness which have the capacity both to control ‘power’ and to influence (if not determine) [it]” (McGee,

1980, p. 5). Understanding why using certain symbols is important and not others requires us to also understand that whiteness is a symbol unto itself that is concerned

“with issues of power and power differentials between white and non-white people. As with race in general, whiteness holds material/economic implications,” many of which can be reinscribed in both the symbols and rhetoric of a political campaign (Kincheloe,

1999, p. 162). If political ideology is a method that concerns itself with the allocation of power and how symbols within that power can be manipulated, might it not be conceivable that one can control or at least navigate the unruly waters of racism by not directly addressing it or talking about it in one’s speeches? In evaluating much of the seminal work on race and politics over the last twenty years, research suggests that race was initially perceived and measured more as an abstract than a tangible event or political decision. To do this, one must first examine the most relevant theories and methods that other scholars have applied in answering a similar question.

I use the same method (contextual rhetorical analysis and criticism of literary texts) typical of rhetorical analysis with one exception. The one distinction is a theoretical one. While several argue the plight of the marginalized as the disenfranchised audience, they do not address the plight of the marginalized rhetor. Ultimately, I suggest that no theories currently exist which adequately explain the phenomenon where an African-

American president must monitor or regulate his dialectic in order to appease a number of audiences, including the marginalized as well as the dominant majority. I demonstrate 57 this by citing the work and theories of several scholars. By cross-examination, I explain what each fails to address and why a theory that is more reflective of a method where the marginalized must manage the oppressor is needed.

Chapter 2 proceeds in the following manner. First, I begin with a very general overview and definition of ideological criticism as a tool we can use to evaluate and interpret rhetorical artifacts like a political speech. If power struggles must be managed in a speech, ideological criticism helps us to read or at least identify what those struggles might be and their probable resolution. In this case, a clash of identity politics occurring primarily as a result of an upheaval in traditional constructions of race and politics requires a more in-depth analysis in order to answer this question. Rhetorical race management involves managing power relationships whether it be a nuclear family, an organization, or a country of millions. Norman Fairclough and Sonja Foss open this chapter by giving us basic definitions with which to work, leading us to the theories of the following scholars: Kenneth Burke, Walter Fisher, Henry Louis Gates, Thomas

Nakayama, Robert Krizek, Phillip Wander, Dana Cloud, Audrey Thompson, and Henry

Giroux. At the conclusion of the chapter, I explain why the methods of each scholar are relevant to my argument.

My project is based on a number of theories and methods, all of which indirectly tie into my primary method and focus on political ideology. As an example, though whiteness theory might seem far afield of political ideology, in this case, it is not for several reasons. Traditional political ideology normally concerns itself with political action based on agreed upon symbols, ethical ideals and doctrines. And, historically, race 58 was not a significant marker or issue of concern in politics until the last half of the twentieth century. But given the election of an African-American politican, conventional methods and assumptions must take a back-seat; or at least certainly entertain additional notions and theories that might explain how the role of race and whiteness theory play into conventional political thought. To have a discussion on the rhetoric of race management, a basic definition and overview of the structure and tenets that guide whiteness theory is in order.

In citing a number of scholars who focus on whiteness theory, I reference Giroux, in particular. Giroux runs counter to established assumptions on the invisibility of whiteness seeing it, instead, as a constantly changing identity politics that seeks its own validation, much like the Black Power movement. Giroux’s argument serves as the backdrop for a historical overview of race and politics that highlights theories like the

“old racism” and the “new racism” where race is not only never formally addressed but hidden or redefined with metaphorical abstracts. Examples include justifying “hard work” as the excuse to dismiss affirmative action programs or explaining white flight as a desire to secure better schools for one’s children.

My argument on rhetorical race management suggests that a more careful analysis of scholars and critics conversant in whiteness theory, in particular, is also warranted. I then discuss the historical framework from which race and politics emanates. In referencing the theories of political scholars like P.J. Henry and David Sears, an overview of how racial politics has evolved in the U.S. since the 1960s gives us a context upon which to draw regarding the socioeconomic fabric of racial politics in America. 59 Ideological criticism serves as our rhetorical and perhaps metaphorical measuring stick in identifying the symbols, speech acts or action that trigger breaks in conventional power relationships. Ideological criticism can be defined as a form of rhetorical criticism that examines the perhaps unseen or invisible lines of power within an artifact.

Using the Tools of Ideological Criticism

According to Sonja Foss, “the primary goal of the ideological critic is to discover and make visible the dominant ideology or ideologies embedded in an artifact and the ideologies that are being muted in it” (Foss, 2005, pp. 295-296). Ideologies are closely linked to power in the sense that ideological assumptions are also embedded within certain conventions or rituals, thus becoming a way of legitimizing social relations of the very power differentials themselves (Fairclough, 2001, p. 2). When social discourse is being interpreted, one must also try to determine how social structuring within that discourse impact and change the accompanying power relationships as well (p. 25).

Our earlier examples of cultural and ethnic power upheavals implicate the additional factor of race in our study of political ideology. Race, or more precisely, racial tension, further complicates conventional political and cultural ideologies, suggesting the need for concepts surrounding rhetorical race management. Postmodernism, as a phenomenon, is useful in that it allows us to map out a new terrain of the power struggle between black and white actors that has only recently occurred within the last thirty to forty years. This notion of postracialism forces us to ask ourselves if it is simply an iteration located within the realm of the postmodern trajectory or whether it is a social phenomenon unique unto itself. Rhetorical race management, in turn, becomes the 60 necessary tool the marginalized rhetor must wield or flex in order to maintain parity with other races in its new role of control, whether that role be the CEO of a major Fortune

100 company or president of the United States.

An example of disrupting power differentials occurred on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus in

Montgomery, Alabama to a white patron. Here, pre-established laws of segregation mandated that blacks sit at the back of all public buses and voluntarily surrender their seats in the back if a white patron needed that seat. Her actions resulted in her subsequent arrest, yet Parks created a ripple-effect in established power differentials by refusing to oblige and acquiesce to existing power relationships between blacks and whites in the segregated south in the 1950s. Parks’ actions, the white patron’s response, the subsequent public uproar that followed the incident: all are examples of artifacts. In this case, artifacts are the tools, images, and performances that the critical rhetorical scholar uses in order to understand how symbols affect people.

Foss’s series of steps or procedures used to measure or evaluate that artifact are straight-forward (2004, p. 244):

(1) Select an artifact

(2) Analyze the artifact

(3) Formulate a relevant research question

(4) Craft a critical essay

61 After selecting an artifact, identifying strategies that support that ideology is primary.

One must uncover the rhetorical mechanisms or clues hidden within that artifact that tell us that certain ideologies are at play. Ideologies try to reinforce existing power structures at the expense of others. In order to be successful, ideologies becomes effective without the audience knowing or truly understanding that an existing repression is being reinforced or eradicated. Ideologies work because they make effective use of persuasion:

Rhetors who create artifacts that embody ideologies usually want to change the minds of their audiences in ways that are consistent with those ideologies. At this step, then your focus is on rhetorical strategies used to persuade others to consider or adopt those ideologies and to defend them from those who offer alternative ideologies. (p. 245)

Equally important is the outcome of those disruptions of pre-established ideological norms and how one member of the audience reacts in response when other members of that audience are in disagreement. Here, one’s response to a rhetorical event that threatens ideological assumptions can, in fact, be so disruptive as to pose serious consequences for the offender of that ideological belief. Case-in-point: the Dixie Chicks.

During their London concert in March of 2003, Natalie Maines, one of the lead singers, criticized George Bush for his decision to launch a war against Iraq with the following statement: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” Her comments were picked up by The Guardian newspaper in Britain, then circulated to the U.S. media thereafter. The backlash was sudden and swift. Record sales for the Dixie Chicks’ recordings plummeted and hundreds of country music radio stations throughout the U.S. refused to play their music. The Dixie Chicks were

62 effectively blacklisted for roughly four years after Natalie’s comment primarily because she had disrupted an existing ideology.10 Natalie Maines’ comment was a form of communication or a speech act that was interpreted negatively by American audiences. In this case, her criticism against George Bush’s policies and the Iraq war ran counter to existing beliefs or ideologies that spoke to patriotism and loyalty to country. In fact, this particular strain of ideology (patriotism) was so strong and had been so ingrained in the

American psyche that Maines even received death threats following her criticism of

Bush.11 Thus, whether or not millions of others also agreed with her or felt the war was unjust, enough people felt strongly enough to wreak considerable damage in the finances and popularity of the group because they had been outspoken enough to voice their displeasure with the president’s policies. More importantly, the actual rhetorical mechanism wasn’t a song or the actual event; it was Maines’ verbal criticism voiced in another country. In this case, apologia and transcendence were the key methodological strategies at play. The Dixie Chicks’ use of apologia and transcendence clearly enamoured them with one audience (neoliberal fan base) while enraging another

(country-western loyalists).

Using both methods to defend themselves in television interviews and subsequent music albums, the Dixie Chicks’ nuanced criticism worked in their favor a second time when Maines publicly apologized to Bush (Towner, 2010, p. 295). Here, one notes how

10 Barbara Kopple’s “Shut Up and Sing” documentary chronicles the aftermath and events that occurred following the Dixie Chicks outrcry and criticism after their London concert in 2003. The reader can read further details at this website http://www.democracynow.org/2007/2/15/shut_up_and_sing_dixie_chicks . 11 Dixie Chicks Recall Death Threat. More details at this site http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/11/60minutes/main1613792.shtml. 63 both strategies can work against the rhetor as well as for him or her, given the change in circumstances. Foss’ step-by-step rule of thumb is useful in our discussion because it requires us to formulate a hypothesis or at least draw a conclusion based on our analysis of a rhetorical event.

Our application of Foss’ methodology might work thusly: (1) select and identify the artifact (the Dixie Chicks’ London concert); (2) analyze the artifact (Natalie Maines’ criticism of George Bush); (3) formulate a relevant research question (how did Maines’ comment disrupt assumed power differentials in American perceptions of appropriate expressions of patriotism and loyalty to the U.S. government and (4) craft a critical essay

(to this date, dozens of scholarly essays have been written and published regarding the backlash to Maines’ critical stance following her controversial upbraiding of then U.S.

President George Bush). Again, it is important to be cognizant of which rhetorical artifact requires interrogation and why.

Norman Fairclough confirms the power of the spoken word when he tells us that speech or “speech acts” are a form of action that not only assert or warn, they [can] implicat[e] meanings which are not overtly expressed (2001, p. 7). A simple speech can become an artifact or instrument of ideological criticism just by uncovering the underlying meanings or implications within it. But just as the rhetor can imply or suggest hidden meanings in a speech or song, the words of a rhetor can hold different levels of meanings, given the audience who’s listening to that speech. Or, the audience who’s never addressed in that speech. The Declaration of Independence is such an example of this omission or failure to address an audience. 64 When Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and the original members of the

Continental Congress drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence into law in

1776, their words of freedom and emancipation were problematic for many. For the thousands of African-American slaves who tilled the fields and plantations throughout the south, the words of the Founding Fathers rang hollow; blacks were not only permanently indentured servants, they were only considered three-fifths of a person at that. 12 Of course, the Declaration of Independence was never intended or written to include African-American slaves but this unspoken omission did not go without notice.

In his Fifth of July speech delivered July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York,

Frederick Douglass, a former black slave himself, questions the absolute irony in a nationwide proclamation of equality and freedom that unabashedly denies basic freedoms to a large percentage of the country’s population, thus ignoring an obvious audience:

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." And he asked them, "Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim…." (Douglass, 1852).

Even in this one speech, Douglass’ call to the cruel irony of the Declaration of

Independence evinces the very real power differentials that existed between African

12 The Three-Fifths compromise was an agreement between Southern and Northern states agreed upon during the Philadelphis Convention in 1797 to account for the representation of slaves in the House of Representatives. Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the three-fifths clause was rendered moot July 9, 1868.

65 slaves and white slaveowners. Again, another example of the disruption of power relations as defined earlier in the chapter.

Biesecker’s Take on Burke’s Dramatism

If I am to suggest that race can be managed in a political election, how does one evaluate a political campaign message or speech? Since my question was further complicated by the nature of the rhetor himself (a politician of color), relying on the conventional logic of Greek orators like Cicero and Quintilian had its shortcomings.

Using one method by itself is inadequate because it fails to take into account the complexity of new factors not considered by the Sophists or even Plato, himself, the primary one being race.

In her text, Barbara Biesecker laments the plethora of texts written on culture

(e.g., strategies, tactics, and discursive practices) yet “embarrassingly few studies that are informed by the lessons of a discipline whose central preoccupation has been to come to terms with the persuasive aspects of symbolic forms.” And although Aristotle’s writings certainly never speak to race as an issue, Biesecker suggests that we might be more inclined to study the deliberative, forensic, and epideictic conditions of oratory in his

Rhetorics instead of evaluating the poetic artistry of his Poetics (p. 4). By seeing and, perhaps, envisioning the world through a postmodernist lens, we are better equipped to measure and critique the social and cultural transformations occurring in the world around us.

Mindful of Biesecker’s argument, I saw the need to be more inclusive of theories and methods that were not only more contemporary, but that took into consideration the 66 ontological basis of motives and what motivates rhetors to speak and act as they do. In my quest to argue the value of a political speech, I needed a method that might help me identify and understand the symbolic acts implicit within a speech. More importantly, how might both the rhetor’s and the audience’s motivations be congruent in the success

(or failure) of that particular speech or act?

In “Reading Ontology in A Grammar of Motives,” and “A Rhetoric of Motives, or

Toward an Ontology of the Social,” two chapters in her text, Biesecker’s discussion of

Kenneth Burke’s dramatism proved to be the methodological tool I needed to effectively argue my hypothesis and subsequent claims in this project (pp. 24-51). Biesecker’s observations on Burke’s work are useful in our study of ideological criticism for several reasons. One, Biesecker articulates the inherent power within Burke’s arguments that speaks to real social change and human agency. Perhaps upsetting the apple cart of the traditional status quo and existing hierarchies of power, Burkean thought spoke to postmodernism when even modernism was considered avant-garde. Two, Burke’s ability to call into question our taken-for-granted assumptions of governance, socialization, and human behavior provides a link to unraveling ideological constructions embedded within those acts or behaviors.

Burke’s ability to decipher the underlying, perhaps unseen rhetorical messages within historical atrocities (e.g., Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler in “Hitler’s Battle”) or social movements (Rhetoric of Religion, 1961) has “excited the rhetorical imagination of postmodern theorists” since 1935 (McLemee, 2001). Here, I outline three methods Burke

67 discusses in both texts that might answer our question. Those methods are dramatism, perspective by incongruity and consubstantiation.

If language can be seen as a strategic, motivated response to the events, actions, or even daily conversations of life, one way which might help us to identify the motives underlying those actions is a critical rhetorical method referred to as dramatism. As early as 1945, Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives argued that dramatism can be used as both a linguistic and conceptual tool to measure the probable intent of our words and actions. In effect, if language can be viewed as motive-driven, we can call upon Burke’s grammar to translate and tell us why it is that we do what we do (Burke, 1945, p. xv).

Burke interprets responses to conditions or circumstances as our equipment for living. Primarily concerned with its application in sociological criticism, Burke’s take on art forms is ubiquitous in the sense that our ability to name, classify, or organize the world in which we live transcends literary art forms; it also becomes a set of strategies that allows us to cope and thrive in society (1974, pp. 293-303). Burke’s method of classification for novels and literary works can be translated into sociological and political strategies as well. Just as [a]rt forms like tragedy, comedy, or satire can be treated as equipments for living, we are able to size up situations, respond, and react with strategies for selecting enemies, socializing losses, purification, etc. (p. 304). According to Burke, poetry “is undertaken as equipment for living, as a ritualistic way of arming us to confront perplexities and risks” in life (p. 61). The rhetor’s ability to identify with an audience speaks to another inherent risk in both communicating and persuading that audience to do something or performing an unconventional act (e.g., casting your ballot 68 for a black man for the U.S. presidency). Even here, Burke has a ready solution with a critical method known as perspective by incongruity. How does one transcend a given order of weightedness or perceived obstacles like terrorism, racism, or tyranny, using incongruity (1954, p. liv)? By pulling or wrenching the viewer from their comfort zone of customary habits, the rhetor can align him or herself dispositionally with that audience.

Perspective by incongruity is “a rhetorical strategy that helps to break open an old piety…as an alternative orientation grounded in universal human experiences (Selzer,

2006, p. 459). The word “piety” itself is also key in our discussion of Burke’s theories.

Not be confused with any sort of religious humblings, piety, according to Burke, can be defined as a yearning to conform with the “sources of one’s being” or in our case, one’s audience (1954, p. 69). Oftentimes quite painful and requiring symbolic expiations (e.g., martyrdom or great ambition), piety is a system-builder. Designed to round things out, it serves as a unifying agent intended to fit the parts into a whole (p. 74).

Much of Burke’s literature references definitions and examples from the works of

Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Shakespeare that while more focused on aesthetics and literature, can also be useful in rhetorical criticism. Rhetorical analysis is metaphorical in the sense that it is analogous to a living, breathing thing.

Though the people and events may change, the relationship between rhetorical partisanship for dialectical operations that leads to our knowledge and formation of ideologies regarding conditions in life do[es] not (Burke, 1989, p. 206). In Rhetoric of

Motives, Burke describes the process of transformation as the rebirth or transition of an object or agent (Burke, 1969, p. xiii). Likening the process to the metaphorical allusion of 69 a “killing” that might occur in a literary text, transformation is, in it’s “most complete sense not conforming to an established script but creating a new one” (Wess, 1996, p.

142). A transformation might occur on the battlefield where two opponents are at war, attempting to transcend factionalism. In this case, the death or suicide of either one constitutes a transformation (Burke, 1969, P. 11). From a rhetorical standpoint, with that transformation comes a reidentification, perhaps drawing the rhetor in closer alignment or agreement with his or her audience (p. 45). This concerted or deliberate effort to change—or adhere to--existing ideals or ways of doing business is inherent in the definition of critical ideology, itself. When the rhetor must assume a new identity and/or convince his or her audience that existing norms will be maintained in accordance with the dominant opinion of that particular society or group this, too, is a variant of ideological construction.

In his text, Burke compares the outcome of battles and conflict between mythic heroes in the Bible and literature to demonstrate how change, or transformation, in the behavior of characters is based on a change in the motivations that drive that character

(see Milton’s Samson in Areopagitica, pp. 4-6). In this case, the transformation is a form of imagery where the transformation, itself, involves “the ideas of and imagery of identification [where] the killing of something is the changing of it” (p. 20). People do specific things based on reasons that motivate them to do so. “Thus we reduce the complexity to one essential strand, slant, or gist, isolating this one reflexive element as the implicitly dominant motive, an all-pervasive generating principle” (p. 5). In this example, Burke is referring to Milton’s Samson and his act of self-destruction after 70 slaying the enemy. As opposed to many classical scholars, Burke’s focus on ontological proofs or the application of his theories to cultural or “real-world” circumstances in today’s society versus more abstract conjecture is particularly useful in our analysis of political campaign rhetoric. Unlike Aristotle, “where [his] rhetoric grew out of epistemological presuppositions,” Burke’s sprang from a metaphysics that is more grounded in the actual relationships between people and how they coexist and operate in society (Salwen & Stacks, 1996, p. 254). In order for a transformation to occur during a speech, the audience must be able to identify with the speaker on some level. Whether this allegiance comes via gender, ethnicity, race, religious affiliation, or socioeconomic class there generally must exist some commonality that draws the two together. When such a bond does not exist, what are the rhetor’s alternatives?

In Rhetoric of Motives, Burke describes this relationship as consubstantiality.

Here, if two groups are clearly identified, they can also be led to believe that they have shared interests if those interests are also indentified (pp. 20-21). Since the concept of consubstantiality might be better understood in terms of group identities instead of literary sagas, consider the relationship between two groups, say A and B. As Burke suggests, even if A is not identical to B, the intersection, or mutuality, of their common interests can give the illusion that there is a common interest if that interest is articulated to the group. Thus, A can be seen as a consubstantial part of B, if B can be convinced or persuaded to believe that any interests or commonalities exist between the two (p. 20).

The process of consubstantiation is also a social act. It is a form of socialization that

Burke refers to as a moralizing process (p. 39). 71 A more contemporary example of this might be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights demonstrations and march for peace and desegregation during the 1960s. Though race served as a polarizing divide between black and white America, notice how King was able to call upon both ethical and moral obligation as the great unifier between blacks and whites. Assuming that one’s race or skin color was primary to one’s humanity failed to take into account that all men were one and the same and, essentially, created equal (Thomas Jefferson, 1776). In King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the audience is reminded that “many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.” Again, while certainly not as precise as its more common association with the Lutheran religious doctrine of the

Eucharist, Burke’s consubstantiation aligns itself almost perfectly with King’s pleas for brotherhood between the races.

Dramatism can be interpreted as a form of consubstantiation. More simply put, dramatism can be defined as a performance or a method of story-telling. Here, King’s appeal to humanity, Christian righteousness and the common good is used to supercede the superficialities of man-made laws like segregation and Jim Crow restrictions. By weaving his sermons and criticism into heartfelt, nationwide speeches, King’s words essentially become stories that give a moral lesson. In many ways, King was indirectly using the Socratic Method of argumentation. By calling into question his adversary’s illogic per racial discrimination, he forced his white audiences to critically examine the real justification for unfair discrimination, its benefits and far-reaching consequences. 72 Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm

Walter Fisher’s theory on the narrative paradigm is, in many ways, akin to

Burke’s dramatism. While both are central to symbolic interactionism, the identification and consubstantiation that we see in Burke’s dramatism might be used to mitigate cognitive dissonance or restore psychological equilibrium, but neither are necessarily rational. According to Fisher, the narrative paradigm goes beyond traditional social scientific theories and methods like Burke’s dramatism in the sense that it also takes into account narrative rationality, something dramatism does not (Fisher, 1985, p. 349).

Storytelling is effective because people are basically storytelling animals. A story can communicate or instill values and attitudes in an audience simply by reminding them of basic truths that they were taught many years ago or as a young child. Essentially, the narrative paradigm provides a “logic” that helps us to assess the value or merit of those stories (p. 348). Of course, there are dozens of other theories that are equally basic to communication; Fisher cites attribution theory (Heider, 1958), balance theory (Heider,

1946; Newcomb, 1953) and constructivism (Delia, 1977), to name but a few. But again, since all of them are largely either descriptive, explanatory, or predictive in nature, none truly account for the role of values or good and evil in that story. Whether or not we choose to tell certain parts of that story or folktale speaks to a very different sort of rhetoric. Cloud’s rhetoric of silence might come closest to this predilection. But when we think about facts, events, or unpleasant chapters in our own history, the rhetoric of forgetting and the amnesia of social memory come to mind as we try to define the concept of rhetorical race management. 73 To highlight an example of society’s selective memory from a historical perspective, consider the following. While practically every school child in America is taught to believe that the Thanksgiving holiday commemorates a day of celebration between the Pilgrims and the American Indians, the genocide and slaughter of American

Indians that also occurred probably is not.

Between 1636 and 1676, roughly nine of the ten million Indians who lived north of Mexico in the U.S. were either slaughtered by Puritan Englishmen or died of small pox and other diseases introduced by white settlers. By rationalizing their brutality and mass deception as the most expedient and necessary form of divine intervention, the Puritans were able to justify their entitlements inherent in the land, natural resources and property of America. Barbarianism was absolved under the cloak of manifest destiny and scripture from the Bible or, in this case, Romans 13:2: “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive themselves damnation”

(Zinn, 2005, pp. 14-16). In keeping with the English settlers “predatory political logic…[was used to rationalize] the [e]xpropriation of native [Indian] populations through violence [and] cleared political space (Marshall, 2011, p. 15). In spite of these horrific truths, the trappings of cardboard Pilgrims, Indians and corn remain as fixtures in every school room in America, centuries later. Ironically enough, these very innocent, perhaps even whitewashed images and myths of the Pilgrims feasting on turkey with friendly Indians prevail. Are certain myths and narratives deliberately perpetuated for other reasons? Might they be extended and maintained into perpetuity to control or affect our behavior and beliefs? 74 In the case of a politician who must win the confidence of a skeptical audience who initially may not see any commonalities between themselves and the rhetor, the

American Dream trajectory can be effective for the following reason: embodying both the materialistic and moralistic myths of persistence and hard work, it becomes a particularly dangerous ideology in that it assumes that all men are created equal when in reality they are not. Evocative of the rags-to-riches motif that Hollywood celebrities and politicians alike seem to thrive upon, the American Dream unravels in the face of the sobering realities of race, class and gender. Or, more importantly, who really benefits from the

American Dream and who does not:

This flaw has implications beyond the evident ones of racism and sexism. The emotional potency of the American dream has made people who were able to identify with it the norm for everyone else. White men, especially European immigrants able to ride the wave of the Industrial Revolution (and to benefit from the absence of competition from the rest of the population) to comfort or even prosperity, are the epitomizng demonstration of America as the bountiful state of nature. Those who do not fit the model disappear from the collective self-portrait. Thus the irony is doubled: not only has the ideal of universal participation been denied to most Americans, but also the very fact of its denial as itself been denied in our national self-image. (Hochschild, 1995, p. 31)

“In the case of presidential address, the rhetorical efficacy of narrative is a long- held tradition in efforts to make a moral case, with a strong track record of results” (West

& Carey, 2006, p. 383). In their “(Re)Enacting Frontier Justice: The Bush

Administration’s Tactical Narration of the Old West Fantasy after September 11,” the authors incorporate a methodology that merges both myth and the narrative paradigm.

Suggesting that Bush’s rhetorical speechmaking was indirectly emeshed within the national myth of the Old West, Mark West and Chris Carey go so far as to suggest that

75 Bush embraced true frontier mythology as a fantasy theme to not only cope with a national crisis but to win the hearts of Americans who were disenchanted with Bush’s performance as president (p. 379).

Managing the Invisible Power of Whiteness

Since any discussion on racism or rhetorical race management is not complete without a basic understanding of critical race studies, an overview of race and how whiteness theory operates in the United States is in order. A relatively new area of study and interdisciplinary in nature, whiteness theory or whiteness studies is usually not concerned with promoting white privilege. On the contrary, it tends to focus on the deconstruction of white privilege. More common in the U.S. than any other country, scholars in all fields (e.g., sociology, history, law, cultural studies, education) “seek to confront white privilege—that is, racism—and virtually all identify at some level with the political Left. Most of them see a close link between their scholarly efforts and the goal of creating a more humane social order” (Kolchin, 2002, p. 154).

If whiteness can be seen as an ideology tied more to social status and how race has historically operated in the U.S., we need to unmap or decode it in order to see how it has traditionally operated in the political arena, as well. Just as whiteness can be seen as the normalizing construct upon which everything else is measured, its operation is not only invisible, it is also taken for granted (Thompson, 2001). More importantly, whiteness theory is linked to unfolding relations in dominations” and power where people of European descent are inherently advantaged and privileged because of their skin color

(Frankenburg, 1993, p. 6). Making whiteness the ubiquitous and invisible center of racial 76 discourse involves strategies that include linking whiteness to nationality or naturalization with U.S. citizenship, defining whiteness through opposition or what it is not (Lynch, 2006). The concept of whiteness, itself, can be seen as both a social and ideological construction that not only “provide[s] material and symbolic privilege to whites…it [also] depends on the devaluation of non-whites” in order to operate

(Thompson, 2001).

David Roediger’s assertion that whiteness as a racial identity operates within the context of class and labor suggests that racial divisions were created to maintain and uphold artificial wage differentials between whites and blacks and perpetuate white supremacy. [W]hiteness was a way in which white workers responded to a fear of dependency on wage labor and to the necessities of capitalist work discipline (Roediger,

2003, p. 13). Roediger’s text, “The Wages of Whiteness” offers an in-depth historical analysis of working class racism and its formation in the northern United States during the early 19th century. A Marxist by trade, Roediger’s methodology and evidence rely heavily on his studies of the historiography of slavery and a contextual reading of works by hundreds of scholars, including W.E.B. Dubois (also Marxist), Franz Fanon, and Joel

Kovell (p. 14). Roediger’s text is more concerned with class distinctions and how white laborers were able to separate themselves, economically, from blacks, whether it be by social tension or outright violence. Nonetheless, his argument that the transition blacks made from “ indentured servitude to convict labor to any of the combinations of wage labor and free farming” was largely based on economic fears of whites as the country moved from an agrarian to an industrialized society tells us how race is constructed in 77 two ways (p. 25). One, that race is based on the devaluation of nonwhites to sustain economic differentials and, two, that the dichotomy between blacks and whites was further aggravated by the fierce competition for jobs as immigrants who poured into the

U.S. fought for the same jobs during the 19th century.

One notes that as early as 1844, even the Irish were perceived as inferior to whites from England in the 1800s. Sometimes used as substitutes for slaves in the South, Irish-

Americans worked the same dirty, back-breaking jobs that blacks held. As a result, the tendency to give the Irish immigrants ‘nigger work’ or to refer to them as ‘Irish niggers’ became commonplace. During the 1850s, some of the largest enclaves of prostitutes in

New York were Irish women. It’s not surprising that they were referred to as white slaves

(p.146). The Irish needed a foil, an antagonist with whom they could contrast or distinguish themselves as superior to escape a degradation that seemed based more on nationality than skin color. That antagonist became the African-Americans with whom they worked. In this case, race is constructed by polarization. By creating and articulating the distinction between themselves and blacks, the Irish were able to reinforce an inferiority of blacks that already existed. “Thus the struggle over jobs best explains Irish-

Americans’ prizing of whiteness if that struggle is considered broadly, to include not only white-Black competition but white-white competition as well” (p. 149). Whiteness, as a racial construct was not only malleable, it was arbitrary.

Another example, depicting the fluidity of whiteness, occurred during between

1907-1920 during the great immigration to Ellis Island in the United States. Over one million people gained U.S. citizenship under the country’s racially restrictive 78 immigration laws by claiming “whiteness” to gain entry. Petitioners from Mexico and

Armenia were allowed to claim white ancestry as a racial category while those from

China, Japan, Burma and the Phillippines were not (Haney-Lopez, 2006, p. 1). These instances where immigrants are fighting for racial classification as “white” suggests that they also realized the consequences of being included in that category—or being excluded from it. Again, whiteness becomes an ideological construction that consists of a body of knowledge, norms and practices where exclusion manifests itself in socioeconomic status, privilege, entitlements, and one’s own self-perceptions as well as those of others in society (Helfand, 2008, p. 1).

Roediger’s definition of the formation or construction of whiteness as the product of class struggle while useful, is primarily historically-driven and does not take into account the complexities or fluidity of race and how one must operate within the discursive space of whiteness, especially within a more contemporary framework. If whiteness is simply a cultural, social and political construction, we must now deconstruct it and take it apart if we are to understand how it remains “invisible, yet continues to influence the identity of those both within and without its domains. It affects the everyday fabric of our lives but resists, sometimes violently, any extensive characterization that would allow for the mapping of its contours. It wields power yet endures as a largely unarticulated position” (Nakayama & Krizek, 1995, p. 291).

Thomas Nakayama and Robert Krizek see whiteness as a form of strategic rhetoric that must be “named” or called-out in order to “displace its centrality and reveal its invisible [power] and position.” By “deterritoraliz[ing] the territory of white to expose, 79 examine, and disrupt” the conventional spatial tropes that define the very real boundaries that separate blacks from whites, Nakayama and Krizek perhaps bend the rules of political correctness by choosing to interrogate the space and location of whiteness. Their method is a combination of the following: (1) rhetorical and textual analysis of relevant texts in popular discourse (2) open-ended surveys distributed to 350 college students at public and private universities throughout the United States and (3) interviews conducted at non-academic settings (e.g., gun shows, sporting events) frequented primarily by whites (p. 292). My own emphasis on contextual analysis of texts and rhetorical speech is very similar yet focuses moreso on scholarly interpretations (e.g., Burke, Biesecker) than qualitative interviewing, a research method that will be explored in future editions of this project.

Unlike Roediger’s text on the psychoanalytical formation of working class racism as the residual afterbirth of class struggle, Nakayama and Krizek are more interested in tracing the everydayness of whiteness as a social construction. Concluding that whiteness is difficult to map or measure due to its discursive nature that serves only to further negotiate and reinforce dominance in society, their reference to the juxtaposition between power and whiteness is worth mentioning, given its relationship to ideological criticism, my own focus in this project (p. 295). In drawing upon Michel Foucault’s perceptions of power as a more “complex, relationally-situated” operation, the authors note that “the anonymity of power is a significant cornerstone of Foucault’s conceptualization of discursive formations” (p. 296). This, in part, might be useful in explaining how

80 whiteness acts as a strategic rhetoric given its historical framework of invisibility and

“assumed position [as] an uninterrupted space (p. 293).

The method used by Roediger, Nakayama and Krizek is observation and their embrace of critical race discourse. But in Roediger’s case, one sees a much greater focus on contextual readings of historical documents and artifacts. All are blunt and to-the- point in their discussion of the very real power of whiteness and how it operates, whether visibly or not, as an oppressive force. Other scholars are more delicate in their discussion of whiteness theory, seeing it more as an inevitable burden that must be reckoned with.

And then there are scholars who see it as a vicious, malevolent resistance bent on upending affirmative action, minority quotas or any other favoritism shown to people of color.

Audrey Thompson points to Toni Morrison’s metaphorical description of whiteness in Morrison’s Playing in the Dark. In her text, Morrison likens the invisibility of whiteness to that of fish swimming in a fish bowl. Here, the bowl and the water, itself, are analogous to whiteness: it is all encompassing, all around us and taken for granted as the norm. (Thompson, 2001). More sobering is the assumption that like the fish swimming in the fishbowl, one cannot exist without either the water or the bowl. Clearly, whiteness theory holds a different set of meanings and ramifications for social activists and theorists alike. While scholars like Morrison and Thompson see whiteness as an inconvenient burden of normative domination that the marginalized must suffer through, others, like Henry Giroux, see whiteness as race reparations in reverse. Assuming a sense of political agency all its own within the last thirty years, “[w]hiteness was aggressively 81 embraced in popular culture in order to rearticulate a sense of individual and collective identity for ‘besieged’ Whites” (Giroux, 1997, p. 2).

Henry Giroux sees whiteness as an identity politics that not only seeks no apology, but as a phenomenon that has become one of the most significant social forces of the 1980s and 1990s. While minority groups, critical and feminist scholars saw whiteness as the unnamed “oppressive, invisible center,” Giroux suggests that conservative, right-wing activists and television evangelists legitimized whiteness as a very real ideology all its own (Giroux, 1997, pp. 1-2). By capitalizing on the fears of embittered whites who felt victimized in the wake of imagined losses due to affirmative action, race-referential policies, and immigration, whiteness became the new racism.

“Epitomized by right-wing conservatives like Rush Limbaugh,” whiteness was the conservatives’ backlash to an illusory loss of privilege, cloaked under the guise of unfair taxation and threats to state rights (Giroux, 1997, p. 1). Politicians like Pat Buchanan,

Jesse Helms and David Duke “mobilized a new populist discourse about family, nation, traditional values, and individualism as part of a broader resistance to multicultural democracy and diverse racial cultures” (p. 2). Here, one sees how whiteness can be used as a tool. By operating under the guise of Christian or common values, it also works to disguise erasure of the needs, wants and very existence of ethnic groups who are

“othered” by their dismissal from the conversation.

Clearly, Giroux’s insight is useful in that it helps us to identify a trend or, better still, the second wave of a new version of racism that is not only covert but has gained a sense of respectability and righteousness as well. How does the critic address such a 82 change? A key strategy and actual method the critic might use to gain entry into the forum of American or family values is to assume the guise or cloak of sameness in his or her rhetoric. Possible avenues include familialism, Americanism or patriotism. All forms of assimilation, we can link these strategies to conformity in a number of ways. (1) socioeconomic status, e.g, income, education (2) language or (3) religion. In the case of persons of color, skin color is difficult if not impossible to disguise or camouflage. Here, the critic understands of the value of normative discourse and the rhetor’s ability to call upon ideologies that evince ephemeral, abstract thoughts compliant with the dominant discourse versus hard, unpleasant truths when confronting the dominant class. What counts is one’s ability to attend to the promotion and legitimation of the dominant group’s interests versus those of others. Here, ideology becomes a perhaps opportunistic rhetoric that is more concerned with the production of useful effects for political purposes

(Eagleton, 1991, p. 29).

Discovering or identifying instances when protocols of rhetorical race management must be called upon is not limited solely to moments where the rhetor differs from his or her audience. Even when both share the same color or race, the rhetor may still face suspicion or hostility. Here, race is not so much managed as it is negotiated. In these instances, the rhetor must find common ground of a different sort with his audience. Again, commonalities remain essential linchpins. But in these instances, the rhetor oftentimes must go a step further by choosing and using a vernacular discourse that resonates within the essence of that audience itself. This can be done by aligning the words of one’s speech with unspoken hardships or grievances shared by both 83 the rhetor and that audience. It can also be done by aligning one’s words with the local communities, histories or stories within that audience. The critic should note the following:

In addition to being discourse operating within local communities rather than speeches preserved in history textbooks, vernacular discourse is unique to specific communities…Critics of vernacular discourse would look at discourse that resonates within and from historically oppressed communities…Finally, the critique of vernacular discourse entails engaging in talk about everyday speech, conversations in homes, restaurants, and “on the corner.” (Ono & Sloop, 1995, p. 480)

In exploring the relationship between black vernacular and African-American literary tradition, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1988) conceptualizes a method in which one can decipher or at least certainly read the dialectic of the African-American writer as well as the rhetor. Gates is key in helping us to understand how race is managed in instances where both the rhetor and his audience are ethnic minorities or both marginalized participants sharing the dialectical discourse amongst one another. Outlining the meta- discourse peculiar to African-American dialectics, Gates suggests that black vernacular comes armed with a protective tendency which can best be decoded with the aid of characters found in African myth (p. xxi). Calling upon two trickster figures in African folklore (Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey), he interprets the literary works of black writers as “double-voiced in the sense that their literary antecedents are both white and black, but also modes of figuration lifted from the black vernacular tradition (p. xxiii). Unlike Esu whose characterization and effect is grounded in literary analysis, it is

Gates’ discussion of the Signifying Monkey that I am most interested in. The Signifying

Monkey is Esu’s Afro-American relative, standing as the rhetorical principle in Afro- 84 American vernacular discourse (p. 44). The act or process of signifying, itself, is one based on repetition and revision, “or repetition with a signal difference” (p. xxiv). Gates offers a more concise check-list describing the actual signals or clues characteristic of

Signification (Gates, 1999, p. 259):

1. Signifyin(g) “can mean any number of things.”

2. It is a black term and black rhetorical device.

3. It can mean the “ability to talk with great innuendo.”

4. It can mean “to carp, cajole, needle, and lie.”

5. It can mean “the propensity to talk around a subject, never quite coming to the

point.”

6. It can mean “making fun of a person or situation.”

7. It can “also denote speaking with the hands and eyes.”

8. It is “the language of trickery, that set of words achieving Hamlet’s ‘direction

through indirection.’”

9. The Monkey “is a ‘signifier,’ and the Lion, therefore, is the signified.”

Appended Glossary of “Unusual Terms and Expressions:”

“To imply, goad, beg, boast by indirect verbal or gestural means. A language

of implication.”

The nature of the “double-voiced” monkey in Gates’ signification is not to be confused with W.E.B. DuBois’ notion of double-consciousness. Both theories attempt to explain how blacks must operate and respond in a white-dominated, racially segregated world, yet both are distinctly different from one another. For example, while Gates’ 85 signifying monkey relies on trickery and deception as a foil to escape racist tactics or treatment, DuBois’s theory is more based on a theoretical model used to describe the arduous sociological and psychological tension that blacks experienced during the Jim

Crow racism of the U.S. in the early 1900s. For DuBois, double-consciousness is that inate struggle that blacks suffer as they try to exist as one of the oppressed within the world of their white oppressor. What is double-consciousness?

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (DuBois, 1996, p. 5)

Written in 1897, DuBois’ first defined double-consciousness in his essay in the

Atlantic Monthly. During his time, racial segregation and racial oppression were very real factors that African-Americans endured on a daily basis. For DuBois, the oppression is manifold and thus plays out on several levels: one, the physical or social degradation that blacks must endure by virtue of defacto segregation and, two, the internal or psychological degradation that one must endure in being told one is inferior from birth until death. Both DuBois and Gates are grappling with the black man’s inability to confront a social construction that has determined him to be inferior, substandard and even subhuman because of his skin color. DuBois’ double-consciousness is more concerned with the abject futility of escaping the throes of racial segregation. Like

Eagleton, perhaps Gates’ signifying monkey can be seen as the postmodern response to the degradation of DuBois’ double-consciousness and the Jim Crow racism of the early 86 1900s. Instead of throwing up his rhetorical hands and admitting defeat, the signifying monkey resorts to a certain level of disingenuous trickery more tailored to surviving or overcoming racial hostility and racial threat than succumbing to it.

Although the black tradition is [uniquely] double-voiced, Gates reminds the reader that all cultures and races, both black and white, [s]ignify upon other texts in motivated or unmotivated ways (1988, pp. xxiv-xxv). The act of true Signification, itself, is not to be confused with “playing the dozens” or the profanity-riddled insults and name- calling that black boys exchange on the street corner in inner city enclaves. For Gates, signifying “is a pervasive mode of language use rather than merely one specific verbal game” (1999, p. 260). It refers to a method of encoding then decoding messages, a rhetorical strategy and a form of figuration used by blacks in communicating, whether that communication be via a nonfiction novel or a speech (pp. 260-261). “The figurative difference between the literal and the metaphorical or surface and latent meaning,” to signify is “to say one thing but to mean quite another” (p. 262). Very simply, it is another form of double-entendre—phrases and conjecture filled with hidden meanings. An example might be my own predicament during a recent vacation trip to see my family in

Los Angeles during the holidays. While sitting at the dinner table, waiting to be served, my mother initially refused to serve me, mocking me with a pointed rhetorical question:

“Well, I don’t know if we should even share any of our collard greens with you, now that you’re living like aristocracy with all those white folks in Austin, TX. Are you still a genuine Negro who even eats collard greens nowadays? “

Amused, I laughed at her question. Of course I still ate collard green and, no, I was living like the proverbial pauper in student housing as a lowly graduate student. 87 Whether I was black or white, race was not the deciding factor; my occupation as a student leveled the playing field for us all. Be that as it may, my decision to elevate myself by choosing to return to graduate school at a fairly prestigious university separated me from the pack in my household and the general black community from whence I came; I was held suspect. The “we” in her comment was the collective “we” that went beyond family members. The meaning of “we,” in this case, also extended to the greater African-American community, both to those in the household as well as the entire neighborhood. My mother knew the answers to her questions, all too well, but she chose to chastise me, nonetheless; her gentle rebuke acted as a mild form of signification, affectionate although it might be. Gates’ theory and application of the signifying monkey was shown to be as evident in my own daily routine as it was in the vernacular discourse of politicians who must be equally mindful of their rhetoric in front of black audiences as well as white ones. Both my own personal experience and Gates’ signifying monkey are symbolic of a semiotic ideology that concerns itself with the manipulation of words to give the illusion of subjugation or acquiescence. Here, the subjugated is attempting to operate outside of his or her own prescribed role. By ameliorating fears, suspicions or accusations with normalizing rhetoric (narrative and words that may not be completely accurate or sincere, especially in the case of the signifying monkey), the rhetor is able to transcend conflict or resistance, winning support and approval on both sides.

Lisa Perks defines Gates’ Signifying Monkey “as [a] symbolic method of attaining relief from social situations or a form of counter-hegemonic strategy of symbolic liberation in oppressive conditions” (Perks, 2008, p. 215). Much like the mock 88 comic relief and racialized self-recrimination that I regularly serve-up following my mother’s affectionate—and oftentimes racialized—scolding, Gates’ Signifying Monkey is still performed on inner city street corners as well as during political campaign speeches. This notion of of self-recrimination was the hidden undercurrent of Obama’s own political speech delivered to a largely African-American congregation at the Brown

Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama on March 4, 2007 and is parsed, at length, in

Chapter 5. And much like Dave Chappelle, the topic of Perks’s research, in many ways,

Obama was also attempting to curry favor with an audience, who may have seen the topic of race and racial subjugation as either suspect or taboo.

Notions of double-consciousness and the “signifying monkey” resonate with the more commonly known critical race theory, or CRT, another discipline that might answer our question on rhetorical race management. Sparked, in large part, by the civil rights era of the 1960, CRT questions issues like white supremacy, unequal power structures, and racial justice. Scholars like Derrick Bell, Patricia Williams, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari

Matsuda, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic pioneered landmark essays and studies that challenged “the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, and principles of constitutional law.

Unlike traditional civil rights which embraces incrementalism [and assimilation],”

CRT examines the taken-for-granted acceptance of the status quo or normalized whiteness (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 1). On the surface, CRT might appear to have some relevance to our question of Obama’s ability to manage race. Unfortunately, CRT doesn’t quite fit either for one reason: Obama never overtly questioned or challenged race 89 during his election campaign (with the exception of his response to Reverend Wright’s sermon with his “A More Perfect Union” address). As with normalized whiteness,

Obama assumed a level of assimilation where socioeconomic inequities or racial justice was never an issue probably because neither was seen as issues relevant to his election.

Thus, Obama’s behavior worked in stark contrast to the intent and purpose of civil rights, ethnic studies, and CRT.

Armed with the theories and methods which worked and others which did not, I was able to interrogate or “read” an African-American rhetor’s speech on several levels at this point, particularly when he or she was addressing an audience of like-minded individuals or other African-Americans. Unfortunately, I still had not addressed what was perhaps the most perplexing issue of all: this question of rhetorical race management.

What method should the critic use when analyzing the words of marginalized rhetors who must embrace both the dominant majority and the marginalized as well?

Philip Wander describes the futility of alienated audiences that are never truly heard or able to voice their opinion within the dialectic of the public sphere in his landmark essay, “The Third Persona: An Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Theory”

(Wander, 1984). Much of Wander’s insight is particularly relevant to my own interest in rhetorical race management for several reasons. First, Wander sees ideological criticism as a form of criticism that is dictated by its historical roots and its relationship to cultural artifacts and political issues (Wander, 1984, p. 199). Second, Wander’s attention and greatest concern for audiences who are either alienated or ignored in the dialectic between the rhetor and the listener spoke to my interest in marginalized audiences. 90 In critiquing other scholars who privilege audiences by speaking to one and not the other, Wander’s piece comes closest to my own in identifying audiences who should be addressed or recognized but are not. I, too, base much of this project on rhetorical criticism by analyzing what is said and what is not said in a rhetor’s speech. More importantly, perhaps, I try to answer a question that has not been addressed in scholarly research. Wander’s theory in the “Third Persona” was certainly relevant since it validated my own interest in how and why certain audiences are silenced either by not being addressed in that speech or not being privy to hearing it. Unfortunately, he does not address the race question. In “Third Persona,” Wander is quick to critique the performance of other scholars, but he fails to address the performance of the rhetor, him or herself. How must the rhetor operate when he, too, is one of the marginalized?

Although Wander’s work was certainly germane to my theme, I was interested in finding research data that might be more salient as it relates to the marginalized themselves or how to study them so I continued read other texts. I was in luck.

In her essay, “The Null Persona: Race and the Rhetoric of Silence in the Uprising of ’34” Dana Cloud uses critical discourse analysis as a method to identify power struggles between black and white mill workers during a labor strike in 1934. Cloud sees this as the rhetoric of silence or an uneven power struggle where the marginalized are silenced out of a fear of physical retribution (Cloud, 1999). Though Cloud’s theory might not seem relevant to my question on the surface, in many ways, I saw parallels. In the case of the marginalized mill workers, they chose to remain silent out of fear of retaliation from white bosses or managers. In Obama’s case, the roles are completely 91 reversed. Though the rhetor might seem to be in control, in many ways he is not. Could it be that his skin color and the historical contextualization of race in this country impacted what he chose to say versus what he did not say just as race impacted what Cloud’s mill workers said and did not?

Cloud’s method focuses on a contextual analysis of interviews conducted with those mill workers. By researching archival documents, she observed a discursive pattern that was reflective of what she describes as a rhetoric of silence. Even more disturbing, her research was based on interviews conducted with marginalized black mill workers who were reluctant, perhaps even fearful, to discuss a labor strike that occurred more than

60 years ago in the Piedmont region of the Southern United States in September 1934. As with Wander’s, Cloud’s approach is to look “between the lines” and articulate a motive

(and the repurcussions) for words, phrases or comments within a speech not articulated for audiences for whom it might be intended.

Ono & Sloop (1995) argue that “[c]ritics of vernacular discourse would [do well to] look at discourse that resonates within and from historically oppressed communities.

Ono & Sloop are quick to add that this in no way discounts studying oppressed neighborhoods and communities themselves. But given historical power relations, oftentimes, communities and persons that are most directly affected by a speech, policy, or ruling are systematically ignored (p. 480). Since I, too, wanted to interrogate speeches and news articles in much the same way, I had identified a method with which to work.

Wander’s and Cloud’s theories and methods share a common denominator in that both spotlight and articulate the plight of the alienated voice in relationship to ideologies 92 where the dominate majority or the oppressor holds sway over what is said and what is not. Unfortunately, neither is specific enough to answer our question on how the marginalized must manage the marginalized, including the dominant majority, simultaneously. Nonetheless, both theories are relevant and serve as a basis from which to start. Understanding how the marginalized must operate when they act in roles normally reserved for the oppressor is tricky. It requires the rhetor to walk a very delicate and potentially dangerous tightrope. In many ways, a certain amount of self-reflexivity is demanded on the part of the critic when asking the following questions:

1. What must I say in my speech to create and maintain a harmonious discourse

with all members of my audience?

2. What topics or issues must I avoid?

3. What topics or themes should I advance or adhere to that are not only non-

threatening but will be met with certain agreement by even my opposition?

In evaluating artifacts through the lens of ideological criticism, one approach to studying the rhetorical implications of a speech or event might also require one to understand the historical ramifications underlying said event. As an example, one cannot understand or appreciate the progress of race relations unless one also knows what racial oppression was like prior to the change. Again, one must refer back to the history of events leading up to the event in question if one intends to draw or make any inferential conclusions. Thus armed, I was now able to identify a method that would help the critic analyze texts and speeches written by the marginalized, or rhetors of color: (1) textual

93 analysis through the postmodernist lens of ideological criticism; (2) understanding or at least a familiarity with the history that preceded the event or artifact in question.

How Race Influences Politics and Media Framing

In drawing upon the recent scholarship that has addressed race in politics, much of the media framing and priming evidenced in the 2008 presidential election can be traced back to the political campaigns of previous black politicians. From measurement of attitudes and beliefs to analytical studies on media framing and cueing, translating the dialectic between race and politics might help us to understand why some measures pass and others do not; why some candidates are elected while others are not. A careful analysis and review of the literature on racial politics and media framing is helpful in not only drawing comparisons between issues between the campaigns of different politicians, but in seeing parallels, as well. Specific examples or case studies where media framing may have played a role in previous elections of other African-American politicians is more thoroughly examined in Chapter 3.

Distinguishing or marking any transition in the literature on race and politics is primary in our discussion of racial politics or the erasure of race for several reasons. First, the literature itself might offer clues as to the impetus that led to the election of African-

American politicians, given that the themes of racial politicking in America transitioned just as the candidates. Modern or contemporary theory on race and politics can be traced back to the research of Donald Kinder and David Sears and their studies on racism and prejudice. Primarily interested in drawing empirical comparisons between theoretical approaches to white prejudice against blacks and racial threat, Kinder and Sears (1981) 94 provided an analysis of sociocultural theory and the implications of race as a driving force or determinant in voting decisions (e.g., forced busing and affirmative action). As with the passage of historical events like Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the

Civil Rights Act, how perceptions of race operate as a constitutive factor of the political process also mutated or evolved.

Symbolic racism or what Sears and Kinder and several other scholars refer to as the “new form of racism” was the cognitive belief system that surfaced in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement (Henry & Sears, 2002; McConahay & Hough, 1976; Sears

& Kinder, 1971; Sears & McConahay, 1973). Here, the assumption is that racial discrimination should no longer be seen as a serious threat or concern by blacks because laws have been changed to make their lives easier. This treatise is further solidified by the argument that the persisting poverty rate for African-Americans and their high jobless rates is justified due to their unwillingness to take responsibility for their own lives. A later study further confirms this by noting how political conservatism was found to be directly correlated to a voter’s opposition to policies that supported blacks and perceptions of blacks as lazy and irresponsible (Sniderman et al., 1991). This belief system gains greater momentum in how perceptions of demands made by blacks and other minority groups for government support or welfare programs, intrinsically, works against individualism in the eyes of white voters and how “blacks violate cherished

American values” (Henry & Sears, 2002).

One can identify instances of the “new racism” are all around us. By studying the literature, media and following current news events, one can infer which individuals or 95 groups will be affected or impacted by the demands of others. The Tea Party’s and Ron

Paul’s desire to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and invoke state’s rights by revoking the powers of the federal government might be seen as a contemporary example of the

“new racism.”13 In “reading” or analyzing this event through the lens of an ideological scholar, one first must understand who is currently benefiting from the Seventeenth

Amendment and federal legislation. Since the federal government is the largest purveyor of social programming in the country, one might then assume that limiting federal powers would allow individual states to enact legislation curtailing enrollment, eligibility or even the very existence of many programs. The next question would be to identify which groups would be affected most in these cuts or reductions. Senior citizens? Women of color? Mexican immigrants under the age of 18 who are newly enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities? Here, the critic must go a step further by researching and identifying specific programs or entitlements that would be eliminated were the amendment to be repealed, perhaps even asking why some and not others.

Perhaps equally noteworthy is the progressive nature in how these terms developed to mirror the transition in how racism was not only defined, but the manner in which a racist act or behavior is quantified or articulated. For example, although the term

“modern racism” was introduced in the early 1980s, the concept was similar in many ways to earlier definitions of symbolic racism (Henry & Sears, 2002). The distinction

13 See Leonard Zeskind’s Ron Paul and the Tea Parties: States Rights and the 17th Amendment for greater detail on this movement http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-zeskind/ron-paul-and-the-tea- part_b_504559.html

96 between symbolic racism versus modern racism can lie in something as simple as the nature of the questions being asked in the survey or the scale being used to measure attitudinal beliefs. The implications of race and racism in voting decisions or political issues is largely based on what’s at stake for the survey participant. One scholar suggests that a symbolic politics approach should be seen more as the residue of political or value socialization, especially when any policy decision is associated with other racial groups.

(McConahay,1982, p. 692).

What is most striking in the new racism theory or in any of these modern-day surveys is that empirical evidence, notwithstanding, aligning answers to global or non- specific questions does not provide the hard or direct evidence proving racist traits or characteristics (Sniderman et al, 1991, p. 424). One of the primary reasons for this is that people are reluctant to project themselves as openly racist, especially given the fact that racism is no longer seen as acceptable or fashionable (McConahay, 1982, p. 716). And since overt racism or Jim Crow racist behavior is no longer de rigeur, this transition into justifying racist attitudes is “how the thesis of covert racism and that of symbolic racism” is promulgated in white voter attitudes (Sniderman et al, 1991, p. 424). A white voter’s decision to reject government assistance to blacks or more welfare programs is masked under the veil of self-reliance and individualism. As Sniderman suggests, whites will not directly say they are opposed to the government providing public assistance or implementing a busing program to help inner-city youth. Instead, their opposition is based on self-reliance and the fact that blacks should have the fortitude to sustain their own schools based on their own strengths, not of whites. Thus, the opinions and attitudes 97 that may, in reality, be racist are camouflaged or articulated in such a way as to seem acceptable.

Measurements of attitudinal and behavioral preferences are key in helping us to understand how issues are weighted and valued or seen as important or dismissed as nonissues. The empiricist or quantitative scholar provides the research that alerts the general public and the budding politician as to what those issues are and which are most salient for political platforms. Just as Nixon’s and Clinton’s marketing teams must have researched and found health care reform legislation to be a prime hot-spot for voters in the 1970s and 1990s, it is likely that Obama seized upon health care reform in much the same way. Rhetorical scholars also rely upon the statistical research findings of quantitative scholars just as empiricists value moral and rhetorical criticism to shape the foundation that serves as the argument for a particular study. Even in something as simple as analyzing a politician’s speech, any real or substantial findings are useless without hard, empirical evidence. Case-in-point: Rowland & Jones.

In “Recasting the American Dream and American Politics: Barack Obama’s

Keynote Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention,” Robert Rowland and

John Jones (2007) define the American Dream and how its’ key component, individualism, was identified and proselytized by the conservative right to ensure

“conservative ascendance for most of the last twenty years” in both the White House and

Congress (p. 427). As it relates to the synergistic relationship which exists between both critical and empirical studies, one notes that Rowland’s & Jones’ rhetorical analysis also relies on statistical data from a series of Pew Research foundation studies to make their 98 argument. In citing the Pew Research organization, what is uncanny is their reference to the American public’s burgeoning interest in government-provided health insurance in

2005:

The best illustration of this point can be found in a series of polls conducted by the Pew Research Center over the last two decades. For example, Pew found that in the spring of 2005, 65% of the American people favored providing government health insurance for all, even if this policy required tax increases. (p. 426)

One obvious possibility and hypothesis elicited from studies like this and others like it is that politicians and political marketing strategists likely base much of their decision-making on the findings of empirical scholars which guide them in both policy and issue-development. Just as importantly, the value of critical or rhetorical analysis is key because it offers an ontological structure and framework of a problem or issue from a moral perspective. Unlike empirical measurement, rhetorical evaluation and

“postmodernism prefers interpretation over scientific study because it operates with the assumption that all knowledge is subjective and/or intersubjective, morally culpable, and local” (Lucaites et al, 1998, p. 11). Understanding that the weighing or interpretation of intangibles like racism, hatred or fear cannot always be measured by scientific models or regression analysis charts is important.

As an example, Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address was probably his most complex rhetorical and moral challenge, given that he was forced to surbordinate and transform Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s vitriolic and hateful jeremiads of racism into a harmonious cry for racial reconciliation. Yet, no survey or focus data was needed to explicate its likely impact on the American conscience as probably one of the most

99 groundbreaking speeches on race relations in the twentieth century.14 What is perhaps even more interesting is that, even here, Obama was able to pull a rabbit-out-of-his-hat and perform an act of racial negotiation and sacrifice by finally reifying the “race problem” in a public speech heard nationwide. In spite of the fact that he had avoided the topic of race for almost two years throughout his political campaign, he was forced to discuss race in this speech. Ironically, Obama’s decision to “come-clean” on race in

America may have been the very thing that motivated thousands of undecided and

Republican voters to cast their ballot for him several months later in the November election. His race speech is widely recognized as one of the “biggest political events” of his campaign and is said to have cemented his election as U.S. president.15

Obama delivered dozens of speeches between 2007 and 2008 when he was actively campaigning. Since I was interested in analyzing those rhetorical artifacts that most closely supported my argument, I chose the following speeches: (1) Obama’s victory speech delivered January 3, 2008 at the Iowa Caucus; (2) his “A More Perfect

Union” speech delivered March 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; (3) his acceptance speech delivered August 29, 2008 in

14 As Obama’s pastor at the time, Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s famous “Godamn America” sermon was said to have almost cost Obama the presidency, given Wright’s vitriolic views on whites and his accusations of racism. First aired on ABC in March of 2008, the reader should access this link for greater details on both the speech and the public’s response to the broadcast at this site http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1.

15 “Obama Speech on Race Arguably Biggest Event of Campaign,” was documented by the Pew Research Foundation on March 27, 2008. According to the survey, “fully 85% of Americans say they heard at least a little about Obama's speech, and most (54%) say they heard a lot about it.” Hendrik Herzberg of the New Yorker comments that it was this one speech that probably cemented his election as U.S. president. The reader can find the full details in Hertzberg’s November 17, 2008 essay, “Obama Wins.”

100 Denver, Colorado, and (3) his victory speech delivered following the Presidential

Election on November 4, 2008 in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. I chose these speeches, in particular, for several reasons. One, all four of them were aired nationwide, thus guaranteeing not only the largest possible audience, but the widest possible visibility and exposure to the American public. This was seen as important because similar speeches given by Obama’s predecessors were also delivered to audiences nationwide, both black and white, encompassing all racial groups and ethnicities. But to truly argue rhetorical race management as an actual theory, it might be useful to compare the words and underlying theme of Obama’s speeches versus those of previous African-American rhetors and politicians.

A textual analysis of both Obama’s rhetoric and that of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson suggests that while racial and social injustice were key themes in the speeches of both King and Jackson, in Obama’s they were not. Perhaps more importantly, in none of these speeches, save his “A More Perfect Union” address, were social inequities, race or racial tension even referenced. Time after time, Obama is consistent in delivering a message of harmony that is absent of any mention of discord, tension or even the recognition of socioeconomic problems that surely the challenging political party should be anxious to highlight, especially when battling against the opposing party in a political election, and especially when that politician is an ethnic minority candidate himself.

This point is brought home by contrasting the underlying theme or message delivered in the speech of another African-American presidential nominee delivered 101 almost 25 years earlier: Jesse Jackson. In his 1984 address to the Democratic National

Convention in San Francisco, CA, Jackson was certainly mindful in his acknowledgements of Senators Walter Mondale and Gary Hart, also competing for the

Democratic National Party’s candidacy for U.S. President. In fact, much of this speech is very similar to that of Obama’s in its’ appeal to abstract generalizations (e.g., Obama’s

“We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America” versus Jackson’s call for a”leadership [that] must heed the call of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing, and unity, for they are the key to achieving our mission.16

It is much later in this speech that Jackson’s humble deference to fellow candidates transitions into stark reminders of then President Ronald Reagan’s destruction of social welfare programs and lunch services for the poor. While almost half of this speech is devoted to attacking Reagan on his mindless fiscal irresponsibility and damning contribution to the ever-rising misery index of the nation’s poor, Jackson sings the praises of his Rainbow Coalition, the new American voter, members of a melting pot comprised of Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Jews waiting impatiently to take control and rise above the mire of Reagan’s trickle-down economics.

By contrast, in none of his speeches does Obama even remotely address poverty, social programming, or socioeconomic inequity. Instead, he focuses on the lives of

Americans as a whole and the greater good. There are no cries or appeals to hardship or the sacrifices made by previous African-American generations. Instead of lambasting the

16 The excerpt for Obama is drawn from the text of his victory speech at the Iowa Caucus in 2008. 102 current administration or white America for grievances and ills dating back to the civil rights era and a segregated south, Obama’s words acknowledge the greatness of his opponent’s military bravery (John McCain, his Republican rival in 2008) while highlighting the uniquely individual hardships suffered by American voters of all races.

His speeches are nuanced with subtle references to patriotism, the bravery of fighting during Pearl Harbor as well as the war in Iraq. Obama’s words of praise are lavished on his constituency, the American voter:

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great, a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight. Because, in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. In the face of that young student, who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree, who once turned to food stamps, but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

(APPLAUSE)

When I -- when I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed. And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business or making her way in the world, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman.17

Of course, whether or not any politician should advocate the needs of any one particular group over another belies several other important questions that might help us

17 This excerpt is taken from then Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, 103 understand how race was managed in this election as it relates to the media itself: (1) Was

Obama the first African-American politician to minimize or obfuscate race in his campaign rhetoric? (2) What role did the media play in the Election of 2008? Was there any media bias? (3) How did media framing, a heuristic or mental short-cut and social construction, affect the American public’s perception and interpretation of Obama at the ballot box versus that of his predecessors?

In this project, I have devoted Chapter 5 to a greater analysis of the role that the media played in the Election of 2008. In Chapter 5, I discuss media perceptions of both

Barack Obama and John McCain. Both candidates were portrayed by the media in markedly different ways. As it relates to an interpretation of the media’s performativity regarding race, it is equally important to mine or perhaps offer some insight on possible theories or methods that might explain the media’s behavior during the election. From a methodological or theoretical perspective, a chapter on the media is particularly key in this project for a reason. The media can decide what’s relevant, who’s important and who’s not important in something as innocent as a television interview or a website blog.

More salient to the election, can they also determine our next U.S. president? In order to better understand why the media acted as it did during the election, it’s helpful to establish some sort of framework in which to interpret the media’s behavior.

What is clear is that the 2008 election “provided a reporting [nirvana] unlike any other for the typical reporter. More than any other election in recorded history, the 2008 political contest placed race front and center of the business as usual” for news reporting.

Race became “the issue” and journalists found themselves scrambling to report the news 104 on the first African-American nominee, then candidate, in U.S. history (Carstarphen,

2009, p. 403). Whereas the media had all but ignored race relations decades earlier,

Barack Obama became de rigueur for front-page news articles and headlines (see Chapter

5 for an in-depth analysis). Whether or not this speaks to the progressive nature of a nascent post-racial America is certainly arguable. What is fairly evident from the portrayals of Obama versus McCain in both television, print and new media reporting is the level of framing that occurred. From a sociopolitical perspective, framing is a social construction where individuals or events are interpreted or packaged by the media in such a way as to alter and determine our own perceptions and beliefs of that candidate.

Scheufele goes so far as to suggest that the viewer is not only fed those media perceptions of a news event, he or she selectively scans and processes that data to form his or her own opinions of that candidate or election (Scheufele, 1999, pp. 104-105).

Thus, the underlying question might be who decides what is newsworthy or is not? The reporter or news writer who interpreted those news events and decided what was relevant and worthy of front-page news versus those events that are not must also be considered in the equation of political news. The concept of framing is particularly relevant in this question of rhetorical race management because it requires us to ask ourselves if the media was implicit in conveying either positive or negative portrayals of

Obama (and Clinton and McCain, as well) that may have contributed to our decision to vote for Obama during the election.

105 Conclusion

This chapter provided referential evidence that explains why the theories cited resonate with my argument on rhetorical race management. My focus on the theories and definitions of Kenneth Burke are particularly important since more than a half dozen of his methods mirror much of the rhetoric and concepts in one of Obama’s key speeches,

“A More Perfect Union.” I more deeply interrogate this speech in Chapter 4 but realize the importance of articulating some of Burke’s methods and theories, particularly since Biesecker also draws parallels between both Burke and postmodernism.

Gates’ definition of the Signifying Monkey lays the groundwork in evaluating a speech Obama delivered to an African-American audience in 2007 during his campaign.

What and how a speaker of color says in front of an all-white or mixed audience versus one that is predominantly black, Latino, or Asian requires one to be able to translate or decode certain messages and symbols within that speech. Gates’ linguistic analysis in his text, The Signifying Monkey, serves as a useful handbook in helping the critic to read between the lines in this particular speech.

In reading the essays of both Wander and Cloud, I incorporate their methodologies of contextual and rhetorical critical analysis into my project thusly. Both are posing an ethical dilemma since both are, indirectly and directly, alluding to disenfranchised audiences, whether it be based on age, citizenship, gender, sexual or religious preference. From a methodological standpoint, the listener or critic must look deep into that speech, essay or event to see who is being formally addressed and who is

106 not, something I do throughout this project and in two of Obama’s speeches, in particular.

But I go beyond mere textual analysis by asking the deeper questions that both recommend.

Perhaps the most important question one should ask is thus: why is a particular audience being left out of the conversation and how does it benefit the rhetor and/or the audience? As it relates Cloud’s rhetoric of silence, one must also stop to ask exactly whose agency was being exercised, given Obama’s election? Was it Obama’s?

African-American voters? The greater American public’s? How does the critic analyze a speech or artifact of a marginalized rhetor who must not only speak to multicultural audiences but to audiences comprised of the dominant majority, both of whom may harbor animosity or grievances like historical racism not readily apparent on the surface?

A re-reading of essays by Cloud and Wander might be helpful in light of Obama’s election if the reader isn’t already familiar with their take on the rhetoric of silence.

Nonetheless, I suggest another method or theory on rhetorical race management is in order that specifically addresses this question: the rhetoric of race management. To validate (or invalidate) this theory, identifying key markers that were reflective of this behavior was needed.

I now turn to another political theme that was primary, not only in the 2008 presidential campaign but in previous elections, as well. What is compelling, as it relates to our interest in media framing of political candidates and rhetorical race management, is how framing strategies worked against one candidate while working for the other.

107 Chapter 3

Historicizing Rhetorical Race Management Prior to Obama

Tonight, we come together bound by our faith in a mighty God with genuine respect and love for our country and inherit the legacy of a great party. The Democratic Party, which is the best hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just, and peaceful course...Our mission: to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless, to teach the illiterate, to provide jobs for the jobless, and to choose the human race over the nuclear race. Jesse Jackson, Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, 1984

To say that the election of Barack Obama as this country’s first African-American president is not owed to the marches in Selma, Alabama during the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1960s or passage of Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be misleading, at best, and short-sighted, at worst. Dozens of laws, policies and legislation have followed since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and the

Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 in response to civil unrest. Like the civil rights era and

Reconstruction, the majority of these acts and legislation came as the result of social unrest and confrontation. In many of these instances, blacks served as challengers to the current power structure with social protest, boycotts and public demonstrations. Social protest is probably the most salient underlying theme of true emancipation for blacks in this country. But as it relates to the election of Obama, it was not. Barack Obama’s election was peaceable, orderly and was met with a surprising level of euphoria, given the

United States’ long and unhappy history of racial violence and racial intolerance. How did we get to the point where an African-American is able to not only become a

108 presidential candidate but able to win that election by a sizeable majority, as well? Were there specific issues or trends that led to Obama’s ability to manage race in this election?

This chapter looks at the historical ramifications and, perhaps, even legacy of

Obama’s predecessors, black politicians who ran for office and were elected. More importantly, my emphasis in this chapter is on their ability to manage race in a political election. By looking at Obama’s predecessors, other African-American politicians, we are better equipped to determine whether or not rhetorical race management is simply a new offshoot of a post-racial America or if it had its roots in earlier political campaigns well before Obama’s arrival. If I am to suggest that Obama managed race to win election, was he the first politician to do so?

Race can be managed by not talking about it. Whether the politician is black or white, is one obligated (or expected) to trumpet the values of civil rights or reparations based on one’s own skin color? As an example, I reference Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s sweeping political transformation following his New Deal legislation in the 1930s to further illustrate the power of issue control and, to some extent, rhetorical race management control during his own administration. Did Obama’s predecessors contend with race in a similar or unlike fashion? To make any sort of call, we might first begin by looking at the political issues that were and weren’t addressed in Obama’s campaign. First, Obama clearly articulated certain themes and arguments in his campaign rhetoric while completely avoiding others that previous African-American rhetors have traditionally brought to bear and openly remonstrated the public for in their unwillingness to address (e.g., social welfare reform, economic stimulus policies for low-income 109 households, poverty, etc.). As I outline in this chapter, Obama, for the most part, focused almost evenly on all issues during his campaign, save one: health care reform. I am also interested in locating and explicating the stratagems employed in Obama’s campaign that proved issue evolution—or rather issue recycling, in the case of health care reform—to be the great unifier. I argue that Obama’s focus on health care reform effectively subsumed the more contentious race issue. More importantly, perhaps, Obama's ability to manage race in this election may have been based, in part, on his ability to resuscitate the rhetoric of what previous black politicians said or did to also become elected. This in no way is meant to sound contradictory. Despite the fact that none of his African-American predecessors ran for office of the U.S. presidency, their choice of campaign issues and— more importantly—their ability to win an election was certainly impacted by the fact that they were black. In some cases, black politicians focused almost exclusively on discrimination, poverty and race reparations. In others, racial inequality was never mentioned. How might these politicians have impacted or at least certainly influenced

Obama’s choices in his own political platform?

Studying some of the landmark or substantive scholarly research that has been done in the area of race theory, allows us to track how definitions and constructions of racism have changed. Understanding how black politicians negotiated their own skin color by parlaying race into winning votes at the voting booth allows us to determine if

Obama’s campaign either reinterpreted or created a completely new playing field in racial politicking. By tracking and identifying specific political themes that emerged as a consequence of race dynamics, whether it was as a result of empirical surveys, the 110 rhetorical repercussions of a campaign speech, or landmark voting decisions at the ballot box, we are better equipped to understand how race is managed in political elections.

By examining the research and current findings on race and politics, I identify several themes as they relate to the U.S. Presidential Election of 2008 and how Obama managed race in that election. Obviously, if I intend to argue that it was Obama’s skill in orchestrating a “raceless” campaign with a political strategy that was clearly homogenous or non-race specific, I must also keep an open mind and substantiate my argument with supporting texts. In Chapter 3, I apply some of the theoretical methods discussed in

Chapter 2 to the actual political campaigns of black politicians some twenty and thirty years earlier. By drawing parallels and similarities between the campaigns of Obama and his predecessors, I demonstrate how black politicians side-stepped or countered racism by deliberately focusing on campaign issues that had little to do with race whatsoever in this chapter. Even so, side-stepping or avoiding race as an issue doesn’t escape historical racism, particularly when the media must interpret elections of black politicians for us.

For that reason, this chapter also looks at the media framing of news events that impacted the election of black officials. But in order to establish the groundwork or a surer footing that might answer our questions, we first need to understand the sociopolitical landscape that Obama inherited. Crossover Politicking and the Framing of Tom Bradley In the 1970s and immediately on the cusp of civil rights demonstrations and the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, black candidates became active in politics, often running for and winning office as councilmen, state assembly office or positions in local government. 111 Described as pioneers of a “new breed,” these black politicians ran campaigns [that were] racially and culturally inclusive, emphasizing pragmatism skills and projecting a

‘mainstream,’ ‘deracialized’ image (Sigelman et al, 1995; Citrin, Green and Sears, 1990;

Perry, 1991; Smith, 1990; Williams, 1990).

In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the City of Los Angeles’ first black mayor.

With the support of blacks, Jews and Hispanics, he was re-elected in 1977, 1981, and

1985 where he obtained 68% of the city-wide vote and swept all fifteen council districts

(Sonenshein, 1986, p. 583). As a liberal Democrat, Bradley’s winning streak as the first

African-American mayor may, in part, be attributable to several other factors in addition to his overwhelming support from blacks and other minority groups: his campaign strategy regarding the issues he chose to highlight during his campaign and how he marketed himself.

Bradley’s ability to win election by large majorities for three consecutive terms was based on his skill in running a “moderate campaign” where his campaign focused on homogenous issues like a ban on off-shore drilling in the affluent white Pacific Palisades enclave and appearances in city-wide television commercials, dressed in police uniform

(p. 585). As a former police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, Bradley was able to take advantage of and parlay his former occupation into a formidable marketing weapon that assured white conservatives that he was able to be as “tough on crime” as his opponent, Sam Yorty, a conservative Democrat. Bradley understood the absolute necessity of white voter support and thus had carefully cultivated his own biracial

112 coalition in Los Angeles’ Tenth District as early as 1963 (Sonenshein, 1993, p. 64). What is noteworthy is that Bradley lost to Sam Yorty in an earlier mayoral election in 1969.

The timing of the Los Angeles mayoral race worked to Bradley’s disadvantage given that the election came on the heels of the Watts riots which had occurred not four years earlier. “By blatantly capitalizing on fears of black militancy and student unrest,

Yorty edged out Bradley in 1969.” Thus, the probable explanation why Bradley made a deliberate decision to run a conservative or more moderate campaign in 1973

(Sonenshein,1986, p. 585). Race was still an issue and Yorty countered with a racialized campaign strategy that forced Bradley to “work hard in both campaigns to dispel Yorty’s charge that a Bradley regime would bring a ‘black bloc’ with ‘radical’ programs into city hall” (p. 586). Bradley’s popular appeal and support from Jewish and liberal white voters who felt they were being ignored by Yorty’s conservative coalition worked in his favor for more than ten years in his capacity as mayor for the City of Los Angeles but it did not when he ran for the office of governor for the State of California in 1982. This poses the obvious question: why would a candidate engender overwhelming support in one office for more than a decade yet narrowly miss election in another?

In the case of the gubernatorial election between Tom Bradley and George

Deukmejian, Citrin, Green and Sears suggest “that whereas racial attitudes were a significant influence on the voting decisions of whites, Bradley’s background did not stimulate an unusual level of racially motivated behavior” (Citrin, Green & Sears, 1990, p. 74). Their argument, here, is that outside contextual factors like the candidate’s background and campaign style are perceived as primary by the public but in the case of 113 the 1982 election, this was not completely true. Bradley’s decision to run for governor may have been perceived as a logical next step or rung in his political career, but what both he and his supporters had no control over were public perceptions of Bradley that were based on media framing, therefore media perceptions, as well.

Media framing is a social theory or social construction where specific political events, actions or social movements are narrated and assigned certain words or phrases that may have an underlying meaning or significance to the reader other than what is clearly stated. Framing is, in a sense, a form of rhetorical packaging (Kelley, 2001, p.

282). We can read about a news event in our daily newspaper, yet those articles or stories can be codified or worded in such a way as to imply or give another meaning.

Joseph Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson argue that strategic framing is in large part, responsible for the public’s skepticism and even cynicism as it relates to their confidence in the government and politicians. Not surprisingly, much of that cynicism is based on how these political events and political actors are presented to us in the media

(Cappella & Jamieson, 1996, p. 71). The public’s dissatisfaction with the performance of their local Congressman or a highway improvement measure may certainly serve as the likely outcome of a disillusioned public, whether informed or not, but media framing is particularly compelling in the case of race. As a social construction, the columnist or reporter who is writing that article or story on a black or Hispanic candidate wields a certain level of power in how they translate and transmit news or information on that candidate to the public. By the same token, the level or extent of information that a voter

114 has—or doesn’t have—on a black or woman candidate is also a factor in that person’s voting decision.

For example, in low-informational elections where voters had little information on a candidate other than knowledge of their race or gender, voters took short-cuts in making their decision on which candidate to support based on the race or gender of the candidate. In one particular survey, it was found that if the person was black, the respondent stereotyped or pegged the candidate as liberal and more likely to favor other minorities with minority programs and benefits. White female candidates were also judged to be more liberal than a white male candidate, but were viewed as more trustworthy or “more dedicated to honest government,” implying that black candidates continued to operate at a distinct disadvantage (McDermott, 1998, p. 895). While Monika

McDermott’s study is useful in the case of low-information elections, it does not explain the 1982 election where Bradley was probably one of the most visible African-American politicians in Los Angeles. Again, if we analyze the specific news media that followed his campaign and how that media might have been interpreted, we gain greater insight as it relates to this notion of framing and how it may have been instrumental in deciding the outcome of an election.

Rhetorical race management, itself, is not controlled or exclusive to the whims of the rhetor. In many cases, outside forces beyond the control of the rhetor also have a hand in the interpretation or perception of the rhetor. In order to better understand how the media’s use of framing can also become a factor we must go back and look at specific

115 news media coverage that took place both before and after California’s gubernatorial election in 1982 between Bradley and Deukmejian.

In analyzing many of the news stories and headlines written during 1982, weeks both before and after election day on November 3, one notes how the unspoken issue

[race] becomes not only “spoken,” but glaringly blatant in both news articles and headlines regarding Bradley’s run for the governorship.

In one Los Angeles Times article that referenced Bradley’s “bid to become the first black Governor in the nation’s history,” the reporter was careful to not only emphasize Bradley’s race but indicate the novelty of said event (e.g., the first black elected governor in the nation’s history), in addition (Payne, 1988, p. 147). Perceptions of a black voter might be enthusiasm or admiration while that of a conservative white voter skepticism or suspicion. What is more alarming, perhaps, is how poll surveys that tracked

Bradley’s lead in percentage points were reported in the Times, itself. Previous news articles in the Times and showed that Bradley held a sizeable lead over Deukmejian during the summer months of 1982. As the election grew closer, that lead gradually began to reverse itself, particularly during the last six weeks of the election. “According to the Field Report [name of survey] 6% of those polled favored Deukmejian because

Bradley “is black or because they thought he would favor minorities.’ In October of

1982, a Times headline announced, “DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER SEES HEAVY

BLACK TURNOUT.” In the article, the pollster is interviewed and cites black hatred and contempt for Ronald Reagan, implying that voting for Tom Bradley is their best revenge

(p. 148): 116 Pollster Peter Hart reported that blacks “hate Ronald Reagan with a vengeance and I mean a vengeance” and “are motivated to express their opposition at the polls.” In the story, White House aide Edward Rollins speculated that if black voters participate “in far greater numbers than they have before, in greater proportion than they have to white voters, then certainly that’s going to make a difference (on November 2).18

Again, if perceptions of racial resentment are taken into account, it is reasonable to assume that there were millions of white voters in the State of California who were not only Republicans but loyal supporters of Ronald Reagan, especially given the fact that he served as governor for the State of California from 1967 to 1975 and was elected as U.S.

President in both 1980 and 1984 by sizeable margins. From a party identification standpoint, there was no Democratic Party advantage either. “Between 1980 and 1988,

Democratic identification fell from 41% of the electorate to 36%, while Republican identification rose from 23% of the electorate to 28% (Abramowitz, 1994, p. 6). A fear factor is implied in Rollins’ comment when he suggested that blacks were liable to vote

“in greater proportion than white voters.”

While not a precise parallel, this surprise upset is comparable, in many ways, to the “Weekend Passes” ad campaign that George Bush orchestrated, invoking the murderous convict Willie Horton innuendo in his bid against Michael Dukakis in the

1988 presidential election (Simon, 1990). Again, selling fear by pitting white voters against the dangerous black man. Tom Bradley and Willie Horton had nothing in common except one thing: they were both black. And like Horton, Bradley also become a household name in the City of Los Angeles but for very different reasons. A legend in

18 Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1982. 117 Los Angeles County, Bradley was still an unknown candidate to millions of Californians who did not live in the city and probably knew little, if anything, about him, except his skin color. Wildly heralded to become the first black governor of any U.S. state, ironically, Bradley would go on to lose the election to Deukmejian by a narrow margin largely based on absentee ballots. What is peculiar in this almost complete reversal of fortunes is that voters who were polled weeks prior to the election said they fully intended to vote for Bradley may have voted very differently. But did they really? This mysterious discrepancy between voter opinion and the actual election outcome is commonly referred to as the Bradley Effect. Thus, if California voters told pollsters they intended to vote one way, but in the end, voted quite another, how might the media been implicit in this decision? The issue of race, itself, ran a collision course of its own where one scholar comments “that the race issue quickly evolved in campaign coverage from a passing journalistic reference to become a dominant election theme” (Payne, 1988, p.

146).

Consequently, just as he had been framed or positioned positively by the media when he first ran for the office of mayor in Los Angeles, this favorable portrayal might have worked in reverse when Bradley aspired to govern outside of the comfort zone of his voters. This turn of events might be best explained by the role of the media and how mass media coverage is interpreted by the public. Dietram Scheufele (2000) suggests that individuals rely upon the media to interpret events for them, especially when a second opinion is required to select one option over the other, or in this case, choosing one political candidate versus the other (pp. 301-302). Here, if media framing is the story 118 line or theme narrative that the media used to describe the novelty of Bradley’s election, the public, in turn, acted upon that narrative by not voting for Bradley and Deukmejian, instead (p. 306). What is ironic is that much of the public and even Bradley’s campaign staff assumed Bradley had won the election up until the final ballots were counted.

The Wilder Effect Revisited and Jesse Jackson’s Issues

As Dan Walker, a political columnist for the Sacramento Bee, recalls Bradley was so confident he would win the race “that Team Bradley [was] literally dividing up office space in the governor's suite, and figuring out who would get what job in Bradley's new administration” (PBS, 2008). In a poll conducted by the Times following Bradley’s loss to Deukmejian, it was found that “500,000 Democrats and Independents voted for

Republican George Deukmejian for Governor last Tuesday, not so much because they were for him but because they were against Democrat Tom Bradley” (Payne, 1988, p.

152). Of course, a number of other factors worked against Bradley, as well as color. For instance, Proposition 15, the gun control bill which required gun owners to register their weapons was, indirectly, tied to Tom Bradley. Bradley’s earlier support of gun control proved disastrous in the final election since opponents implied that

Bradley, “if elected, would take away the guns of Californians” (Payne, 2010, p.424).

Gun control became a hot-button issue among gun owners, farmers, and also fringe groups in the California electorate. Bumper stickers with the slogan “Vote for Duke not the Spook” were prevalent in the Fresno area during the last 2 weeks of the campaign. Such tactics accentuated the race issue, which had gained momentum in the news, given media and poll attention to race, the assertion of a “hidden anti-Black vote” at a press conference by Deukmejian’s campaign manager, Bill Roberts, and the subsequent media attention it garnered. (Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1982)

119 Findings further suggest that voters who told pollsters during pre-election surveys that they were going to vote for Bradley changed their mind once they cast their ballot in the voting booth on election day. Commonly referred to as the Bradley Effect, this notion refers to the voter’s decision to say they’ll support a black candidate during an election poll but then change their mind once they cast their ballot inside the voting booth.

Although any mention of the Bradley effect had lain dormant in the news and public imagination for well over twenty-five years, once Obama’s bid for the U.S.

Presidency became prominent, the Bradley Effect resurfaced. Five years prior to the 2008 primary, it appeared 87 times in a Nexis search. According to media analyst Brooke

Gladstone, during the nine months that followed Obama’s candidacy announcement, it was mentioned more than a thousand times (Garfield, 2009). Payne (2010) argues that it isn’t the peculiarity of the Bradley Effect or even the Obama Effect (had Obama lost) that should disturb us. Of greater concern is the media’s predilection to rachet-up sensationalistic news because it is race-driven. (p. 420). Thus, whether or not the public even remembered what the Bradley Effect was, its history, and possible implications on voting decisions in 2008 was not relevant; the Bradley Effect became news and was made an issue primarily because the media chose to do so (p. 432).

What is interesting to note is how the media can be seen as publicizing or possibly even framing race in an election to make stories more newsworthy “thereby altering the foundations of mass political decision making (Valentino et al, 2002; Caliendo, 2006).

What is even more salient as it relates to Bradley’s and Obama’s elections are the outcomes of both. In Bradley’s case, race worked to his detriment. In Obama’s, the fact 120 that he was black worked to his advantage. How do we explain this conundrum? As

Monika McDermott discusses in her essay, if white voters know little about a candidate, other than the race or gender, they are likely to make decisions based on stereotypical assumptions (p. 898). The outcome of the Bradley/Deukmejian election is consistent with her theory, especially since the majority of white voters lived outside of Los Angeles.

This lack of knowledge other than the news media’s focus on Bradley’s ethnicity may offer the probable cause for his slide in the polls and ultimate loss to Deukmejian in 1982 and again in 1986. More perplexing, perhaps, is how McDermott’s theories are inconsistent with Obama’s victory in the Presidential Election of 2008, however.

The nation and the entire world, to be quite frank, were acutely aware of both

Obama’s race, his heritage, his background and his potentially politically lethal alliances with the racially divisive Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Despite this “baggage,” Obama went on to win election by a fairly large margin. Were there other reasons why Bradley might have been successful in vanquishing symbolic racism during his tenure as mayor, but not the California gubernatorial election? Perhaps the media, itself, might have been key in Bradley’s defeat. Perhaps the mythos of historical racism and the proverbial glass ceiling prevented him from advancing any further in political office; one cannot be sure.

Ironically enough, though, not four years later the United States would elect its first black governor but on the opposite side of the country: the State of Virginia.

First elected in 1969 as a state senator and the first black senator to be elected after Reconstruction, Douglas Wilder won election as the first black Governor of

Virginia, both in 1990 and 1994, in spite of negative news framing in the media that (as 121 with Bradley) focused on his race versus his qualifications (Jeffries, 2002, p. 685). As with Bradley’s earlier campaign strategy, Wilder was also tough on crime. Running as a moderate Democrat and an advocate for the death penalty since the early 1970s, Wilder ran on anti-crime platforms, calling for stricter parole enforcement and designation of

“high-drug-crime zones” during his campaigns (Jeffries, 2000, p. 26). This strategy is quite logical, given the perceptions of a white electorate that might assume a black politician is either soft on crime or not as rigorous as a white politician would be when it comes to crime control.

During the gubernatorial election of 1989, one notes that in spite of the fact that

Wilder a “ran a highly credible campaign as a qualified, major-party candidate, ably portraying his white opponent as tending toward conservative extremism” he was forced to contend with a high level of media attention that had more to do with the novelty of his race than real issues “in the heart of the old Confederacy” (Finkel et al, 1991, p. 316).

Just as Wilder deliberately avoided any mention or reference to race during his politicking or campaign speeches, the national media "insisted on branding Wilder a black politician [even though] he was determined not to run as one" (Finkel et al, 1991;

Sabado, 1991).

In a study that examined the percentage of positive news coverage versus negative for both Wilder and his opponent, Marshall Coleman, 110 news articles in the

Washington Post were evaluated to determine if both candidates received equal levels of news coverage during the campaign. Findings indicate that Wilder received considerably more news coverage, both favorable and unfavorable, possibly because of the fact that he 122 was an atypical candidate. Jeffries suggests that much of the negative news coverage on

Wilder was based on interviews with readers who were asked why they weren’t going to vote for him. As an example, one story featured a voter who said he wouldn’t vote for

Wilder because “he was worried that Wilder would fill some 4,000 gubernatorial appointments with blacks, especially at the top (Mann, 1989).19

This dichotomy of perceived conflicting allegiances is not lost on Ron Walters

(2007) when he comments on the plight of the black politician once elected. Here, just as white voters may have been skeptical or suspicious of possible signs of black favoritism,

19 These findings are taken from Judson Jeffries’ essay “Press Coverage of Black Statewide Candidates: The Case of L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia” which appeared in the July 2002 issue of the Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 32, No. 6. To understand the nature of the methodology used (e.g., number of articles reviewed, coding rubric, students who did the coding), the reader can access the full report at http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/32/6/673.short .

123 black voters, themselves, are equally bound. Walters suggests that black voters supported

Obama knowing full well that he could not openly address black issues. Instead, “black voters most likely reciprocate by allowing [black] candidates to run on liberal universal themes [e.g., health care reform in Obama’s case] because there would be an unspoken understanding that such candidates could not be expected to run “Black campaigns” (p.

14). Here, I refer back to Cloud’s rhetoric of silence described in Chapter 2. Is it not possible that the vast majority of African-American voters never expected Obama to address issues specific to blacks, anyway, given the precarious nature of historic racism embedded within the social fabric of the very polity from whence he came?

In spite of these elevated levels of news coverage, perhaps it was because Wilder so forcefully campaigned on hard political issues that the media chose also to focus on those issues versus Wilder’s skin color. Instead, references to race were limited to allusions that mentioned the Wilder campaign as “making history” or signaling a “new era of racial progress” (Finkel, 1991, p. 317; Kaid, 2004, p. 250). What is interesting to note is the election poll results used to measure the likelihood of race as a key factor or determinant of white voter support in the election. Results show that while only 12 percent of white voters said race or skin color would be a key factor in their voting decision, 64 percent felt that Wilder would extend preferential treatment to blacks if elected (Finkel, p. 317). In spite of this, Wilder led a comfortable 15 percentage point lead ahead of his opponent, conservative Republican Marshall Coleman, two weeks prior to voting day, winning the election by a slim majority of 6,700 votes (Hopkins, 2009, p.

769). The 6,700 vote lead is problematic in the sense that it was a far cry from the 124 “comfortable” 15 percentage point lead that had been trumpeted, again by the media, weeks prior to election. In fact, the 6,700 vote advantage proved to be a less than 1 percent win over Coleman, considering that 1.7 million ballots were cast. And although

Wilder won election, this discrepancy between who voters said they would vote for versus their actual decision in the voting booth is referred to as the Wilder effect. Again, one can only speculate whether or not the media’s interpretation of Wilder played a significant role in the perceptions of the voters who cast their ballots for Wilder (or

Coleman) in 1989. Although the role of a liberal (as well as conservative) media is discussed in greater depth in Chapter 5, the following excerpt from a local newspaper that ran during the election gives room for pause:

Stop the presses. Stop the presses. Republican gubernatorial candidate Marshall Coleman has just made a remarkable conclusion: Coleman's opponent, Lt. Gov. Douglas Wilder, is ahead in the polls because Wilder is black. I wonder what I should do with this information, three days before the election. Shall I share it with you folks out there? Of course not. I'm a member of the liberal media. We're the people who've been hoodwinking you. Just ask Coleman. To hear him tell it, his troubles haven't anything to do with his stand against letting women choose whether they want abortions. (Spencer, 1989)20

What is perhaps more revealing is the strategy that Wilder used to win election as the first African-American governor in what was once the capital of the U.S.

Confederacy during the Civil War. During an interview in 2010, he reminisces on his game plan:

20 This quote is taken from the Daily Press website, a collection of quips, anecdotes and new articles regarding Douglas Wilder’s historic election. The reader can access the full series of articles at http://articles.dailypress.com/keyword/douglas-wilder/recent/4 .

125

After I’d been in the Senate for 16 years…I said I’m either going to either move up or move out, I’m going to run for Lieutenant Governor. I recognized that as an African-American, I would have to show proficiency in something lower-level, or entry-level before I could ever run for governor… In the process, told I was crazy again—I was told I was crazy when I ran for the Senate and yet Virginia has the lowest number of African-Americans than in any southern state and in voting population, it’s only 15%, in terms of race. People said I was absolutely crazy, “you’re not going to get elected.” I was even criticized by some African- Americans who said I wasn’t spending enough time in the African-American areas…that’s when I took a tour of this entire state, 60 days—straight—without coming off, going into every city, not staying in hotels, but staying in the homes of people I met. And the press followed because they wanted to be there to record the “incidents” and yet I was able to capture, in my first election in ’85, about 45% of the white vote in Virginia. For a Democrat, that was unheard of, particularly for me.

I found, as you well know, that issues don’t change from area to area, from state to state, from locality to locality. How money is handled. I have a one-word definition for politics: money. Watch the money. Is it spent-- where? Who raises it? Who spends it? And on whom is it spent? Are taxes going to be involved— why? Who’s paying the taxes? And it helped me so much because I became aware of why people would vote one way or the other. And it helped me, moreso, because it enabled me to be in a position where I could say “I can speak for Virginia.”21

During a phone interview with a reporter in 2007, one notes that in Wilder’s discussion with Obama, both men agreed that race should never be an issue. In one conversation, Wilder commented that “one thing we discussed is that there are no such things as ‘black issues.’ Health and education are not black issues. Improvement of job opportunities is not a black issue. Many whites resent people campaigning as if all whites

21 One in a series of interviews conducted by the Visionary Project February 16, 2010, “L. Douglas Wilder: Running for Governor of Virginia” can be accessed at this website for the complete transcription and interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGcTUNLq7V8&feature=related .

126 have it made or as if all whites are in a position of luxury. The great divide is not race, but class and wealth” (Curiel, 2007).

A politician’s decision to champion issues like crime control or health care reform at the expense of social or moral obligations takes on even greater meaning when one considers the campaign rhetoric of Democrat Jesse Jackson during the Presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988. Just as Bradley, Wilder, and Obama assiduously avoided race in their campaign, Jackson embraced racial tension and social activism. So ardent was his radicalism and focus on reparations for blacks and Hispanics, one reporter asked

Jackson if he were willing to accept white voter support at all in his campaign

(Weymouth, 1984, p. 32).

Accused of running a Black Power campaign, Jackson’s appeal for racial harmony between blacks, Hispanics and whites might have been a logical offshoot to the civil rights era of the 1960s but it did not enamour him with white voters in 1984 or 1988

(p. 33). Garnering three times as many white votes in the 1988 primaries as he did in

1984, Jackson’s 6.6 million votes vis-à-vis that of George Dukakis’ 9.7 million remained heavily dependent on the black vote. Both racial and religious demographics gained a stronger voice in this election. Just as two-thirds of Jackson’s voter support was based on the black vote, much of Dukakis’ success was due, in large part, to Catholics (4.1 million) and Jews (1.2 million) (Dionne, 1988). In spite of the fact that Dukakis won

(only to go on and lose to Republican George Bush during the popular vote), Jackson did surprisingly well given that the sociopolitical climate in the United States was

127 markedly different twenty years ago. Evaluating and comparing topics like marketing campaigns or candidate issues oftentimes fail to take into account extrinsic factors like race, racism or racial (in)tolerance. Even so, examining the political issues that Jackson faced versus that of Obama is helpful for several reasons. For one, Jackson’s focus on issues concerning poverty, the poor and unemployment were completely opposite of Obama’s, who addressed every other issue evenly during his own campaign

(Wellington, 2008). To more fully appreciate this notion of rhetorical race management, understanding how each candidate’s interpretation and prioritization of political issues may have also impacted their election is important because, to some degree, those issues were as instrumental in Jackson’s loss in 1988 as they were in Obama’s victory in 2008.

John Aldrich and R. Michael Alvarez conducted a study in 1994 where over 600 campaign stories on policy issues during the Presidential Election of 1988 published between 1987 and 1988 were evaluated. Primary issues for Jackson were the poor (24%) and unemployment (64%). Jackson’s position or concern on issues like defense (8%), trade (2%) and Central America (2%) were almost negligible and his discussion on fiscal affairs (0%) and social security (0%) nonexistent. In a similar comparison of campaign speeches, voting positions for Obama, both in Congress and as a presidential nominee emerged. Collected between February 2007 and November 2008, the following snapshot emerged regarding Obama’s position or stances on a myriad of interests.22 What is particularly noteworthy is that, for the most part, Obama was evenly divided on his

22 These dates mark Obama’s announcement date as a contender for the U.S. Presidency on February 10, 2007 and the date of actual election, on November 4, 2008. 128 position or commitment on all issues. An analysis of 441 news stories and speeches reveals the following:

Issues Addressed by Barack Obama During the Campaign

for U.S. Presidential Election: 2007 – 2008

Issue Number of Speeches, Percentage of Stories, Policy Stance Total

Abortion 13 3% Budget/Economy 23 5% Financial Bailout 16 4% Civil Rights 8 2% Affirmative Action 11 2% Gay Rights 14 3% Corporations 9 2% Crime 16 4% Drugs 12 3% Education 27 6% Energy & Oil 24 5% Global Warming 8 2% Environment 16 4% Families & Children 12 3% Foreign Policy 45 10% Free Trade 14 3% Government Reform 17 4% Campaign Finance Reform 11 2% Gun Control 8 2% Health Care/Universal Healthcare 61 14% Aids 5 1% Homeland Security 28 6% Immigration 29 6% Jobs 14 3%

TOTAL 441

129 In spite of the fact that issues faced by politicians in 1988 versus 2008 were markedly different (e.g., the Contra/Sandinista conflict in Central America in 1988 versus the war in Iraq in 2008), there were enough central themes (for example, defense and unemployment) to make approximate generalizations. Issues like Jackson’s

“unemployment” were transformed into “jobs” in the Obama campaign. Jackson’s focus on unemployment (64%) as compared to Obama’s mention of jobs as an issue (3%) is unusual given that employment (or rather, unemployment) was probably the most troubling issue and concern for American voters following the financial fall-out on Wall

Street, AIG, etc. In this study, the one issue which exceeded mention in speeches more than 10% of the time was healthcare reform (14%) with foreign policy (10%) immediately following. Education (6%), homeland security (6%) and immigration (6%) were distant seconds but Obama’s focus on healthcare (14%) was the clear winner.23

Challenging Conventional Thought in the 2008 Presidential Election

When drawing comparisons between the previous elections of Tom Bradley or

Douglas Wilder, what becomes most evident is how both politicians either minimized or eschewed race by instead focusing on issues that would be of particular interest to white voters (e.g., in Bradley’s case, the ban on off-shore drilling; in Wilder’s case, the crackdown on crime). Just as Jesse Jackson focused his campaign rhetoric on racial inequalities and social programs for the poor, African-American politicians who followed

23 These figures are based on the findings of OntheIssues.org, a nonprofit organization. This nonpartisan organization collects voting information on all political candidates. Actual specifics on the name of speeches and the candidate’s voting record can be accessed at http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/barack_obama.htm. 130 him did no such thing. Understanding or making sense of a black political candidate’s ability to leverage and win support from conservative white voters who, ideologically, are not likely to vote for a black candidate bears further scrutiny, especially given that partisan politics took a back seat in Obama’s election, largely because of his campaign’s primary issue. Consequently, if campaign issues can be used to circumvent ideological barriers like race and gender, are there texts or concepts that might explain this phenomenon?

Edward Carmines’ and James Stimson’s theory regarding issue decisions in Issue

Evolution is considered as possibly the landmark text on race and politics. Their work is largely based on U.S. party politics and discussion of how partisanship values of blacks and whites have evolved since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election in 1932 when he, effectively, moved the U.S. black vote from the Republican to the Democratic Party

(Carmines & Stimson, 1989). While the Carmines & Stimson text is useful in helping us to track the historical markers of transition that served as the backdrop for partisan polarization for political parties, the authors fail to take into account two key factors. A primary concern “is that they do not control for race when examining the relationship between partisanship and racial attitudes.” The second is their failure to control for other issues, outside of the race/politics paradigm (Abramowitz, 1994, p. 4).

In an analysis of 1988 American National Election Studies data where he measured relationships between racial attitudes, beliefs, and partisanship behavior,

Abramowitz concluded that there was only a minimal relationship between racial

131 attitudes and party identification among white voters (p. 22).24 As his findings relate to our discussion of political issue choice limitations for black candidates, whites were overwhelmingly against civil rights or affirmative action policies (e.g., 68% agreeing that blacks should try harder and 87% against racial job preferences). In Wilder’s “tough-on- crime” platform, one notes the percentage of white voters who were in support of the death penalty: 81%.25 Consequently, by focusing on issues that had no racial connotations, whatsoever, one can assume that Wilder was successful based largely on his political position on a popular issue that precluded any mention of race, social reform, etc. He essentially ran a raceless political campaign. Obama’s choice of health care reform as his primary platform issue may certainly seem to be far afield of bans on off- shore drilling or “tough-on-crime” mandates, yet, in many ways, it is not.

As Wittman (1983) points out, a political party’s decision to choose certain issues for candidate support is based on the assumption that the candidate’s policy preferences align with the expectations and probable behavior of the electorate as well as an interest in winning the election (p. 142). Thus, in many respects, choosing one political issue versus another must also be based on the attitudes and the beliefs of the people casting their ballot for that candidate or their own political ideology. Once a political candidate

24 According to Abramowitz, these figures are based on a NES 1988 study where number of respondents ranged from 1.341 to 1,694 for white respondents and from 190 to 264 for black respondents. Reader can refer to Abramowitz’s entire study in Table 2 on page 9 of this article.

25 Abramowitz identifies four distinct issue clusters between white and black respondents. Racial issues evoked the strongest reaction and greatest resistance from white respondents in this survey, e.g., questions on more hiring quotas for blacks, social welfare issues, government responsibility for welfare families. Again, although these findings are reminiscent of earlier studies that confirmed symbolic racism theories, I want the reader to see the relationship between Bradley and Wilder’s decision to attack crime as an issue that would resonate most with white voters. 132 realizes that attitudes toward human nature are also important in what drives a voter to choose a candidate over another, race effectively becomes a back issue:

Strategic politicians play the most obvious and perhaps most influential role in determining the relative competition among political issues. All successful politicians instinctively understand which issues benefit them and their party and which do not. The trick is to politicize the former, deemphasize the latter (Carmines & Stimson, 1990, p. 6).

The belief that the political rhetor is genuinely interested in the welfare of the populace, given his choice of a particular issue is key for several reasons. One, not only does it harmonize and even reconcile issue decisions to promote or suppress another issue, if chosen correctly, it gives the impression that the issue, itself, was chosen in the best interests of all the people versus certain groups (Rosenberg, 1956, p. 690). Just as

Republican presidential victories suppressed liberal trends and attitudes (e.g., Reagan during the 1980s and the Bush Administrations in the 1990s and 2000), Democratic platforms flourished because of them (e.g., Clinton in 1992 and 1994). Obviously, understanding the effects of changing attitudes is a key component of issue suppression but a more precise definition might be helpful.

Understanding Racial Suppression

Issue suppression, particularly strategic issue suppression, is the willful or deliberate attempt to obfuscate a political issue or decision to focus on one at the expense of the other. Levin (1978) comments on the San Francisco political machine’s ability to orchestrate or redirect property taxation based on racial redlining. Controversial issues become nonissues “and thus the maintenance of the status quo” is upheld (241).

133 Consequently, just as “some issues are organized into politics, others are organized out” in accordance with the mobilization of bias in a system (Schattachnider, 1975, p. 69).

Like Bradley and Wilder, Obama was not necessarily waging a battle against any preexisting policies or measures nor was he concerned with issues of coalition-splitting.

Thus, Obama’s decision to focus on health care was, in many ways, representative of how previous politicians approached campaign decisions: championing certain issues while ignoring others. In fact, throughout Obama’s campaign, health care reform was, for all intent and purposes, a primary platform issue that met with little resistance and was largely embraced as a plan that would “guarantee coverage for all Americans” (Kurtz,

2007). References were made to other concerns such as unemployment, bank failures, etc. but, for the most part, his greatest issue association was with health care reform, the real “game-changer” that he would carry into office once elected (Silva, 2009). Obama’s decision to take-up the gauntlet and crusade for a primary issue at the expense of others is also not new. Many politicians and U.S. presidents have performed this same magic in their campaign strategies to win election. But it is Obama’s admiration and modeling of one particular predecessor’s own modus operandi that is most striking for one reason: odds are good the comparisons to racial suppression would not have been viewed favorably.

“With regard to race, Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency is such an example of strategic issue suppression” (Carmines & Stimson, 1989, p. 187). What is particularly noteworthy about Carmines’ & Stimson’s observation, here, is that they continue by saying that Roosevelt “clearly recognized that race represented a serious threat to his 134 New Deal.” Here, the reference is made to the fact that the New Deal threatened to destabilize the “Solid South” of southern white Democrats who were adamantly opposed to any policies or laws aiding blacks at the time. Though Roosevelt gained millions of new supporters for the Democratic Party in the north (formerly Republican) as a result of his New Deal campaign issue, he also realized that any mention or attention to the race issue destabilized and threatened the political success of both his campaign and the

Democratic Party (ibid.).

In many ways, comparisons between Roosevelt and Obama are difficult to make, given that Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation proved to be an historical success story in the annals of American history. Not only was the New Deal responsible for “a veritable barrage of programs that were passed by Congress [from 1933 to 1939], programs which were to have a profound effect on the American economy,” Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation would go on to be one of most sweeping reforms of the twentieth century

(Reading, 1973, p. 792). In 1935, “Roosevelt scored an even more dramatic series of triumphs that consolidated his position as the guardian of all the millions, both people and [their] fortunes” (Ferguson, 1984, p. 43).

At the time of this writing, Obama’s healthcare reform plan is also a success in some ways but a mixed bag in others. “After decades of failed attempts by a string of

Democratic presidents and a year of bitter partisan combat,” Obama’s health care reform legislation was signed into law March 23, 2010 to overhaul the health care system (New

York Times, 2011). Heralded as one of the most sweeping forms of legislation since

Roosevelt’s era, Obamacare gained even more traction following the Supreme Court’s 5- 135 4 decision June 28, 2012 that declared the health reform measure as constitutional.

Constitutional or not, the actual implementation of the plan has proven to be problematic.

According to a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation poll almost 50% of the public have an unfavorable opinion of the new legislation and many Americans are still unclear or remain uninformed on how the new laws actually work and affect their own healthcare decisions.26 As states, one-by-one, take steps to implement the program, they face unexpected costs and obligations as they try to enforce the new rules (Oliver, 2013, p.

A13). Arguing that the costs of the plan are unfairly burdensome to small businesses, many companies are resistant to implementing the legislation altogether. But, that notwithstanding, the health care reform issue was Obama’s greatest focus during his campaign. Again, the point, here, is that healthcare reform as a campaign issue was a strategic choice. It summarily dismissed any commitment to addressing questions of racially-based socioeconomic inequity, thus was unilaterally acceptable to all.

Carmines’ & Stimson’s text is especially unnerving when they comment that

“Roosevelt was a master at distancing himself from the racial struggle” (p. 187). As with

Obama’s assurances that blacks and other minorities were all being served by reforms in health care, Roosevelt, too, was able to ignore initiation of any one particular program or legislation specific to blacks. What is interesting to note is that his wife, Eleanor

Roosevelt, acted as his surrogate in attending to the surface needs or demands of blacks by offering symbolic gestures, reaffirming their value and importance in the U.S.

26 See the Kaiser Foundation’s Fast Facts overview worksheet to review the actual numbers http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=1456. 136 economy (Goodwin, 1995). Whether intentional or not, one notes how active Michelle

Obama, “the tall, striking lawyer from the Midwest [who] is nearing the finish of her own

“first one hundred days” has become in the politicking of White House affairs alongside her husband (Spillers, 2009, p. 307). Already comparisons between Michelle Obama and

Eleanor Roosevelt are being made.

Described as “tough and steely,” Michelle Obama has been criticized for giving orders to her husband’s campaign team for errors made during his debates with Hillary

Clinton, going far beyond the traditional role of Stepford-wife booster or Suzy

Homemaker as the U.S. president’s wife (Parks & Roberson (5-6)27. Unlike her husband,

Michelle seems to have taken-up the slack for the community involvement that Barack has not evidenced any tangible involvement or interest in thus far during his office (Rural

Cooperatives, 2009). Does Michelle Obama serve as some sort of foil to appease both the working-class, blacks and other minority groups who might have expected special treatment upon Obama’s election but never received it?

Carmines & Stimson go on to say that while Eleanor’s role was to pacify and assuage an unassuming public, “FDR resolutely refused to endorse federal antilynching legislation and failed to desegregate the armed forces.” Only when he was threatened with a national march on Washington for equal rights did he acquiesce and issue an executive order mandating new laws per racial discrimination (p. 187). What is equally disturbing is that just as Roosevelt either ignored or altogether dismissed the needs of

27 The “tough and steely” comment is based on an article written by Richard Wolffe that appeared in Newsweek, August 28, 2007 on pg. 5. Parks & Roberson cite this comment in their article on Michelle Obama. 137 blacks during his tenure, Obama is also facing more and more criticism from blacks now that he’s in office. Already, several black scholars are criticizing Obama for his failure to take up the mantle and crusade for the rights of African-Americans, much as Martin

Luther King Jr. did during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (Grant-Thomas,

2010; The Root, 2009). Again, though it is too soon to tell, one wonders how the race card will be played now that Obama is in office—or if it will be played, at all.

Anita Dunn, a top political strategist and communications advisor to Obama’s campaign, reflects upon the manner in which they were able to manipulate or frame health care reform during the campaign:

I thought the campaign’s emphasis on health care and the national news] was a very good example of how what was going on in the battleground states with voters was almost totally disconnected from the national narrative. We actually went back to the model where we communicated about the content we were airing advertising about. Amazing how that actually worked Local media would cover the issues. That still works out there. You go to Toledo,Ohio and make a speech about health care, and the Toledo paper and the Toledo TV stations say, “Barack Obama was here today talking about health care” as opposed to, “Barack Obama, who is still reeling from the accusation that his crowd was too big yesterday, came to make a pathetic excuse about why he’s not a celebrity. (Jamieson, 2009, p. 143).

By aligning his primary campaign issue [health care] with television and newspaper media outlets throughout the country, Obama’s marketing strategists were not only able to sideline race, their focus on health care provided the damage control that insulated Obama from other distractions as well (e.g., Bill Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, etc.). This same media insulation worked for Roosevelt in the 1930s as well as Obama during the presidential campaign of 2008 but why Roosevelt and Obama?

138 I draw parallels between Roosevelt’s and Obama’s decision to focus on political issues other than race for a reason: it might be viewed as a strategic decision. In each case, both Roosevelt and Obama were grappling with economic conditions that went far beyond the typical economic climate most presidents inherit and must administer. In

Roosevelt’s case, the stock market crash and panic of 1929 and single worst depression in the nation’s history. In Obama’s case, a morale and financial clean-up following the Bush

Administration’s war in Iraq, skyrocketing unemployment rates, home foreclosures and financial catastrophes on Wall Street (e.g., AIG, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae). Here, the question may not be so much why race was not readily addressed. Obviously, the more pressing, perhaps urgent, demands of the overall economy required more immediate attention. In this case, the black vote may have been assumed or presumed not necessary in order to win election but this assumption poses an interesting question. Are there cases where the black vote was seen as critical or pivotal to winning election? To move this question a step further, consider the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B.

Johnson.

In 1958, then Senator John F. Kennedy was in correspondence with Roy Wilkins and Clarence Mitchell, leaders of the NAACP, regarding his stance on civil rights and the black “problem” (Stern, 1989, pp. 801-802). Given his upcoming campaign for reelection to the Senate in Massachusetts, Kennedy was at odds on defending his support from southern states. In his letter of April of 1958, Wilkins railed Kennedy, pointing out that

“you are hailed by Dixiecrat leaders of South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, which,

139 with Alabama, are the worst states on the Negro question.”28 Though not known to the public at the time, Kennedy had aspirations for running as U.S. President in 1960 and

“[t]he NAACP leadership was hitting Kennedy where it could hurt: in his political future” (p. 803). A minority candidate in his own right, Kennedy was wrestling with the public’s concerns regarding his religious affiliation as a Roman Catholic as well as his limited track record as a member of Congress. He saw the need and value of earning the

NAACP’s goodwill. More importantly, “[h]e needed, and wanted, a big reelection victory to boost his presidential prospects” (p. 802). Ironically enough, both Wilkins and

Mitchell felt that Richard M. Nixon was a greater supporter of civil rights than Kennedy.

“Not only was it rumored throughout Washington that Clarence Mitchell was a ‘quiet’

Nixon ally, but Martin Luther King Jr. considered him a personal friend, although he was cautious in his support of Nixon.”29 In response, Kennedy quickly cemented alliances with both Wilkins and the entire leadership of the NAACP, including a revamp on his voting record for civil rights and repeated support of the Supreme Court decision on

Brown v. Board of Education. Kennedy’s stance on these key civil rights measures made headlines and did not go unnoticed by the black community.

Following the election, “Kennedy won 73.6 percent of the total votes cast, and he won most of the black wards by an even larger margin” (p. 804). Although Kennedy would go on to win election as U.S. President in November of 1960, it was his choice of running mates as vice-president that shocked and angered both blacks and liberal white

28 Roy Wilkins to John F. Kennedy, May 29, 1958, III B 204, Papers of the NAACP. LOC 29 Martin Luther King, Jr. to Earl Mazo, September 2, 1958, Box 28. Mugar Library Special Collections, Boston University. 140 supporters, alike: Lyndon B. Johnson. “The black leadership was, with the exception of

Roy Wilkins, appalled. Clarence Mitchell said of the Johnson selection, “I was not only surprised, I was pained” (p. 809). In all cases, blacks had every right to be concerned given Johnson’s southern background and non-supportive voting record on black rights.

But what no one had any way of forecasting or predicting was Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Perhaps more relevant as it relates to our discussion on rhetorical race management is what Johnson would go on to do per his commitment to civil rights.

On July 2, 1964, he signed a much stronger, more potent civil rights bill than Kennedy had attempted in 1957, now known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition, he appointed Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to the Supreme Court in 1967.

Thus, if Kennedy moved African-Americans to the Democratic Party, it can probably be said that Johnson effectively cemented that move. Again, if we look at the black vote or any constituency’s vote, for that matter, on a continuum—a continuum based on time, historical events, and opportunity—we can say that in Kennedy’s and Johnson’s era, the black vote, therefore, race, became a necessity. They needed the black vote to win election. In many ways, the race question sometimes becomes a matter of practicality.

In the case of Roosevelt and Obama, their options were very different. Either they felt they didn’t need to woo the black vote or they assumed they had already earned the black vote, unconditionally. Juxtaposed with JFK’s and LBJ’s almost dogged determination to improve their voting record on civil rights issues and ensure successful passage of the civil rights bill, rhetorical race management sometimes requires the inclusion of race as well as its exclusion to win political election. 141 In their text, Issue Evolution, Carmines’ and Stimson’s tell us that political parties are torn asunder because of the evolving nature of campaign issues. Contrary to

Carmines’ and Stimson’s beliefs, I argue that issue evolution, specifically the issue of healthcare reform, conjoined and brought disparate groups together during Obama’s campaign. Not only that, it effectively diffused and minimized the importance or urgency of more controversial issues like civil rights or social tension. As an African-American candidate, Obama had to be particularly sensitive to issues that might be associated with any favoritism towards other blacks. Unlike Roosevelt, JFK, or LBJ, he does not have the same luxury of passing legislation or reform that might be seen as problematic because he is black and not white. Again, we go back to my argument on the value of universal health care as a race-neutral campaign issue.

Conclusion

This chapter outlined some of the methods and ways that can be used to manage race in political elections and how media framing was used to shape the personas of Tom

Bradley, perhaps negatively, as well as Douglas Wilder, perhaps positively. In studying and drawing parallels between Obama’s campaign and that of other black politicians, I argued that black candidates must abandon issues regarding race or racial entitlement and resort to issue suppression in order to win an election. Issue suppression, particularly strategic issue suppression, is the willful or deliberate attempt to obfuscate a political issue or decision to focus on one at the expense of the other. “Successful repression requires not only favorable social circumstances, but both direct and indirect organization, as well” (Wilson, 1939, p. 249). Consequently, just as “some issues are 142 organized into politics, others are organized out” in accordance with the mobilization of bias in a system (Schattachnider, 1975, p. 69). As it relates to Obama, by subsuming race within the greater sphere of more global issues like health care reform (a, heretofore, unsolvable problem abandoned by three U.S. presidents), he was able to escape direct confrontation with topics (e.g., race relations, reparations, social welfare) that might only be of interest to a small percentage of the American public. Lawrence Scanlon, an executive director for union member political campaigns for New York’s Civil Service

Employees Association, AFSCME Local 1000 and also served on Obama’s political campaign, makes the final call in this comment:

Clearly, race was an issue. We heard that on the doors. There are people out there who vote by race, unfortunately, in this country. We felt we had to address that head on. President McEntee and a number of other labor leaders said to our members, “Look this is not a black and white issue. It’s a green issue. It’s about the color of money in your pockets, it’s about the economy, it’s about jobs, it’s about health care.” So we had to take that on. We had to deal with the [questions], “Is he a Muslim? Did he swear himself on the Koran?” all the Internet viral trash that was there. So, yes, that came up and we felt we had to address that head-on and we did (Jamieson, 2009, p. 195).

I suggest that one can “discover” how race was addressed in this campaign by looking at previous elections where black and white candidates managed race by obfuscating it. Whether deliberate or not, Obama operated his campaign in much the same manner. With the exception of his race speech (“A More Perfect Union”), race was effectively managed by not talking about it. Save for eloquent allusions to slavery that were intended more for rhetorical or romantic effect than any real social change, Obama assiduously avoided the topic of race or racism as problematic. Of course, expecting

Obama to solve the “race problem” may not even be a fair question to ask of any 143 politician, whether he’s black or white. Perhaps more salient as it relates to our expectations of black leaders, comparisons probably cannot be made between MLK and

Obama since MLK was not running for a political office. Nor was Obama a Baptist minister or preacher who had nothing to lose by organizing social movements like bus boycotts and demonstrations on the nation’s capital. Certainly, the efforts and successes of MLK, Douglas Wilder and Tom Bradley served as a precursor to Obama’s election. In fact, it can even be argued that Obama might not have been elected had these men not taken a stance. Obama, too, is taking a stance but a very different one.

Carmines and Stimson suggest that issues are not only aligned with party platforms, they cut across party lines as well. More importantly, issue evolution, itself, polarizes member parties and the voting public, “implying the emergence of new issue conflict [that can severe] the connection between citizens and the ongoing party system”

(Carmines & Stimson, 1989, p. 138). Obama’s decision to focus on health care reform works in stark contrast to Carmines’s and Stimson’s theory in the following way: it served as the great unifier that not only led to his election, but was embraced by

Republicans and Democrats, alike. How do we explain this?

In the case of Obama’s health care reform rhetoric, not only was race completely erased from the equation, this was not issue evolution in the conventional sense. In actuality, Obama managed race out of his campaign rhetoric during the election. And perhaps the question is not so much how Obama managed race but how he managed a racial stereotype. By subsuming his race or ethnicity within a hotly contested political issue (health care reform), he was able to override the emotional and socially-constructed 144 boogeyman of racism and prejudice. As it relates to his ability to manage race in this election, he manages it by simply ignoring it. Serving as a unifying factor, Obama’s health care platform not only united voters of opposing parties, it served as the great equalizer for all classes, races, and genders, alike. More paradoxical, perhaps, is that despite the fact that African-Americans consistently supported him both before and after his election by upwards of 95% as of this writing, Obama has been oblivious to the race question, much like Roosevelt during both his administrations and unlike John F.

Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson during their administrations. As it relates to Cloud’s rhetoric of silence, might it not also be conceivable that black voters understood the only real “issue” was making sure that Obama was elected to office? In many ways, this might explain their unwaning support in spite of Obama’s seeming indifference.30

30 See the NPR news cast on September 9, 2009 that contrasts Obama’ loss of white voter support once he gained office but his consistent hold on black voter support after his first year in office. This is noteworthy because the loyalty remains consistent, in spite of his failure to acknowledge or address grievances specific to blacks, a group hardest hit by the recession, unemployment and the general downturn in the U.S. economy following the Bush Administration. Perhaps more ironic is the fact that Americans of color generally have the highest rates of infant mortality, disease, and disability than the general population. 145 Chapter 4

The Politics of Ideological Construction

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream, 1963

In this chapter, I am interested in understanding how rhetorical race management was handled by political rhetors and U.S. presidents prior to Obama’s election as well as

Obama himself. Whether these predecessors were black or white, how was rhetorical race management addressed (contained)? More specifically, I argue that Obama focused on a rhetorical ideology referred to as the American Dream at the expense of more pressing issues like unemployment, crime or social welfare, in his campaign rhetoric.

In Chapter 4, I look at specific speeches Obama delivered, some as early as 2004, to make the case that it was Obama’s ability to win our hearts by appealing to our emotions, or pathos, that served as a persuasion strategy not normally articulated by politicians, presidential candidates, in particular. As an example, I compare Obama’s

2004 Keynote Address speech to that of Baptist minister and civil rights activist Al

Sharpton who also spoke at the convention prior to Obama. I do this to gauge and mine the fairly stark differences between Obama’s focus on the American Dream versus that of

Sharpton’s on civil rights and reparations. But even if one examines speeches as recent as

146 2008, allusions made in one of his speeches suggests that some of the traditional tropes of black rhetorical speechmaking are still in vogue.

By studying Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech, I analyze it, in-depth, to draw comparisons between Obama’s motives for giving that speech versus Martin Luther

King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In addition, I examine three of Obama’s speeches to more definitively make the case that he effectively managed race in his rhetoric to win election. These include speeches delivered January 3, 2008 at the Iowa Caucus following his victory as a nominee for the Democratic Party, the 2008 Democratic National Party

Convention in Denver, Colorado, and his victory speech following the U.S. Presidential

Election on November 4, 2008 in Grant Park, Illinois.

While examining a number of his speeches is useful in making generalizations regarding assumptions of rhetorical race management in his rhetorical speechmaking, this chapter focuses on Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech versus others for several important reasons. Firstly, all evidence points to Obama’s use of dramatism, one of

Kenneth Burke’s primary rhetorical methods, as not only primary in two key speeches but central to my interest in pinpointing and identifying similar tropes Obama used in persuading his audiences.

As it relates to ideological construction, more than any other speech, “A More

Perfect Union” was replete with almost a half-dozen Burkean tropes, all key ingredients of dramatism. I identify specific passages within this speech that are reflective of the following Burkean characteristics or traits: scapegoating, synecdoche, transcendence, identification, and consubstantiality. Secondly, the comparison allows me to make the 147 case that Obama used that ability to persuade very differently than previous African-

American rhetors. Unlike the 100 or so other speeches Obama delivered before his inaugural address, “A More Perfect Union” was unique in that it not only met a politically life-threatening challenge, it also served to resurrect public memory on racism, victimage, and racial obligation not typical of a political speech given by any candidate, whether white or black.

Dismissing or ignoring issues concerning race probably is not unusual for a white candidate. But as an African-American candidate, one must ask oneself if the public— both black and white—may have held expectations or assumptions that Obama would confront or at least certainly address issues like social reform, income disparities, etc. because he was African-American. He did not but probably for good reason.

Representing the masses as an ethnic minority member of any race becomes a delicate dance in several ways. One, the rhetor’s words and promises must be reflective and supportive of not only a constituency that is majority white in the United States, but increasingly multicultural as well. Two, whether one is black or white, there are universal narratives that can be called upon which guide or persuade the audience to adhere to existing values and expectations of the dominant class. In fact, not only can those values serve to inspire and motivate, the audience may often be led to believe in the morality and perhaps absolute necessity of those values and attitudes. As a result, the race or ethnic background of that candidate becomes less important in the conversation.

At first glance, one might be taken aback when looking at the cover of Time magazine’s February 7, 2011 issue. Two U.S. Presidents are shown beaming on the front 148 cover. Both are standing in unison, posed more like partners in a comedy routine than political rivals. Affable, smiling, even laughing, perhaps, Barack Obama’s outstretched arms are shown reaching to his audience as his partner grips his shoulder, smiling conspiratorially. Ordinarily, the photo might be of little or no interest to the casual reader.

That is until one notices who Obama’s sidekick and partner is in this comedic duo:

Ronald Reagan.

Born February 6, 1911, Ronald Reagan served as U.S. President both in 1980 and

1984. A member of the Republican Party, Reagan’s focus on tax cuts and economic initiatives became known as the widely acclaimed era of “Reaganomics” that, in reality, proved to be a politics of symbolism (Dallek, 1999). Accused of plunging the poor deeper into poverty while providing tax cuts for the wealthy, Reagan’s supply-side economics was described by one scholar as “a political and journalistic addiction to meaningless phrase-making.”31 Certainly more emblematic of a neoconservative trajectory, Reagan’s politics seems far afield of Obama’s neoliberal, almost populist direction. Born in 1961, exactly 50 years following the birth of Reagan, the fact that a neoliberal African-

American Democratic president has been paired with a neoconservative white Republican is almost laughable but significant for other reasons. First of all, there are some striking similarities between the two. Like Reagan, Obama was elected on a platform that eschewed the “business-as-usual” politics of Washington with a politics that spoke to

“hope” and “change” as an elusive elixir unmatched by his opponents. Reagan also

31 Robert J. Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist, was quoted in a 1982 piece regarding the era of Ronald Reagan’s office in Dallek’s text. The reader can read his comments in their entirety in Chapter 4 on Reagan. I reference page 94 for this particular quote. 149 promised changes to big government when he ran for office but why Reagan and Obama?

Obviously, the two have been matched for a reason but why?

While Chapter 3 identified parallels between Obama and other black politicians, the comparison was inexact. Comparing Obama to a black governor is only slightly useful since the role of a U.S. President is quite different from that of a governor or any other political role. Although Obama is this country’s first African-American president, might it not be possible that Obama is following in the footsteps of his predecessors from an ideological perspective? In Chapter 2, I defined the American Dream, an ideological construct where the narrative paradigm, or storytelling, is used to persuade or convince an audience. In the hands of a political rhetor, the American Dream becomes a curious thing. It can be used to reassure or even empower the public. Perhaps more sobering, it can also be used to rearticulate, avoid or disavow uncomfortable policies or social truths.

In Chapter 4, I find and draw parallels between Obama’s rhetorical race management strategy vis-à-vis Reagan’s tactic of ignoring race altogether both before and after election in 1980 and 1984, much as Obama is doing, currently. Though race and politics have been widely discussed in scholarly literature, the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U.S. President opens a new trajectory, particularly since his political rhetoric was atypical of traditional African-American rhetors. From as early as his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama has had a penchant for alluding to ephemeral, metaphorical abstractions like hope and change versus uncomfortable topics like race, crime or incarceration rates. I draw comparisons between several of his speeches and those of other U.S. presidents who also used the American 150 Dream narrative as a political strategy. Best defined by Walter Fisher’s theory of narrative analysis, or the narrative paradigm, the American Dream is a form of storytelling that has served as fodder in countless political speeches. In Obama’s case, might it also not be conceivable that the American Dream narrative was used deliberately to quell or diminish any suspicion or prejudice towards an African-American candidate running for the U.S. presidency? If Obama’s decision to avoid any discussion of race can be seen as the westernization of Plato’s theories where rhetoric is now used to inculcate

“correct” thought and action in audiences, Obama’s rhetoric of silence, perhaps, might be heralded as the latest installment in a postmodern version of political rhetoric (Kauffman,

1982, p. 353).

In examining this focus on the American Dream, I suggest that it laid the groundwork for a major campaign issue that was not only “raceless,” it was safe in the respect that no one in either the Democratic or Republican Party was able to contest the virtues of Obama’s primary campaign choice: health care reform.

Of course, in all fairness, this is not to say that Obama did not make campaign promises that weren’t specific to topics of race or social reform because he did. He addressed these issues on several occasions (e.g., he promised to reduce incarceration rates for black males sentenced to prison during his convocation speech at Howard

University’s convocation ceremony in 2007).32 But these topics of concern were raised

32 One should note that Obama has made inroads in reducing the disparity in penalties for crack versus powder cocaine use. He signed the Fair Sentencing Act August 3, 2010, a bill that repeals a five-year mandatory sentence for first time offenders, and for repeat offenders with less than 28 grams of crack cocaine. The reader can read here for further details http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08- 151 in the company of audiences that were exclusively African-American. The marginalized speaking to the marginalized about problems of the marginalized. And while there’s certainly no requirement to address problematic issues like racial tension, poverty or welfare reform in an acceptance speech or even during any presidential campaign speech, that fact that the majority of previous African-American politicians usually did is at least worth noting. Unlike Jackson’s or Sharpton’s rhetoric, Obama chose not to remind his audiences, both black and white, of the stubborn, unyielding disparities in wealth, income and employment that still existed, lingering long after MLK’s March on

Washington. Instead, Obama’s words were more focused on metaphorical allusions that neither identified nor alienated any one particular group.

The First Crusade: Victory Speech in Iowa

Probably one of greatest underlying themes of Obama’s rhetoric is the sense of agency or empowerment that he gives his audience. This concept of a shared empowerment undergirds many, if not all, of his speeches. But it is the way he distinguishes and singles-out the empowered that is even more telling. His victory speech in Des Moines, Iowa on January 3, 2008 offers a good example of this tactic and is especially propitious for several reasons. First, the mere fact that an atypical candidate

(African-American, mixed parentage) can not only run in a presidential caucus, but also win that caucus in a state that is more than 90% Caucasian is quite telling. Second,

Obama’s consistency in the type of rhetoric he serves-up to his audience that ignites his

03/politics/fair.sentencing_1_powder-cocaine-cocaine-sentencing-gap-sentencing- disparity?_s=PM:POLITICS.

152 constituency. His choice of pronouns and skill in weaving key unifiers like we and us into speeches clearly identifies an imaginary “them-against-us” undercurrent that is a running theme throughout the speech. Just as importantly, though, he creates a camaraderie, a sense of commitment between both himself and the audience by ably walking the you/us/we terrain throughout most of his speech:

You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.33

In reading this statement, what might first puzzle the reader is this notion of

“they” that Obama is referring to at the onset of his speech. Is “they” the other party, another ethnic group or supporters of Clinton, Edwards or his Republican opponents?

Obviously, his audience is being singled-out because they voted for him. But if one were in that audience, one of Obama’s supporters during the Iowa caucus, would one not feel a sense of privilege, a sense of relief, even, that he or she weren’t a part of that insidious

“they” that threatened Obama’s candidacy? Again, Obama clearly identifies his target audience by separating his supporters from those who do not support him. During the actual presentation of this speech on January 3, Obama was genuine and sincere. But the very implication of this “they” against “us” paradigm suggests some sort of conspiracy; a battle, perhaps, where the true victors are those who voted for Barack Obama.

Throughout most of his speech in Iowa, Obama’s words are designed to both reify and rectify a national identity discourse that transcends any concerns of race or class. Not

33 Excerpt from a transcript of Senator Barack Obama's address to supporters after winning the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, 2008. 153 only does Obama’s rhetoric work to soothe and inspire, it recognizes the trauma or hardship that his constituents have endured. Of course, whether or not that trauma has been significant for these voters is immaterial. Obama’s intent, instead, is more focused on mobilizing his audience and forcing them to recognize that not only have they survived a difficult undertaking, they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. Images of an Obama and his foot soldiers (Iowa Democrats who voted for him) banding together to defend the last stronghold or fight a real war seem to imply a battle between good and evil vs. black and white. Again, this is precisely what Obama needs to accomplish if he is unite his audience:

This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.34

Though Obama makes clear in all of his speeches that he is interested only in the solidarity and unification of the Democratic Party, one can detect a trace of populism that quietly defines who his supporters are versus those who are not. Of course, some reference must be made regarding the actual voter demographic for the Iowa election that contributed to Obama’s success at the polls: youth between the ages of 18-25. It was during the Iowa Caucus that Barack Obama made history, in several respects, given his color and the color of the large majority of Iowa’s population (90% Caucasian). Among

Democratic caucus participants under 30, Obama took 57 percent of the vote (NPR,

34 Excerpt from a transcript of Senator Barack Obama's address to supporters after winning the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, 2008. 154 2008), garnering a majority vote of 37.58 percent for the State of Iowa (Iowa Caucus

Results, 2008).

Whether it was his marketing strategists or Obama, himself, he correctly targeted a group that would be most receptive to a presidential candidate who happened to be a biracial male, born after 1960, and suspected of being a Muslim—all of the ingredients for a renegade, the underdog, and martyr for a very different crusade. This was the raceless generation; how more fitting, perhaps even trendy, than to be an ardent backer for the raceless candidate? Schooled in Indonesia and raised in Hawaii, Obama was pure in the sense that he carried none of the historical baggage of victimage or segregation that his predecessors invariably brought to the table. The fact that most of his supporters were probably born well after 1980 suggests a felicitous commonality, given that neither he nor his audience were ever a part of the pre-1960s-racism and segregation then prevalent in this country.

In many of his speeches, like most politicians, he directs the audience’s attention with Burkean tropes and common themes of patriotism that all ethnic and socioeconomic groups can identify with and agree as important—concepts and concerns that are raceless, in fact. But to make any sort of assumptions based on only one or two speeches would not only be premature, it would be inconclusive. If we examine some of the key nationwide speeches Obama delivered in 2008, following his nomination as a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, we might be better suited to gauge the validity of this question on rhetorical race management.

155 Acceptance Speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention

At the Democratic National Convention, held August 25-28, 2008 at the Pepsi

Center Complex in Denver, Colorado, Obama opened by prefacing his own acceptance speech with the obligatory kudos and praise to staff and key Democratic politicians who supported his campaign (e.g., Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy). But what stands out most is his ability to weave together tiny fragments or snippets of stories that are exclusive to his listeners only. In a textual analysis of almost a half-dozen speeches, I noticed how Obama hand-plucks individual challenges and tragedies that could apply to anyone in his audience, thus creating a level of intimacy not typical of political rhetoric. For example, in this speech, he acknowledges the laid-off worker and the retiree agonizing over the threat of financial ruin due to catastrophic illness. And, of course, we are reminded of the improbable union of his Kenyan-born father and white mother from Kansas where only in America could such a union be possible (cited during his 2004 Keynote Address).

More importantly, perhaps, is how his “we-are-in-this-together” narrative serves to soothe and reassure his audience; both he and they share a common ground:

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story, of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit cards, bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. 156 America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

We're a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment that he's worked on for 20 years and watch as it's shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news. We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty...35

In this speech, alone, Obama uses the pronoun “we” 69 times as a unifier that binds both he and his audience. Just as importantly, he continues to separate himself from the accoutrements (baggage?) of Washington, at the same time. Obama operates or presents himself as the outsider who has an inside to the White House conspiracy that is keeping the little guy down. When one listens to Obama giving a speech, the issue of his skin color and his relative recency to Congress are immaterial in this fight against the oppressor. In listening to his words, instead, there is this sense of a “we-against-them” battle that he, and only he, can fight and win. Though he might want us to perceive him as the underdog, the reality is he is not. Obama is the key to unlocking the door of an entrenched political subterfuge that goes beyond skin color, class or upbringing:

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

35 Excerpt from Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. 157 For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.36 As we listen to his words, we forget for a moment that he is the relatively affluent

Harvard-educated lawyer, stumping for our vote. He referred to himself as the “skinny guy from the South Side with a funny name like Barack Obama” during a victory speech in May 2004 (Weisskopf, 2008), perhaps implying that he is more like us than we think.

And if we stop to reflect and think hard enough, that story from the “skinny kid” from the

South Side becomes our own story. Our own brother or sister, or distant cousin…even you or me.

Obama’s Election Victory Speech in Grant Park, Chicago

This ability to ensconce oneself within the lives of constituents becomes a political rhetorics of empathy that combines the cognitive and the affective within a realm of social relations and moral judgments (Wallace, 2011, p. 1). Thus, if one is able to breathe life and give a newfound sense of agency to those everyday patterns of human discourse we all experience, racism and prejudice collapse in the face of a more pragmatic, perhaps progressive social agenda. According to Woolpert, individuals in a true democracy do not so much discover the common good as create it, by interacting with each other and constructing shared purposes (Woolpert et al, 1998, p. 173). As it

36 Excerpt from Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

158 relates to Obama, it is his ability to contextualize and marshal the commonalities of those experiences that is the true genius and underlying magic of his rhetoric. Even more salient as it relates to this argument of rhetorical race management, while Sharpton,

Jackson, and King saw racial injustice as primary, Obama did not. Whether this is good or bad is, of course, a subjective call. But whether calculated or visionary, Obama’s global dialectic very intentionally reifies and solidifies a bond that was articulated as early as 2004 as a senator giving the keynote address for another candidate. Obama’s multicultural bond reaps the ultimate award on November 4, 2008:

Hello, Chicago. If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America. It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

159 It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.37 On a cold, wintry night in Grant Park, Chicago, following the official ballot count, Obama announces a hard-fought victory. Again, we go back to this notion of a transformational politics where Obama is able to breathe life into the individual stories of his constituents, his supporters. This ability to seize the bits-and-pieces of the personal narratives of his audience might be seen as managing or perhaps even sifting through cultural anecdotes to one’s advantage. In this case, the sheer randomness within that cache of multiculturalism becomes a gold mine that only the skilled rhetor can excavate to his own discursive advantage.

Gerstein (1987) suggests that this “cultural system [can be] considered as a whole

[that is] like a membership library, containing stored, partially ordered symbolism that is in discontinuous circulation in a variety of contexts and purposes (p. 100). Like the dealer at a Las Vegas casino, Obama’s adroit handling and manipulation of the cards in this multicultural index of library cards invariably draws a winning card whenever he speaks; the ace of spades every time. And, again, this cohesion, this sense of collective unity, rings loud and clear in this speech as well as his earlier speeches. His rhetoric embraces everyone in the audience, regardless of race, creed, of color. And if race is mentioned, it’s only as a side-note or after-thought to the primary theme or greater

37 An excerpt from Barack Obama’s victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois. Obama delivered his speech in front of an audience estimated at 240,000. According to London’s Business Standard, this was one of the most widely-watched political speeches in U.S. history. See http://www.business- standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=339528 for more details.

160 message within that speech. Intended or pure coincidence? And in the greater scheme of things, why is race relevant, anyway?

From a philosophical perspective, this question of race or rhetorical race management can be swept under the proverbial rug for several reasons. One, if the basic premise of what Obama tells us is sound, his logic, therefore his argument, is also sound.

Race should then become a non-issue. In this case, Fisher’s narrative paradigm is merely the vehicle or method of delivery used to make that claim. The emotion-packed drama that Obama imbues within that rhetoric is simply icing on the rhetorical cake or logos:

The two major principles of such logic are, I believe, coherence and fidelity. We naturally and without formal instruction ask about any account of any sort whatsoever whether or not it, “holds together” and adds up to a reliable claim to reality. We ask whether or not an account is faithful to related accounts we already know and believe. On these terms we identify with an account (and its author) or we treat it as mistaken. We identify with stories or accounts when we find that they offer “good reasons” for being accepted. (Fisher, 1989, p. 194)

Logic, notwithstanding, should we be satisfied with three or four speeches all written and presented roughly within the span of one year? Examining and drawing any conclusions based on a series of speeches delivered only months apart should be seen as suspect for one very important reason. Since most political speeches, especially presidential addresses, are carefully worded and crafted by professional speech makers, does an argument truly have a substantive basis or can a claim really be made? Probably not. But perhaps if we analyze Obama’s rhetoric at a different stage in his political career, we might be able to construct a more representative sampling that can refute or confirm our claim.

161 The Birth of the American Dream

On July 27, 2004, then Sen. Barack Obama was asked to be the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Then a relatively unknown Senator from the State of Illinois, Obama’s speech electrified audiences nationwide for several of the reasons which tie into this argument of “rhetorical race management” and the American

Dream. Both he and Reverend Al Sharpton delivered speeches that day, purportedly in praise of the Democratic National Party. What is interesting is that while Sharpton spoke of the traumas suffered by African-Americans, unpaid debts to blacks and the “40 acres and a mule” reparations motif that many black rhetors frequently use to upbraid

(primarily white) audiences, Obama did not (Frank & McPhail, 2005, p. 576). Instead of a cry for reparations, Obama spoke of a needed “healing” process that was necessary to unite a once divided country. Instead of bitterness or obligations owed to any one particular group, his was a "post-racial" rhetoric, one which could be celebrated and embraced as a "transcendence by all races” (p. 572).

Mark McPhail adds that while Sharpton’s litany of grievances and racial debts still “suggests that even the indirect referencing of racism continues to traumatize many white Americans,” Obama’s rhetoric worked at the opposite spectrum. Instead of race, the division that worked to separate us might have been political (e.g., Republican versus

Democrat), but it was not made clear. If one had heard this speech, his reference to “spin- masters” might have been in reference to conservative talk hosts like Rush Limbaugh or

Bill O’Reilly but the narrative was sufficiently oblique in that the real “enemy” or divisor

162 was never truly identified. More importantly, the enemy was not racialized in any form or fashion:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.38

By assuring us that “there's not a liberal America and a conservative America— there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and

Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America," he effectively dismisses race in his rhetoric (McPhail, p. 581). According to McPhail, what is most troubling, though, are comparisons and assumed parallels made by Frank between Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. McPhail suggests that “while King understood the salience and centrality of race, Obama invites the erasure of race (582). Any comparison between the rhetoric of Barack Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King reveals that while one rhetor is “raceless” the other is obviously race-centered. McPhail adds that where his

(Obama) oratory departs most radically and most unfortunately from the African

38 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s Keynote Address Speech delivered at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 2004. 163 American rhetorical tradition of "spiritually inspired militancy” is this failure to acknowledge the severity or trauma of the black experience (McPhail, 2002, p. 79).

While Obama seems to embrace the conventionalities of politics, King worked against them. By refusing to adhere to political convention, King fought on the behalf of black interests, relentlessly faithful to the “unerring expression of authentic blackness”

(Dyson, 2000, pp. 99-100). With the exception of the apologia-infused rhetoric of his “A

More Perfect Union” speech, this same intent or desire to uplift blacks or the downtrodden has yet to be seen on Obama’s part.

Mentioned more as an underpinning than any real source of contention, the issue of race is used to serve a greater purpose. David Frank suggests this diminution of race

“offers an upward-inflected assessment of Obama's speech as an act of "working through" trauma with a rhetoric of consilience,” [where consilience can be defined as the

“jumping-together” of many minds or many people, see pp. 577-578 for this definition].

McPhail counters Frank’s argument by suggesting that Obama’s speech “compromises its rhetorical coherence by maximizing the abstract ideals of the social contract while minimizing the concrete realities of the racial contract” (p. 573). In this speech, Obama never focuses on the problems or grievances of any one particular race or ethnic group and he certainly doesn’t press upon debts owed to other blacks, like himself. Of course, there’s certainly nothing with this. And, realistically speaking, this trajectory or line of discourse is not only useful but probably necessary to gain universal support from an ethnically diverse audience like the U.S. population. But while not problematic, one is left to wonder if this utopian vision is truly an accurate reflection of the U.S. 164 Both Al Sharpton’s and Obama’s speeches are unique in that while each speech recognizes John Kerry and John Edwards, to some extent, each also has an underlying theme or storyline that has more to do with the personal agendas of both men than the

Democratic Party. For Obama, his is a bildungsroman that opens with his life story and the unlikely matrimony between a black man and a white woman. Unlike the perhaps moralistic inferences of speeches given by previous black rhetors and politicians,

Obama’s words are non-judgmental, soothing and upbeat. No particular race is singled- out for grievances, reparations, or debts owed. Instead, his is an uplifting chorus that acknowledges race only by refuting any notion of division between those races. In fact, there is only a harmonious refrain where even divisions between political parties are conjoined by commonalities like coaching Little League baseball. If this is an example of what Frank calls consilience where Obama is working through trauma to bring people together, examining key passages in Al Sharpton’s speech is useful in understanding how [white] audiences are consistently reminded of that trauma, the ignominies suffered by blacks at the hands of other whites, debts owed, and promises that were broken.

As an example, in both speeches, while Obama avoids race, Sharpton opens his with historical homilies paying tribute to black freedom fighters like Crispus Attucks,

Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. King, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the sacrifices made by his predecessors. And although Obama is never actually direct or specific regarding the identity of the true adversaries of John Kerry, John Edwards, and the Democratic Party,

Sharpton’s pointed accusations are clearly directed at then President George Bush.

Perhaps more importantly, Sharpton’s words are specific to debts owed only to other 165 African-Americans which in itself can be problematic since it effectively eschews and alienates other racial or ethnic groups:

Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African-American voters. And you [asked] the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question. You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.39 In a speech that is intended to rally voters to the cause of John Kerry, John

Edwards and the Democratic Party, Sharpton’s speech becomes a lesson in black history and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Whether or not this is a legitimate theme for a keynote address at a national political convention is open for debate. But the fact that victimage and debts owed to blacks has been a running theme of previous African-

American politicians (e.g., Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson) is salient and perhaps more relevant to our question of rhetorical race management and how Obama addresses race versus contemporaries like Al Sharpton and predecessors like Jesse Jackson.

This is not to say that all black politicians directly mention or confront race and/or victimage in their political speeches; many do not. Examples include the presidential announcement speech of Carol Mosely Braun, an African-American female candidate for the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election and Deval Patrick’s 2006 acceptance speech as

39 Speech delivered by Rev. Al Sharpton at the 2004 Democratic National Convention from July 26 to 29, 2004 at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

166 governor for the State of Massachusetts. Neither mentioned or implied racial obligation in any form in their speeches. Although Braun did not win the presidential nomination,

Patrick won election as governor not once, but twice for the State of Massachusetts. The fact that scholars and not the mainstream media or even the public have been quick to seize upon Obama’s failure to confront or address race goes back to our original question of rhetorical race management. Can an African-American presidential candidate’s rhetoric become so fluid, so harmonious, that the need to address race becomes a non- issue? Let us go back to Frank and McPhail.

Just as Frank sees consilience and absolute logic in Obama’s failure to mention race or racial conflict in his speech, McPhail sees racial treason, serving as the antagonist and balance in Frank’s argument. Working as the antagonist in their co-authored essay,

McPhail tells us that Obama not only dismisses race in the rhetoric of his 2004 keynote address, he effectively abandons the commitment to racial justice that King sought:

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't think about it, or health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.

That's not what I'm talking. I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

167 Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead.40

What is noteworthy in both of these speeches is that while Reverend Sharpton's speech lambasted audiences on the unpaid racial contract to blacks, Obama's message ignored and obscured America's racial realities (Frank & McPhail, 2005, p. 572). Not unlike previous African-American political rhetors and activists, Sharpton resurrects “the material realities of the racial contract [but more specifically] the one that featured

African-American trauma (p. 576):

Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats. Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham.41

For Obama, race is not the question or a problem that needs solving. The real issues are much more global and go far beyond skin color, historical racism or socioeconomic inequalities. The issues are more inclusive in that everyone, no matter what their income or ethnic background might be, has a story to tell. And if an individual’s story is singled-out, that story has nothing to do with race:

40 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s Keynote Address Speech delivered at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 2004. 41 Speech delivered by Rev. Al Sharpton at the 2004 Democratic National Convention from July 26 to 29, 2004 at the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

168 That is the true genius of America, a faith -- a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- at least most of the time.

You know, a while back -- awhile back I met a young man named Seamus in a V.F.W. Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid -- six two, six three, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. And as I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, the absolute faith he had in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might ever hope for in a child.

But then I asked myself, "Are we serving Seamus as well as he is serving us?"42

As Frank & McPhail suggest, “[i]n addition to reaffirming a commitment to equality, Obama also repeated the word hope 11 times, and the mood of the speech is crystallized by his affirmation of the “audacity of hope” (p. 578). In all fairness, any criticism of a political speech, particularly a keynote address that is only intended to rally party support, probably does not warrant either my own or McPhail’s somewhat harsh critique. But Obama’s nostalgic rhetoric, laced more with metaphors and personal narratives than concrete issues is worth noting if for no other reason than its remarkable similarity to an earlier speech, also given by a political candidate. As early as 1976, another U.S. presidential hopeful also hearkened back to a gentler, more serene time when noble deeds were the stuff of America’s greatness. His name was Ronald Reagan.

42 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s Keynote Address Speech delivered at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 2004.

169 In 1976, Gerald Ford ran for U.S. President as a candidate for the Republican

Party. What is notable about this, perhaps, non-event is who he asked to make closing remarks at the end of the Republican Convention: Ronald Reagan. This election was unusual in the respect that though the Democratic Party’s candidate (Jimmy Carter) would prevail and win the election, in part, because he was largely perceived as the

“outsider” to Washington politics much as Barack Obama positioned himself during his own campaign. Documented evidence suggests that it would be the speech given by

Ronald Reagan that would catapult both Reagan and the Republican Party to stardom in the 1980 presidential election (C-Span, 2006).

In a speech titled, “Reagan’s Impromptu Speech at 1976 GOP Convention,”

Reagan is suddenly called to the podium to express his final thoughts and give closing remarks per Gerald Ford’s lost bid for the presidency to Jimmy Carter. In this speech,

Reagan electrifies his audience with closing remarks that are equally breathtaking and tantamount to the metaphorical rhetoric Obama employed in his own speech in 2004.

What is particularly ironic and perhaps uncanny is Reagan’s ability to call upon the grandeur of America’s life story with the same sweeping generalizations that Obama used in his keynote speech in 2004 at the Democratic National Party’s convention in Boston,

MA. Unlike Obama, Reagan had no way of preparing his final words in this speech.The speech, itself, is very brief, perhaps only less than a minute versus Obama’s keynote address which is a little over eighteen minutes long. But it is this parallel, this focus on abstractions more centered on American patriotism than real substance, that not only

170 captivated the American public but also allowed both men to effectively dismiss any substantive issues from their rhetoric.

Even in the space of another minor concession speech given the following day,

Reagan both assures and ennobles his audience, reminding them of their greatness with more mystic references to “the shining city on the hill.”43 A clearer, more substantial comparison can be made between Reagan’s words in his 1980 acceptance speech for the

Republican Party ticket and the rhetoric used in Obama’s keynote address speech to the

Democratic Party in 2004:

More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values. (Reagan, 1980)

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation -- not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago…This year, in this election we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we're measuring up to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations. (Obama, 2004)

In “Obama and the Power of Words,” Stephen Hayes of the Wall Street Journal comments on these striking similarities between both Reagan’s and Obama’s rhetoric in his opinion article. He notes that following Reagan’s speech, the New York Times ran a profile complaining “that the news media had been unsuccessful in getting Reagan to speak in anything other than sweeping generalities” (Hayes, 2008).

43 The reader can access this speech to see how poised and dramatic Reagan’s delivery was during his address at the GOP Convention in 1976. One notes the comments of a journalist reflecting on the birth of Ronald Reagan, the rhetor following this concession speech at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-p- Nuu8hYQ.

171 Not surprisingly, the American Dream trajectory is not limited to politicians or rhetorical speeches. Ubiquitous in the sense that it can be used to “explain” anyone’s success, the American Dream serves as a convenient catch-all that rationalizes the financial gain or achievement of Hollywood celebrities, athletes, and entrepreneurs alike.

In “Hegemony or Concordance?,” Dana Cloud (1996) examines the media’s ability to enshrine television talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey within the ideologies of the American Dream to almost mythic proportions. Winfrey’s biography as the “tiny illegitimate black girl from dirt-poor Mississippi [who] can transform herself into the richest and most powerful black woman in the world” is not only the quintessential rags- to-riches story, the fact that Winfrey is black—and not white—probably serves to further reinscribe this notion of equality for all (p. 115).44 Cloud discusses Oprah Winfrey’s rise to fame and glory by carefully delineating how the media constructs an “Oprah” persona designed to “resonate with and reinforce the ideology of the American Dream.” Cloud sees this as troubling, given the realities of structural and institutional racism that continue to exist as very real obstacles for the large majority of African-Americans in society. She defines media narratives on the Oprah sensation more as “tokenist biographical narratives that authorized a person from a marginalized or oppressed group to speak as a culture hero on the condition that the person’s life story be framed in liberal-capitalist terms” (p. 116).

44 Also see George Zair’s 1994 text, Oprah Winfrey: The Real Story, for the actual source of this comment on pg. 349. (Publisher, Carol Publishing Group). 172 Both flexible and malleable, the American Dream can be positioned so that it explains the success of icons as well as working-class citizens. Cloud’s critique of the media’s ability to conflate Oprah’s humble beginnings parallel Obama’s, in many ways.

Here, too, he recounts stories of his mother raising him as a single parent, struggling on food stamps, for years. Much like Oprah’s, Obama’s bildungsroman not only perpetuates

“the success myth [that] is continually belied by the realities of class, race, and gender stratification [within] a capitalist society,” it disrupts the realities of how the large majority of African-Americans must survive and exist in this country (Cloud, 1996, p.

116).

In his essay on the popular ABC reality television sitcom, Extreme Makeover:

Home Edition, Luke Winslow (2010) describes how families are selected on the basis of the type of catastrophe or natural disaster they have been stricken by to, perhaps, justify why that family is deserving of home renovations. By vaulting ordinary lower-to-middle class working families to instant fame and stardom, the myth of the American Dream is reworked by producers of the show. Winslow’s ability to identify how subtle nuances of

Burkean ideology operate within the show itself adds more fuel to the fire. Winslow draws upon Burke’s use of form [and dramatism] as he cites the typical, almost classic symptoms identified in families that are worthy of the $20,000 to $50,000 home remodeling “gift” of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s executive staff (p. 273). In most cases, the winners are All-American families who are down-on-their-luck and suffering an unfortunate tragedy and blow to their morality as “good people.” In order to resurrect or restore those quintessentially American mores and values, a transformation 173 must occur. In this case, a whirlwind makeover courtesy of Extreme Makeover becomes the necessary antidote. By doing so, certain beliefs and expectations are indirectly resuscitated and reified while others are conveniently forgotten:

Our most potent cultural myths do their ideological work by making sense of the world in a way that allows the very real contradictions present in our day-to-day existence to slip under the public’s critical radar, leaving the ideas and beliefs that reinforce the status quo unchallenged and unquestioned. (p. 285)

This is not to say that chosen families are not suffering real issues because in most cases, all are. Winslow tells us that “the suffering of each family, which can be caused by any number of reasons, is almost always rooted in something outside the social structure, such as health problems, accidents, and natural disasters” (p. 273). Here, each family is faced with some sort of cataclysmic “issue” where moral redemption comes only with the help of Extreme Makeover. Both Cloud’s analysis of Winfrey’s heart-wrenching climb up the ladder of capitalism and Winslow’s take on middle-class American families who are selectively ennobled speaks to framing, a concept that is discussed in greater depth in

Chapter 5. Here, the framing becomes necessary because it is needed to justify the wealth or stardom of unlikely characters not traditionally expected to become billionaires or merit $50,000 home makeovers overnight. To be more specific, framing becomes the series or collection of anecdotes, stories, and metaphors that shape our understanding or interpretation of why certain events can occur and others cannot; why some of us are deserving while others are not.

In some ways, perhaps comparing either Obama or Reagan to Hollywood celebrities may seem far afield of our question on rhetorical race management but it is

174 not. Granted, both ran for office based on political campaign issues that were certainly more substantive than American Dream metaphors but their rhetorical messages were more reflective of narrative than policy. Just as Obama was more focused on “reclaiming the romantic narrative” in both his 2004 Keynote Address and “A More Perfect Union,” his uncanny redux of Reagan’s use of storytelling has not gone unnoticed (Rowland &

Jones, 2007, p. 428). Reagan’s reliance on stories about the Founding Fathers, the pioneers, and other tropes of American heroism fed into the American Dream narrative where morally-deserving, ordinary people could become extraordinary through hard work and perseverance (p. 432). Perhaps a more relevant question might be thus: if they ran on legitimate party platforms with real issues, what were those issues and how might they fit into the American Dream trajectory and this question of rhetorical race management?

When he ran for election in 1980, one of the most prominent and salient points or issues of Ronald Reagan’s campaign was tax cuts, a response to the spiraling inflation that had dogged Carter during his administration from 1976-1980 and was one of the principal reasons for his defeat in the election (Bartels, 1986; Hargrove et. al, 1988). In

Obama’s case, issues and policies were evenly addressed throughout his campaign with one exception, socioeconomic disparities and possible solutions. On March 18, 2008, the one issue that might have only been an after-thought during the campaign suddenly became a potentially life-threatening condition from a political perspective: race.

From the date of his landmark announcement on the steps of the Springfield,

Illinois capital to his historic acceptance speech in Grant Park, Chicago, Barack Obama has carefully negotiated his way through a rhetor’s nightmare by melding concord with 175 controversy. Given the dozens of speeches and spectacle exhibited during his campaign, how is it that Obama can seize upon a crisis and respond to an angry public in one fell swoop with a conciliatory logic unparalleled? The answer is very simple: Obama comes equipped as a system-builder who manages hostile, career-threatening symbols with a sense of reverence and allusion to historical tapestry bar none.

In Permanence and Change (1954), Burke describes piety as a characteristic or trait we use to manage unruliness and irrationality with “rational, scientific categories of linkage that run counter to emotional categories [of classification]” (72). Though Burke was no soothsayer who certainly could not have prophesied a man able to calculate the

“rational order of symbols” and establish congruity, in spite of “anguish and unrest,”

Obama won the hearts of millions precisely because of his adeptness as a system-builder in managing these warring symbols and messages (73). As it relates to Burke’s interpretation, piety, itself, goes beyond religious reverence or veneration. Here, piety can be likened to compassion, even reverence, for one’s audience or those one is addressing.

Burke goes so far as to suggest that piety is directly connected to a “remembrance of things past” and that it sometimes requires painful “symbolic expiations (such as martyrdom or intense ambition) to counteract symbolic offenses” (74). In Obama’s case, piety operated as a system-builder in that it allowed him to assemble a series of historical experiences, or as Burke suggests, a schema or orientation, in a particular speech that emotionally motivated his audience to respond favorably (76).

In looking at Obama’s speech-making and rhetorical gift for managing controversy and clear peril for almost two years as a presidential nominee, the speech that 176 probably stands out most as a rhetorical sleight-of-hand is Obama’s “A More Perfect

Union” or his race speech. Instead of lambasting a white audience for past grievances and debts owed to African-Americans, Obama’s response to a hostile public was one of nostalgia and reflection. Instead of any bitterness or invective, his words spoke more to patriotism and allusions to our founding fathers’ original intent thus, again, embracing a divisive audience. Though Obama had given dozens of speeches throughout his campaign for more than a year, it was this speech they would set the bar for political speechmaking.

But to understand the tremendous rhetorical race management implications of this one speech, we must first go back and retrace the events that instigated the public outcry and attack on Obama. For that, we turn to Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

ABC Spawns a Cultural Hero: Obama's Rhetoric Based on Burkean Tropes

As an imminent candidate for the U.S. presidency, then Senator Barack Obama’s religious leanings or church membership sparked the attention of news reporters and staff at ABC News in March of 2008. News reporters were particularly interested in Reverend

Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s then pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago since 1972. Now a very real public figure, Obama’s known affiliation with Wright’s church was an obvious reason for the inquiry. What could not have been anticipated was just how controversial Wright’s beliefs and style of preaching truly were nor the subsequent aftermath following the discovery. During an ABC-sponsored investigation in

March of 2008 of dozens of Wright's sermons, the one religious discourse that might have been identified as particularly divisive was broadcast nationwide. In sifting through and analyzing the commentary and language in these tapes, the media was able to create a 177 potpourri of some of Wright's most inflammatory and seditious sermons that openly accused a white America of an unjust hostility and terrorism that had been levied against blacks and other people of color for hundreds of years.

Though the sermon or any version, thereof, is probably preached by African-

American pastors to black congregations on a regular basis, this sermon was particularly incriminating because Rev. Wright also happened to be Obama’s family pastor. Not only had Obama faithfully attended Wright’s church services for almost 20 years, Wright had been the officiating pastor at Obama’s wedding and also been entrusted with the baptism of Obama’s daughters upon their birth. Obama’s close relationship with Rev. Wright more than likely instigated the media’s interest in Wright’s own rhetoric and the nature of his sermons and religious beliefs. It should come as no surprise that Wright’s vitriolic rhetoric caught on tape following the 9/11 bombing and attack on New York’s World

Trade Center became an instant hit when it hit the airwaves:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America”—nah, nah, nah, not “God Bless America,” “god damn America”--that’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people, god damn America for treating us citizens as less than human, god damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme…45

ABC goes on to spotlight Wright’s other incendiary remarks that might have sparked a nasty reaction from any of Obama’s potential white voters. This is significant for the obvious reason: it also lends itself to the unspoken possibility of treason and a black nationalism that Obama’s white voters had never been made aware of until now.

45 Sermon delivered by Jeremiah Wright on Sunday, April 13, 2003 at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. 178 Following the newscast, media reaction was swift. In addition to torrential news coverage from mainstream media sources like CNN, ABC and FOX News, hundreds of

YouTube videos, capturing Wright’s caustic rhetoric, sprang up on the Internet. Wright’s sermons dating back to as early as 2001 are seized, researched and culled for sound bites that added onerous weight to already damning evidence against Obama’s “purity” and ability to truly transcend the racial divide as he had promised in his campaign speeches.

Vociferous in his rants, dozens of Wright’s sermons are selectively hand-picked to showcase and highlight (white) America’s guilt in its oppressive stranglehold over most third world countries and people of color:

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.46

What is not detailed or mentioned in this harsh perhaps even divisive rant in

Wright’s sermon is the fact that he is reiterating or at least certainly referencing the comments of Edward Peck, a former U.S. ambassador and retired U.S. diplomat who served 32-years in the U.S. Foreign Service, was chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under

Jimmy Carter and who also happens to be white. In defense of the media, Obama is cross-interviewed, as well, perhaps to defend his support and membership in Wright's church. Arguing Wright’s humanitarian work in Africa, Obama is quick to come to

46 Sermon delivered by Jeremiah Wright on Sunday, September 16, 2001 at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ following the 9/11 bombing and attack on the World Trade Center in New York. 179 Wright’s defense but the damage is done. Unfortunately, Wright’s divisive rhetoric had spun out-of-control and now complicated a redemptive process that went much further than confirming the American Dream by voting for the Other.

After months of dismissing race as a non-issue and relegating racism and racial tensions to the back-burner, Obama was suddenly thrown into the spotlight and became suspect. Treason, anti-Americanism, extremism, and racism were revealed as the sordid underbelly of what all had presumed was an immaculate ethos of the American Dream candidate. The sudden revelation of Obama’s association with the heinous Reverend

Wright posed a very real threat to a style that Obama had carefully cultivated over the months. Both charismatic and pious, Obama’s patriotic allusions to our country’s forefathers in his previous rhetoric had created an image or representation of a more romanticized perception of Obama that was, for all intents and purposes, raceless; that image or archetype was now in jeopardy.

Thus, given his now dubious distinction as being a faithful follower and church member of Wright’s congregation for almost 20 years, Obama was obligated to exonerate himself by denying any association with Wright or explain and even defend that association. I suggest Obama’s ability to subsume his ethnic heritage or racial ancestry as an African-American within the collective history of guilt that many white Americans may have harbored given past racial oppressions against blacks (e.g., slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era) is reflective of Burke’s treatise on identification but also speaks to

Burke’s theory on scapegoating, as well.

180 Though briefly cited in Chapter 2, Burke’s notion of the scapegoat mechanism can be defined as an orientation involving certain linkages which may or may not be valid (Burke, 1984, p. 11). As Burke suggests on pg. xxxix of his text, “we often say the use of the scapegoat and all forms of vicarious atonement are only a ‘rationalization’ of other motives (sexual, political, or economic).” Obama embodied or was symbolic of the sacrificial lamb as it relates to Burke’s notion of scapegoating. By accepting the blame for any anger or resentment originally directed at Wright, Obama, in effect, becomes the

“sacrificial receptacle for the ritual unburdening of one’s sins or the willing scapegoat who is deserving of the blame:”

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.47

To elaborate further on this parallel to scapegoating, one must first understand

Burke’s notion of the scapegoat mechanism. Referred to as an orientation involving

47 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech delivered on March 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 181 linkages which may or may not be valid, scapegoating can be defined as a type of faulty rationalization (Burke, p. 11). Burke cites Pavlov’s conditioning reflex experiment where dogs learn to associate the ringing sound of bells with food as one such example (11-14).

A similar analogy made between lower-class whites who intimidated and lynched

African-Americans during the early 1900s in response to the poverty and socioeconomic deprivation following Reconstruction is useful in understanding how scapegoating can also function as a human condition. Here, poor whites saw blacks as the source or reason for their poverty, much as the Germans saw the Jews as the problem or the “enemy” following World War I due, in large part, to Hitler’s own rhetoric.

Burke refers to this myopic transference of blame as faulty means-selection (15).

Similarly, Obama may have been perceived as the “enemy” following revelations of

Wright’s caustic sermons. The (il)logic goes something like this: Reverend Wright is a hateful, vindictive minister who preaches racism and anti-Americanism in his church.

Thus, if Obama has been attending Wright’s church for 20 years, he must also be a hateful, vindictive racist. Whether or not one identifies the inherent guilt by association fallacy within this argument pales in comparison to what Obama accomplished in his “A

More Perfect Union” speech.

Discussion of the number of implicit Burkean tropes in this one speech can be extended to include Burke’s definition of synecdoche, as it relates to Obama’s commitment to the United States (e.g., “ These people are a part of me. And they are a

182 part of America, this country that I love”) as well as identification.48 Perhaps more remarkable is how Obama becomes the dutiful scapegoat, willing to take the hit for

Wright’s vitriolic revelations. Equally noteworthy is how the transference of blame or responsibility is moved almost effortlessly from Wright to Obama with a few choice words. In his speech, Obama subsumes not only white America’s implied assumption of guilt for previous racial transgressions levied against people of color, he offers his own very open confessional that extends past Wright’s transgressions to include those of the black community and his white grandmother, none of whom are to blame. Certainly no scapegoat in the conventional Burkean sense of the definition, neither Obama nor Wright are truly sacrificed (p. xxxix). Instead, Obama reverses Burke’s “curative” process.

According to Burke, the “curative” process allows one to hand over one’s ills to a scapegoat, thereby gaining purification by dissociation (Burke, 1973, pp. 202-203).

In his “A More Perfect Union” speech, Obama not only apologizes and accepts full responsibility for Wright’s horrific revelations, he reaffirms his relationship with

Wright, as well as his commitment to the black community, his white mother, and, ultimately, the rest of the nation. He uses Wrights’ words as a platform for the racial healing or racial consiliency that McPhail argues Obama was dismissive of during his

2004 keynote address speech at the Democratic National Convention.

48 According to Burke, synecdoche is a form of representation where the user signals that he or she is part of something, or the whole, just as the whole is comprised of that individual. Implied in the definition is “a relationship or connectedness between two sides of the equation.” As it relates to Obama, Burke reminds us that the “synecdochic form is present in all theories of political representation” as well. Here, even an elected candidate can be considered as part of or representative of the whole. See Burke’s “A Grammar of Motives,” pp. 508-509 for this discussion. 183 In a 37-minute speech that was viewed 1.2 million times on YouTube within the first 24 hours of its release, Obama’s “More Perfect Union” address has been identified as becoming a historic contribution to American race relations (Melber, 2008). In a speech that is prefaced with almost 5 minutes worth of narrative devoted to the history and creation of the U.S. Constitution, Obama weaves in post-racial nostalgia and how the unlikely pairing of an African father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas could only occur in America, thus laying the bedrock for the culmination of the American

Dream; Barack Obama, in this case.

But what is obviously the most pressing and most burning issue and source of public uproar (the Reverend Jeremiah Wright) is carefully addressed much later in the speech. More importantly, this second step in the process of the virtuosity narrative occurs well after the audience has been strategically inoculated with a dose of moral obligation and self-reproach. Questionable as it might be in assuaging us with the

American Dream in one breath, then moral obligation in the next, Obama’s address was a far cry from the typical political campaign speech. Ensconced within the traditions of the

Black church, Obama proceeds to conflate Wright’s race-tainted persecution with his own in the election polls. The racial antipathy surrounding Wright is not just limited to

Wright’s transgressions; it is all around us and Obama uses this as a platform to air his own campaign grievances. It certainly takes guts to have such a conversation with a spouse or family member but to do so publicly in front of an audience of millions is almost unthinkable:

184 This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well. And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.49

The “other end” or opposing side to which Obama proceeds to discuss is Wright’s caustic vitriol and how he had no knowledge of Wright’s racist, vigilante behavior. This response is, in all likelihood, designed to dismiss any concerns per Obama’s, heretofore, unquestioned ethos. Later during the speech, Obama wipes the slate clean and dares anyone in his audience to disprove or deny Wright’s worthiness and righteousness as a good man. After making this claim, Obama steers his defense of Wright to the real problem of race relations in this country. He tells us that we have ignored race as an issue for too long:

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments [of Rev. Wright] that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have

49 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech delivered on March 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 185 yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American50.

Wright’s transgressions are also, indirectly, a springboard for Obama’s political campaign platform issues. In many ways, this speaks to Obama’s skill in “spinning” defamation and moral outrage into an opportunistic rallying cry not only for racial reconciliation, but for policy issues like health care and education as well. But as it relates to Burke’s definition of scapegoating, Obama’s true genius lies in his ability to move that moral outrage intended for both he and Wright onto a moral high ground that grants the public easy access to forgiveness. It is not Rev. Wright’s fault but it is not our fault, either. None of us are to blame for ideologies surrounding racism, white supremacy, or warfare. But, if we are willing to admit or confess our sins, many of which we have no control over, anyway, we can be vindicated of that guilt. By listening to

Obama’s rhetoric and admitting the veracity of his words, only then can we find forgiveness, transcendence and true salvation. This is the second level, or deeper layer of

Burke’s scapegoating:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the

50 Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech. 186 election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.51

Thus, Obama is serving as an almost Christ-like figure. By allowing him to speak and “do penance” in his “A More Perfect Union” speech, we, as his audience, are absolved of all our sins, as well. We are culpable for chastising Rev. Wright and for perhaps articulating a truth that no one wanted to admit or acknowledge. Rev. Wright’s speech was the “elephant-in-the-room,” in many respects. No one—white or black— wanted to admit that much of what Wright preached may have held some degree of merit or truth. But since no one is willing to confess the truth, it is Obama’s role to negotiate and ameliorate. Just as importantly, ABC’s broadcast of Wright’s inflammatory speeches served as the conduit that allowed Obama to air our “dirty laundry” and articulate what no one wanted to say. He articulates what none of us dare or care to admit or confess in his “More Perfect Union” address. Like the minstrel man, in reverse, Obama’s lost ethos is magically resurrected and restored. Performative in his role as a presidential candidate, Obama must step outside of political conventionality in order to “perform” a vastly different role—that of savior and healer.

51 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech delivered on March 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

187 In his Rhetoric of Motives, Burke describes a relationship referred to as consubstantiality. Here, if two groups are clearly identified, they can also be led to believe that they have shared interests if those interests are also identified (pp. 20-21).

The impact and success of Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address was largely based on Obama’s ability to convince a white public that both he and they shared a common bond (moral obligation), in spite of the difference in skin color. Thus, what might have been invisible or gone unnoticed was revealed as a profound and almost palpable undercurrent that acted as the tenuous bond between both Obama and the American public. What was perceived as a divider (race) was really the unifying condition in this speech. His audience was a part of Obama as much as he a part of them. Obama was very strategic in how he announced this, heretofore, unspoken relationship to an audience that may not have seen the same kinship or chose not to admit the relationship. His allusion to sacrifices being made in order to “come clean” about the relationship is riveting in the sense that, here, he is finally forced to discuss race more candidly than ever in this speech. In a curious mixture of apologia in defense of Wright’s potentially damning remarks, Obama delivers a deft strike of remorse and compassion filled with a heart-wrenching poignancy that is both subtle and compelling. He does this by referencing his white grandmother. If his audience (primarily a white public) chose never to admit or accept that Obama, a black man, was really a part of them as much as they of him, they were brutally confronted with this reality in Obama’s speech.

Obama’s ability to transform himself from raceless patriot to moral vindicator speaks to Burke’s corollary on identification. As previously stated, Obama’s decision to 188 “explain-away” Wright’s un-American vitriol very quickly transitioned or transformed from a defense of Wright to a moral upbraiding of his audience, the American public. If

Wright was symbolic of the hypothetical dragon, he was never slain. Why? Because reprimanding Wright was never the intent. To identify the true culprit, a transformation was required. And while Burke’s use of the word “killing” must be reinterpreted and obviously redefined in the case of Obama’s predicament, his skill in transferring the blame from Wright to that of himself and his audience is probably one of the finest examples of Burke’s definition of transformative identification.

By identifying with his audience, Obama was able to confront and even dismiss the implications of division as discussed in Burke’s text (p. 22). What might have appeared to have been a mortal deathblow to Obama’s political campaign, in reality, proved to be a rhetorical and political godsend. Wright’s hostile moral upbraiding of the audience was transformed into moral reconciliation between Obama and the audience once Obama performed the act of consubstantiation.

In many ways, “A More Perfect Union” was Obama’s own sermon that served to not only stanch a mortal wound to his political career but also served as an opportunistic platform that further solidified his popularity with audiences. Although examining

Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” through a Burkean lens is certainly useful, we must ask ourselves if Obama’s rhetoric might have been influenced by other speeches that were even remotely similar. Was “A More Perfect Union” perhaps old news and something we’d heard before? I now turn to a brief analysis of James Klumpp’s essay on

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech to draw comparisons between King’s 189 and Obama’s treatise on race in both speeches. I do this to more fully make the case that intent and motive starkly, almost egregiously, separate one from the other. King’s “I

Have a Dream” and Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech are as different as night and dark and there really is no comparison. But to form any opinion on this conjecture, reading Klumpp’s analysis is a good first step.

A Tale of Two Cities: The Ironic Investments of MLK vs. Obama

James Klumpp (1998) argues the fundamental irony in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech by calling it “the centerpiece of the most successful assault on American social privilege since the Civil War.” Klumpp goes on to say that Burke would have deemed

King’s rhetorical masterpiece as an acceptance speech, “embracing central symbols of the

American social order.” If we consider Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech juxtaposed against King’s, we have two distinct interpretations and responses to the race question. As with King’s, Obama’s speech echoes the same primary symbols of

American patriotism and social responsibility that Klumpp also identifies. Klumpp is more concerned with the constraints of motivational and hierarchical social order in this piece and less so with race. But, still, what better social order to interrogate than

America’s system of race? Both speeches are ensconced in racial victimage and guilt on varying levels. More importantly, the rhetoric of both effectively work through hierarchy or what Klumpp describes as “bringing schemes of ordering from, and back into, experience.” Klumpp’s definition aligns with David Frank’s notion of the “consilience” that Obama embraced in his 2004 DNC Keynote Address speech.

190 Speaking well after the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, Obama did not have to confront the same levels of segregation and racial inequality that King did forty-five years earlier. Instead, Obama articulates the unspoken ignominies of a newer, more contemporary form of racism. A postmodern racism? Klumpp goes on to say that while

King’s rhetoric sought to reprimand existing social hierarchies (e.g., white supremacy, institutionalized racism), he also, inadvertently, reinforced these same hierarchies which he sought to dismantle. I disagree. By voicing the inequities of social ills like segregation and Jim Crow laws, King freed both himself and his audiences, much as Obama did during his “A More Perfect Union” speech. The brilliance of King’s use of metaphor in his “I Have a Dream” speech is not lost on Klumpp. Skillfully contrasting light and dark, despair with hope and wrong from right, King’s vivid imagery weaves a tapestry of the injustices suffered by African-Americans. Klumpp identifies a passage in King’s speech that metaphorically captures the essence of unpaid debts owed to blacks by juxtaposing that debt with the original intent and obligation of the United States Constitution and the

Declaration of Independence. By deftly tying these two most sacred of documents to the economic and moral injustice of segregation, King tells a story that not only evidences

Fisher’s coherence and fidelity, the ideological logic and soundness of the story, itself, goes without question:

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir…It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back

191 marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt…

While King is gently holding white America responsible and liable for these

“unpaid debts,” implicit in that reproach is a sense of forgiveness. If one listens closely, one might be led to believe that there is still time to make amends, perhaps even redress that what the Founding Fathers intended almost 300 years earlier. What is peculiar about

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address is that both are similar from a historical perspective. Probably two of the most compelling speeches in recent memory, at first glance, one realizes that the two speeches are more introspective than accusatory. In fact, both are more conciliatory than vitriolic. And in the final analysis, one must consider the following: what is the difference between the two?

What is noteworthy is how both scholars and the public conflate and/or confuse MLK’s rhetoric of social reprimand and motivation for racial redress with Obama’s own narrative that was essentially intended to defend both himself and Reverend Wright. But unlike King’s allusions to personal victimage specific to the indignities suffered solely by

African-Americans, Obama moves those atrocities to a higher ground where Americans of all creeds and colors can protest and fight in this struggle for equality:

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy…The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations…Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a 192 union that could be and should be perfected over time... and yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.52

In “The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack Obama’s A More

Perfect Union Address, March 18, 2008,” David Frank sees parallels between MLK and

Obama, arguing that Obama’s speech not only echoes the same prophetic tradition but

“stands out as a descendant of King’s theology and rhetoric” (Frank, 2009, p. 168).

Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, the motivations that led each rhetor to deliver, no question, two of the most poignant, most compelling speeches in recent memory is quite different. King’s appeal was on the behalf of millions of African-

Americans who had endured violence and subjugation for almost 300 years. Certainly,

Obama's speech is unquestionably "a response to a particular constellation of political exigences" and, yes, it certainly "reflects both his progression as a thinker and rhetorician," but it cannot and should not be conflated as an expression of the prophetic tradition, especially as it relates to the civil rights movement (p. 170). Unlike MLK,

Obama’s plea for racial reconciliation was primarily based on his need to respond to the media’s backlash in defense of Reverend Wright’s vitriolic sermons aired nationwide not weeks earlier and a serious threat to his campaign.

52 Excerpt from Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech delivered on March 18, 2008 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

193 In retrospect, one must ponder the following: had Wright’s damning sermons not been exposed, can we assume that Obama still would have addressed the race question during his campaign? To add even more irony to this question is the fact that other

African-Americans have become equally critical of Obama’s failure to address race in either his policies or speechmaking. Michael Eric Dyson famously complained that

Obama “runs from race like a black man runs from a cop” in his newscast on MSNBC, arguing that Obama is a hypocrite for not “standing up to use his bully pulpit” to solve racial differences as President of the United States (Dyson, 2010). Even so, Frank is both balanced and even-handed in his, perhaps, ingenuous assumptions when he comments that following the race speech—as it’s now commonly referred to--“Obama rarely discussed racial justice in more than general and universal terms during the rest of the campaign” (Frank, 2009, p. 170).

In addition to this marked demarcation, how might the rhetorical implications of

Obama’s rhetorical plea at the podium in Philadelphia differ from those of Dr. King’s?

For instance, could his words possibly be interpreted as a contemporary version of King’s cries for salvation and redemption uttered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963?

Whether evidencing vestiges of postmodernism or postracialism, were Obama’s words reflective of what Stephen Marshall describes as a crisis of black prophetic thought?

Simply stated, black prophetic thought is a genre of political philosophy that comes as the aftermath of black suffering during slavery, insurgent resistance, and the roughly 300 years of racial oppression that blacks endured in the United States. To be even more succinct, it is a framework that offers a critical examination of the African- 194 American experience. Marshall tells us that “what began as resistance…flowered into a vital and sustained mode of political reflection…[p]rophetic political critique, then, is both a genre of political theory and a mode of political action (Marshall, 2011, p.1). As it relates to Obama’s quandary, might it not also be interpreted as both a moral and sociopolitical survival strategy that speaks to Cloud’s rhetoric of silence? In this case, it is a strategy that is finally abandoned and decried in a final act of rhetorical exasperation in the “A More Perfect Union” speech. In adhering to Dubois’ theory on double- consciousness, Obama’s own “twoness” was suddenly revealed in this speech (see

Chapter 2 for a discussion on Dubois’ theory on “twoness”). Perhaps more sobering, do you solve this question of race by eschewing it completely and not talking about it at all in an era of post-racial politics? Here, reading the final chapters of Marshall’s text is suggested in order to more fully appreciate how King’s rhetoric problematized a social and moral dilemma during the civil rights era vis-à-vis Obama’s predicament, today.53

Conclusion

This chapter identified and examined some of the methods and themes that were employed during the Presidential Election of 2008 as it relates to race and politics.

Specifically, I argued that an ideological construct commonly known as the American

Dream and Kenneth Burke’s dramatism were used in Barack Obama’s campaign to win favor with the public. By embracing and incorporating values and rhetoric more

53 The reader will gain an even greater understanding of the concept surrounding black prophetic thought by reading Cornel West’s Prophesy Deliverance! According to West, true black prophetic thought is the culmination of both Judeo-Christian beliefs and Marxism as well as many elements of John Dewey’s pragmatism. 195 reminiscent of the American Dream versus any substantive argument per hard-core issues like racial discrimination or unemployment, Obama was able to dismiss race in this election until confronted with it during the Reverend Jeremiah Wright imbroglio.

Gifted with rhetorical oratory more akin to that of Ronald Reagan, Obama was able to convince and persuade a skeptical audience largely through narrative storytelling.

Much like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama usurped and reinvented the

American Dream. But instead of solidifying a neoconservative Republican base, Obama’s rhetoric captivated liberal Democrats—and undecided voters—at the opposite end of the political spectrum As Rowland and Jones (2007) suggest, just as the Republican Party was able to transform the American Dream into a version that served individual ideological victory” presuming a neoconservative, perhaps even libertarian trajectory,

Barack Obama, in turn, converted it into a communal ideology of shared purpose that embraced all racial and ethnic groups (p. 427).

As it relates to Obama’s rhetoric, Burke’s definition of dramatism helps crystallize the value of both our and Obama’s motives during the campaign. I identified specific passages within this speech that are reflective of the following Burkean characteristics or traits: scapegoating, synecdoche, transcendence, identification, and consubstantiality. Obama had a very real motive during the presidential campaign. Not only did he have to convince us that he was qualified to become our president, in the traditional sense, he also had to convince us that his race was a non-issue.

The dramatism that Burke describes might be considered analogous to the rhetorical “battle” that Obama had to fight following the controversial Wright speech in 196 order to win public approval. “The sharpest instance of this is an agon wherein the protagonist is motivated by the nature of the antagonist” (Burke & Gusfield, 1989, p.

268). And although dramatism is inherent in most all speeches, the one speech that is particularly reflective of this motive-driven alchemy between the American public and

Obama was his race speech. In his “More Perfect Union” speech, Obama’s rhetoric, in its purest form, was representative of a historical alliance that no one wanted to admit. By selectively reducing the single most important variables in what appears to be an apology speech for Reverend Wright, Obama is extracting and intimating a number of other truths. One of these truths is the much larger and far more subtle act of forgiving his audience, thus redemptive salvation. It is in delivering this speech that Obama exemplifies Burke’s notion of the representative anecdote which, again, is reflective of a political style that is imbued with the piety, ingratiation and humility Burke references in his work.

I drew parallels between Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and

Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech to contrast and compare similarities and differences. Although both share parallels from a rhetorical standpoint, each rhetor had markedly different intentions and investment in the ultimate outcome of their respective speeches. Be that as it may, both rely on Burkean tropes of dramatism, exacting a level of social and moral guilt that would go on to alter the course of history and race relations between blacks and whites in the United States.

In Chapter 5, I return to the media, its role in the 2008 election and its own perceptions of the first African-American president of the United States. 197 Chapter 5

The Media: How the Media Managed Race for Obama and Why

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him. David Ehrenstein, Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2007

On November 5, 2008, more than 1,000 U.S. newspapers reported the outcome of the presidential election and Obama’s victory as the first African-American president in the history of the United States. Perhaps a non-event in many ways since any newspaper would have reported the same had the winner been black or white, what is more telling were the reactions of Obama’s victory in that international news coverage. In Obama’s case, more than 160 newspapers reported the victory worldwide.54 With headlines like

“The New Face of America” (Ireland) and “It’s a New Dawn” (Australia) most all were euphoric in their editorial. By comparison, the morning after George W. Bush's 2004 re- election, Britain's Daily Mirror famously asked: "How can 59,054,087 people be so

DUMB?" This, in stark contrast to the "GOBAMA!" headline blasted on their front page the day following Obama’s election (Remez & Wike, 2008). Certainly more than a political event, Obama’s election became a worldwide perhaps, even, cultural event in large part because of the press or the media.

54 A compilation of front covers for both U.S. newspaper coverage as well as international coverage reflects a somewhat daunting display of the sheer amount of publicity generated per Obama’s win worldwide. The reader can go to this site to appreciate the sheer impact of media coverage on this election http://obama2008.s3.amazonaws.com/international_headlines.html . 198 Implicit in allusions to media framing during Tom Bradley’s gubernatorial campaign election in 1982 vis-à-vis Obama’s portrayal in the news is the assumption that the media plays a significant role in a political election. While examining rhetorical markers within a political candidate’s speeches certainly holds merit, no argument would be complete without some discussion of the media’s role in Obama’s construction and portrayal in the news. What is the role of the media during a political campaign? Since the majority of voters have already made up their minds prior to casting their ballot (e.g., Democrats tend to vote for the Democratic candidate, Republicans for the Republican candidate), evidence suggests that the media can have a crucial influence on undecided voters or voters who have not yet made a decision (Emery, 1976, p. 84). To understand how the media played a pivotal role in Obama’s ability to manage race in this election requires us to examine how he was perceived not only by the media but the public as well.

Seen as the underdog by many early during the election, Obama’s unlikely win was based, in part, on the fact that he drew more Democrats to the voting polls than John

McCain did Republicans. But this was in addition to voter support from an unlikely demographic. The Election of 2008 came with a surprise since “20 percent of conservatives voted for Obama” helping to explain his 7.26% win over McCain in the popular election (Jamieson, 2010, p. 21)55. If this is so, what role might the media have played in this unlikely upset?

55 See statistics for the 2008 Presidential Election http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008presgeresults.pdf. 199 This chapter looks at the media’s interpretation of Obama during the election. If media effect can impact the public’s perceptions of political candidates, how did the media’s interpretation of Obama, himself, impact the public? The media’s role in facilitating Obama’s glowing portrayal in both print and television lends itself to this question of rhetorical race management because it was they who were at the controls and not Obama.

To a large extent, the media managed race for Obama and for the most part, favorably so and clearly to Obama’s advantage. As an example, MSNBC/NBC political news analyst Chris Matthews famously commented that he “felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often…” after hearing Obama in March of 2008 following one of his speeches at the Potomac Primaries.”56 Matthews’ comment might be taken with a grain of salt given MSNBC’s, arguably leftist political leanings, but both his comment and the generally more favorable news coverage granted Obama versus

McCain merits some degree of analysis (this chapter discusses the partisan political leanings of major news and cable networks during the election). Are there factors that might explain the media’s astounding reversal in racial tolerance? Here, I cite specific news analysts and texts that confirm the media’s role in the election of this country’s first

African-American president and how the racial angst of many white journalists had much to do with Obama’s relative ease in managing race from a media perspective.

56 Matthews comment aired on MSNBC March 27, 2008 as a follow-up to the Potomac Primaries. In addition to gushing over Obama’s performance, Matthews reports that he has also cried following an Obama speech and compared him to Jesus Christ. The reader can read further details at this site: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449.html. 200 One of the most prevalent issues surrounding Obama’s and McCain’s portrayal in the media is this question of media bias: did the media portray one candidate more favorably than the other? If so, how does one prove media bias? The Presidential Election of 2008 was unique in that it was deemed the first election of the Digital Age. Generally perceived as the first presidential candidate to fully incorporate digital and social media into his campaign, Obama firmly established himself as the first Internet president. How significant were these efforts to interact with the public via online technologies within the realm of rhetorical race management?

This chapter examines the media’s reaction to Obama’s victory from a very different perspective, in this case, from a marketing perspective. Unless one actively reads or is at least familiar with the advertising industry and trade publications, one might have missed the biggest marketing event of the year: the election campaign of Barack Obama. Here, I ask the reader to ponder the commodification of Obama and this notion of spectacle that surrounded Obama during the Election of 2008 but not without some discussion of the media framing and bias that occurred during that election. Since the media’s impact in any presidential election can be measured or analyzed from at least a dozen different approaches, I chose to focus on media framing and bias for two reasons. Not only because both were the most hotly debated but because they most clearly mirror the change in racial politics that has transpired since Jesse Jackson’s and Tom Bradley’s campaigns in the 1980s.

201 Media Framing in the 2008 Election

Framing is a sociopolitical research tool that allows us to see a person or event through a secondary lens, or in this case, the media’s interpretation of that person or event. Through the lens of effective framing, problems can be defined, causes diagnosed and moral judgments adjudicated. The framing can be as brief or as fleeting as simple sentence or as lengthy as a 100-page treatise (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Frames are unique in that they can highlight certain events while subordinating others (p. 53). Consequently, a political leader or candidate can be portrayed as more or less virtuous based on the selection and staging of certain news events surrounding him or her.

Shanto Iyengar offers an example regarding unexpected revelations of arms sales to Iran between 1986 and 1987 that lends itself to understanding how media framing can affect politicians favorably or unfavorably. Whereas President Reagan could have been portrayed as devious or untrustworthy, he was not. Instead of news stories that focused on his deception or failure to disclose, they focused on “the intended policy objectives of the

Reagan Administration.” Instead of accusations or innuendo of wrong-doing, attributions of policy framing were used to downplay implications of any personal irresponsibility of

Reagan himself. As a result, this favorable framing influenced the public’s perceptions of Reagan’s guilt or responsibility for the event. (Iyengar, 1991, p. 4). Upon hindsight, consider the relatively high approval ratings Bush received following his decision to wage an actual war against Iraq in 2003.57 Here, the public’s response was also based in

57 See the Gallup Poll’s article on George Bush’s approval ratings at this site http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/Presidential-Approval-Ratings-George-Bush.aspx . 202 large part on the media’s own interpretation of the war. But while the outcome of the war was certainly a very real and substantial issue in the 2008 campaign (e.g., Obama’s decision to end the war versus McCain who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq), voter decisions in the Election of 2008 were based more on the identity, character, style or

“political representation” of the candidates versus hard-core issues (Barker et al, 2010, p.

1).

Personified as a valiant war hero who survived a 1967 bombing raid and imprisonment in a Hanoi internment camp during the Vietnam War, McCain’s campaign trajectory as the “principled war hero” was effective in the sense that it tied in perfectly to one of the central issues on the public’s mind in 2008: the Iraq War. Initially, a logical move, McCain’s war hero persona not only embraced the country’s obsession with the

Iraq War, in many ways, it might have also been perceived as a logical extension of the previous administration’s decision to declare war. McCain’s campaign slogan of

“Country First” resonated with voters who clearly identified with the moral values inherent in patriotism.

As it relates to framing, one notes how negative issues received less airplay or media exposure while others did not. For example, McCain’s tampering in the investigation of the Charles Keating scandal during the late 1980s was seized upon by the

Obama team as evidence of “bad judgment and dangerous ideological dispositions” and a very real threat to his credibility (Jamieson, 2010, p. 32). The fact that this news event did not receive any real significant coverage speaks to a decision to focus on other issues at the expense of others. Events that occurred 20 or 30 years earlier may be seen as only 203 marginally significant, given their lack of recency. Not surprisingly, news of McCain’s involvement with the Keating 5 was masked by an even greater problem: George Bush.

McCain’s ability to effectively detach himself from any clear linear relationship to Bush’s previous administration was trumped by his voting record as a Senator during

Bush’s Administration. Obama strategist David Axelrod points out, “As you know, there was a lot of tape of him talking about how he voted with Bush 90 percent of the time

[saying] he couldn’t think of a major issue on which he had a disagreement with Bush”

(p. 39). Hard evidence to overturn when you’re trying to distance yourself from the perpetrator, the McCain team responded by launching attack television ads in July of

2008 which focused on Obama’s celebrity status as the new pop rock star. Obama’s adoring fans and mob audiences at his speaking engagements were aggrandized as evidence of a superficiality that was beneath a political leader.

In a series of scenes where Obama is shown surrounded by cheering fans, a narrator in one television commercial warns us, “He’s the biggest celebrity of the year— but is he ready to lead?”58 Juxtaposing his picture with superstars like Paris Hilton and

Britney Spears, the ad aligns him with Hollywood celebrities for a reason that, in past elections, had proven to be quite effective: negative advertising. Here, the advertisements are more opponent-focused rather than candidate-focused. By concentrating on “what is wrong with the opponent, either personally or in terms of issue or policy stances,” politicians hope to cast doubt in the public’s mind regarding

58 McCain Ad Mocks Obama. MSNBC, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phBBnxXJdoM&feature=fvst . 204 their rival’s qualifications (Kaid, 2000 & 2004). Newscasters and political columnists commented on the negative ads as unlike McCain with a potential to backfire.

In an interview with CBS News, Bob Schieffer opines that the ad tries to define

[frame] Barack Obama for the public:

They [McCain’s team] have concluded that while Barack Obama is famous, a lot of people really don’t know him. So what they’re trying to do is define him and tell people who he is in their version. Now the question is, is this going to work? So what they’re trying is they’re trying to picture him as an elitist, someone who’s aloof, sort of divorced from regular life. They’re aiming at those white, blue- collar Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton and didn’t vote for Barack Obama in the primaries. They’re saying this is really not your kind of guy. The question though, Maggie, is will people believe this? I mean this is kindofa’ a stretch to say Barack Obama has something in common with Paris Hilton? I’ll tell you another thing, it’s very surprising; this is very unlike John McCain and the kind of campaign he said he was going to run.59

Schieffer closes the interview by adding that McCain’s use of the negative ads may be a quiet indicator of growing election-polls anxiety, in spite of the fact that

McCain was ahead at the time. Only three months after the candidates were announced,

McCain’s team opened fire with the negative rock star ads. Goldstein and Freedman

(2002) concur that political ads generally typify the campaign more so than the candidate.

Since two of the most powerful emotions are anxiety and fear, McCain’s ads were not effective in that they were unable to decry or attack anything either frightening or threatening regarding Obama (Brader, 2005, p. 390). Instead, his marketing strategists

[Steve Schmidt, Bush Administration] saw fit to attack Obama’s fame and popularity.

59 The “Drawing First Blood” newscast is based on an interview with Maggie Rodriguez of CBS News on July 28, 2008. Here, Schieffer ponders the negative ad direction for the McCain campaign. See further details at this site http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2008/07/31/cbs-mccain-drawing-first-blood- campaign-ad . 205 Shortly after, Obama’s team saw fit to retaliate with their own version of negative advertising.

The “McSame as Bush” television spots were equally negative of McCain but they targeted specific issues that might have been seen as problematic by voters, unlike the celebrity rock star advertisements for Obama. For example, one commercial shows

McCain affectionately embracing Bush while the voice-over narrator ticks off a laundry list of failed Bush policies that McCain planned to maintain once elected:60

A trillion dollars in Iraq over the next 10 years? McSame as Bush A millionaire who’s for tax cuts for millionaires? McSame as Bush No plan for universal healthcare? McSame as Bush Oil companies? They get tax breaks while we pay at the pumps. McSame as Bush We need a new direction, not the same old Mcthing

Basically, the Democrats were, in effect, pooh-poohing McCain’s proclamations as the independent maverick candidate for an obvious reasons: he had no real intentions of diverting from Bush’s old policies. If we return to the theme of our project, one notices how demographics were never an issue for either McCain or Obama. From Obama’s vantage point, there were no campaign ads attacking McCain’s age at the time (72) or race ads attacking Obama from McCain’s side. A far cry from the days of the Willie

Horton ads during the Bush campaign or even the novelty newspaper headlines, shouting the “first black candidate for California” during Tom Bradley’s era. In fact, no attack ads in the conventional sense, at all, for the most part. Whether this is a reflection of the progressiveness of a postracial democracy is debatable. What is certain is that the

60 See this source for McCain: McSame as Bush political advertisement http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/mccain_mcsame_as_bush_democrat.html 206 Election of 2008 was fraught with controversy. One of the main areas of contention was not focused on the candidates, themselves, so much as it was on implications of purported media bias. How might media bias have worked in Obama’s favor, perhaps even facilitating his ease in managing race during the election?

Media Bias

In July of 2008, Rush Limbaugh growled in an on-air broadcast that the media were following Obama with “their tongues dragging along the concrete to the floors.

Lenin, Stalin never got this kind of coverage from their media.”61 The fact that the media was accused of an inherent Obama bias warrants comment in our discussion since survey statistics of media coverage of both candidates were mixed.

Largely contingent on which station or channel was airing the coverage, a closer analysis reveals that any real media bias was largely based on partisan politics. What is interesting to note is that McCain’s team didn’t need to create their own attack ads; early during the campaign; most of the media was actually more negative towards Obama than it was McCain. For example, the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) shows that 72 percent of the statements in TV news reports about Obama in late spring and early summer were negative, whereas 57 percent of the statements about McCain were negative (Martin, 2008).This, in part, may have had much to do with the nature of media revelations that were being rumored at the time. Public speculation that Obama was either secretly a Muslim or linked to Bill Ayers were two of the most common suspicions. His alliance with Reverend Jeremiah Wright was announced around this time and was

61 Rush Limbaugh Show, July 22, 2008. 207 probably a key player in the negative news merry-go-round. Yet and still, it does not explain the upsurge in pro-Obama news coverage during the month of July 2008.

In the New Hampshire Union Leader, publisher Joseph McQuaid complained of an “Obama Orgy” in one newspaper headline (7/21/08). When CBS Evening News correspondent Katie Couric spoke of the non-stop coverage coverage of the

“Obamathon,” she mentioned that our summer “lovefest” with Obama was stealing any attention from McCain (Couric, 2008). Comparing media coverage of Obama’s trip to a previous one by McCain, CNN’s Glenn Beck commented: “McCain made a trip to the

Middle East in March and didn’t have to worry about finding any seats for any network anchors, because none of them wanted to go” (7/24/08).62 What might be perceived as a pro-Obama media bias was perhaps offset particularly since news coverage on Obama was decidedly negative earlier during the campaign. Despite the fact that Obama was forced to contend with the Reverend Wright imbroglio as well as suspicions of a Muslim terrorist background, the press decidedly favored Obama in their news coverage:

At the same time, the McCain campaign has struggled to reclaim the national political narrative from Obama. A review of 17,455 print stories between July 7 and Aug. 17 by the news-clip warehouse LexisNexis found that Obama received 38% more coverage than McCain. The tone of the coverage, the analysts concluded, was "remarkably similar," with about 31% of the Obama coverage as "negative" compared with 33% of the McCain coverage. Magazines have also shown a preference for covering Obama, with the younger candidate scoring covers of Rolling Stone, GQ, People, Vanity Fair and Men's Vogue. So far this year, Obama has graced TIME's cover seven times, compared with three for McCain and one for his running mate, Sarah Palin. Newsweek has placed Obama- focused stories on the cover eight times in 2008, vs. four for McCain. "The press

62 These headlines are from John Wilson’s “The Myth of the Pro-Obama Media Bias: Little evidence for self-proclaimed ‘lovefest.” Wilson counters several studies proclaiming any such a bias. Go to this site for further details http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3612. 208 decided the campaign was going to be about Obama," Mark Salter, McCain's close adviser and co-author of his books, said last month. "There was nothing we could do about that. The race is as we found it." (Carney & Scherer, 2008) News coverage on Obama exceeded that of McCain by almost 30 percent yet

Tyndall, a major news reporting research firm, tell us that this is to be expected.

Historically, the candidate of the party that [doesn’t] hold the White House” generally always gets more coverage. Suggesting that the Election of 2008 had more fanfare and was more newsworthy than any of the previous five Presidential elections, the site concurred on Obama’s first-place ranking for news coverage. The following charts indicate the actual news stories aired on major television networks of each candidate as well as the number of television air minutes devoted to each one during 2008:

TOP TWENTY STORIES OF 200863

News Minutes Devoted to Each Candidate Total ABC CBS NBC

2008 Obama campaign 745 261 246 239

2008 McCain campaign 531 158 167 207

2008 Rodham Clinton campaign 288 110 89 89

The fact that the public is generally always more interested in news on the less familiar candidate is also a factor and has much to do with this seeming popularity

(Wilson, 2008). Since neither McCain nor Obama were incumbents, both candidates sported some degree of “newness,” of course. But since McCain was riding on the coattails of Bush and an assumed successor, in many ways he was old news. Yet, a pro-

63 The Tyndall Report monitors the weekday nightly newscasts of the three American broadcast television networks: ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (formerly Charles Gibson), CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley (formerly Katie Couric) and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Details are available at this site http://tyndallreport.com/yearinreview2008/. 209 Obama nuance to media coverage clearly became evident as the campaign progressed after the respective party conventions in August of 2008. McCain’s complaint that the mainstream media had chosen Obama as their favorite is not without warrant. Andrew

Tyndall blogs the three newscasts on a daily basis. He reports that news air time or minutes devoted to Obama surpassed that of McCain by more than 200 minutes:

FOCUS ON CANDIDATES (three-nets total mins)64

2008 Barack Obama 745 John McCain 531

2004 John Kerry 445 George W Bush 352

2004 Al Gore 297 George W Bush 339

2004 Bill Clinton 174 Bob Dole 337

2004 Bill Clinton 448 George HW Bush 461

2004 Michael Dukakis 421 George HW Bush 388

What is more provocative and perhaps more salient as it relates to this question of media bias is Bernard Goldberg’s commentary on the media’s failure to report on the inflammatory nature and certainly newsworthiness of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons

(see Chapter 4) and its impact on Obama’s campaign. Currently a news analyst for FOX

News, Goldberg worked as a CBS news correspondent from 1972 to 1974 before moving to FOX News. Goldberg makes the case that although Wright’s tapes on ABC’s Good

Morning America were broadcasted March 13, 2008 (and went viral on the Internet worldwide the day after), the New York Times didn’t respond until March 15. Even then, the Times’ article was not only oblique, it was almost deferential to Obama calling

64 This data is also based on data from the Tyndall site for the 2008 election. Refer to this site for a wide variety of topic issues at http://tyndallreport.com/yearinreview2008/. 210 Wright’s racist sermons a mere “a grab bag of statements” (Goldberg, 2009, p. 76). In response to the firestorm of controversy that erupted shortly after his affiliation with

Wright went public, Obama gave his “A More Perfect Union” address on March 18.

According to Goldberg, “the Times ran a ‘news analysis’ of the speech that read like a rave review written by the Obama Girl” (p. 77):

Never in my memory were so many journalists so intent on effecting change as they were during the campaign of 2008. Sure, mainstream journalists always root for the Democrat. But this time it was different. This time journalists were not satisfied merely being partisan witnesses to history. This time they wanted to be real players and help determine the outcome. This time they were on a mission—a noble, historic mission, as far as they were concerned…The intensity of this love affair grew exponentially once Obama began running for president. The media not only gave him extremely favorable coverage, but they also took the only real contender for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, into the back room and beat her with a rubber hose. There was a simple explanation for this: in liberal media circles, race trumps sex. It was more important, as many journalists saw it, that America get its first black president than its first woman president. Or as political pundit Mike Barnicle put it on MSNBC just four days before the election, an Obama victory would represent an “only-in-America tale” that would provide a (sic) “a great reflection” of America to the rest of the world. It was more important (pp. 4-5). Evidence of bias was overwhelming. You couldn’t turn on your TV during the campaign without hearing some slobbering reporter refer to Obama as a “rock star.” McCain, on the other hand, was the old, grumpy, white guy (p. 14).

To support his claim that the media is not only liberal, but “in bed” with Obama from a journalistic perspective, Goldberg backs his argument with supporting data from a third party source. In railing MSNBC for their blast of critical news on McCain vs.

Obama, Goldberg references some telling numbers: 73 percent of stories aired by

MSNBC on McCain were negative while only 14 percent were negative in Obama’s case

211 (p. 30). These numbers are based on the six weeks between early September and mid-

October of 2008 according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEW):65

Fig 2

Tracking Media Bias: McCain and Obama

What Goldberg does not take into account are the very different numbers and ratios also documented on the media’s reaction to Obama during the month of September.

PEW reports that during the week following the Republican convention (Sept. 8-14), the percentage of negative news on Obama was almost double that of positive news (41% negative vs. 20% positive).66 Goldberg also fails to include the level of negative vs. positive news coverage generated by FOX News on Obama. If one looks at the

65Data is based on studies conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence. In this project, staff examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16, 2008. See their October 29, 2008 report, “The Color of News: How Different Media Have Covered the General Election” at their website http://www.journalism.org/node/13436. 66 These numbers are based on findings from the Project of Excellence which examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16. The report is a companion to a study released October 22 regarding the tone of coverage overall. The reader should refer to this website for more detailed information http://www.journalism.org/node/13436. 212 percentages for FOX, the numbers are slightly reversed. While 22% of news stories on

McCain were positive vs. 14% in the press overall, 40% of FOX News stories were seen as negative in Obama’s case.67 Obviously, the degree or percentage of negative news fluctuated on each candidate given the circumstances or events occurring at the time (e.g., the fall of Lehman Brothers, McCain’s comments on the safety of the financial markets,

Obama’s suspected Muslim heritage, alliances with Weather Underground, etc.).

Commonly perceived as left-leaning, MSNBC may or may not be fair game for

Goldberg’s attacks, given his own affiliation with FOX News, a conservative, right- leaning cable channel that understandably might take exception to some of MSNBC’s coverage of Obama. In their survey, the Pew Research Center confirms the level of partisanship, therefore polarization, between cable news channels like MSNBC and Fox

News. Even so, one must dig a little further to ask the unspoken question: why would or should the media even care about Obama winning the election?

Goldberg suggests that liberal white guilt was the reason why journalists flocked to Obama’s side and goes so far as to say “they were trying to redeem their own racial virtue” (p. 42). Goldberg might be accused of bias, himself, in some respects given his in- depth interview (and full chapter) with conservative FOX News talk show host Rush

Limbaugh on the media’s predilection for Obama. Bias, notwithstanding, it is

Limbaugh’s comment and allusion to the partisanship, perhaps even stark polarization, that has become firmly entrenched in the media that is worth noting. This polarization in cable news outlets is particularly egregious and speaks to an ideological divide between

67 Also see the Project for Excellence website link cited above for these numbers. 213 FOX News and MSNBC so pronounced that Limbaugh reflects on the damage done to

NBC, itself, following MSNBC’s coverage on Obama when queried by Goldberg:

I think they damaged the NBC brand but I don’t think anyone over there cares about that right now, owing to the euphoria at pushing Obama over the top. MSNBC is the official network of left-wing lunatics and there are enough of them to accrue enough of an audience for MSNBC to be satisfied. Their big challenge now will be to satisfy that lunatic audience without George Bush around to bitch about every night. I suspect MSNBC will now focus on the critics of Obama to continue offering meat to their deranged audience…what we need to learn is that we can never expect a fair shot from the media, and to hope for that is just plain stupid. Republicans and conservatives must finally realize they will have two opponents in every election: the Democratic candidate and the media. (pp. 53-54)

Both Goldberg and Limbaugh can certainly make an argument for the amount of actual news coverage or stories devoted to Obama vs. McCain. Andrew Tyndall of the

Tyndall Report, a blogger and monitor of daily national news for the last twenty years, confirmed that the amount of news coverage devoted to Obama vs. McCain was almost

2-to-1.68 But had these same comparisons been conducted or made during the months of

March and April, the negative news percentages for Obama might have been higher— especially among conservative media sources--given that Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s tapes were made public in early March. To add fuel to the fire, the tone of news coverage on Obama became less than favorable during the summer. According to the Center for

68 Contrary to Goldberg’s lament, McCain received a sizeable percentage of coverage (203 minutes from Jan-June 2008), exceeding that of Bush ’88 (167), Perot ’92 (161), Clinton ’92 (158), and Kerry ’04 (157). True, Obama more than doubled this number by clocking 489 minutes, but Tyndall offers a number of reasons (e.g., historic nature of election, race, the Bradley Effect, and the sensationalistic events surrounding Obama (e.g., Jesse Jackson’s castration comment). Many of these stories were not positive news events and offset Goldberg’s claim to some extent. See Tyndall’s website for 7/25/2008 which chronicles the public’s opinions and explanations, for the Obama deluge of coverage at http://tyndallreport.com/comment/20/2966/.

214 Media and Public Affairs, Obama’s the percentage of negative news coverage during July of 2008 rose considerably. Following the primaries, on-air coverage of Barack Obama was 72% negative vs. 28% positive. McCain’s coverage was measured and perceived as being 57% negative vs. 43% positive during the same time period. 69 Exact reasons for this upsurge are not clear but might one might wish to consider the other forces that were at play around this same period.

On July 28, the New Yorker released an edition of the magazine that sold-out soon after hitting newsstands.70 Spotlighting Barack Obama as a Muslim terrorist and giving a fist-bump to Michelle Obama, also dressed in terrorist garb and toting a gun, any long- forgotten or latent suspicions of Obama’s Muslim background immediately became front- and-center for millions. This may have sparked suspicions not only with the press but the public, as well. On September 28, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart parodied the New

Yorker’s cover with their own version of the Obama’s Muslim tryst on the cover of

Entertainment Weekly. 71

69 In “Media Bash Barack (Not a Typo)” Donald Rieck of the Center for Media and Public Affairs offers a very different set of numbers regarding the media’s perceptions of Obama. In this case, largely negative. Go to this site for details: http://www.cmpa.com/Studies/Election08/election%20news%207_29_08.htm .

70 This comment is based on my own efforts to buy a copy of the magazine when it hit newsstands. I visited a number of newsstands and bookstores in Austin, Texas but was told none were available. According to booksellers and vendors, they sold-out instantly. Of course, readers in other parts of the country may have had more luck in finding a copy. 71 Source: On the cover of the July 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker, in 'The Politics of Fear,' artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign." Taking their into newsprint, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart grace the cover of the September 28, 2008 edition of Entertainment Weekly by imitating the New Yorker’s front cover, lampooning the magazine and perhaps the media and public’s perceptions at the same time. See this website http://www.newser.com/tag/33707/1/entertainment-weekly.html. 215 Fig 3

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart impersonating the Obamas

Lampooning the New Yorker’s take on Obama’s suspected Muslim ancestry, one cannot be sure if the New Yorker caricature was effective in satirizing the scare tactics that had been used to derail Obama’s election. More simply put did the New Yorker caricature serve to only confirm or reinforce some of the public’s pre-existing beliefs or assumptions regarding Obama? On a lighter note, did Colbert and Stewart’s lampooning of the New Yorker cover reassure audiences and convince skeptical voters to take the

216 allegations of Muslim ancestry with a grain of salt? Since the audiences for both magazines are uniquely different from one another, one cannot be sure that the person who read the New Yorker also read Entertainment Weekly or if either magazine made an impression in that person’s voting decision.

If we return to Goldberg’s assumption that a liberal media was initially dismissive of the Wright tapes as being real news, one should note the following: the public did not need the media to interpret the implications of Obama’s affiliation for them when the news became public anyway. Obama’s popularity or likelihood of winning office immediately plummeted. Again, the role of the media is that of a purveyor of information that can be selective in what it chooses to share with the public (and what it does not) and how that news is shaped. But in many ways, the public, itself, must be given some credit.

Obama’s approval ratings fell sharply following the Wright announcement. In fact, only days after the ABC broadcast, Obama’s unfavorable ratings, for overall demographics, jumped from 44% to 50%. Among white voters, the unfavorable numbers jumped to

54%.72 Did the public need the mainstream media to make the announcement?

In many ways, the public mans the controls of its own media if we factor in the power of the Internet and online media. Consider the millions who were able to actually tune-in and play back Wright’s damning sermons ad infinitum at their leisure on

YouTube or the hundreds of websites that magically sprang up following the ABC broadcast. Thus, understanding how the public, itself, reacts to the actual news events

72 In “Poll Shows Rev. Jeremiah Wright Hurting Barack Obama,” March 17, 2008, the Los Angeles Times shows the damage done to Obama’s chances of election victory. Go to this site for further details: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/03/poll-shows-rev.html. 217 surrounding each candidate, with or without the media’s interpretation, should also be seen as relevant. Looking at the campaign from the perspective of the voting public, there were periods when McCain had the advantage and might have won the election, given news events that were seen as detrimental to Obama’s candidacy (e.g., Reverend

Wright’s sermons). This focus on the daily polling or measurement of public opinion based on the worthiness or electability of the candidate at any particular moment during the campaign is better known as horse race analysis. Commonly used, this journalism strategy is relevant to this argument of rhetorical race management in two ways: one, voter reaction or response to politically life-threatening events (e.g., the Wright tapes) could be clearly documented with polling data. Just as importantly, data from a horse race analysis tracks the public’s response to Obama’s rebuttal (his A More Perfect Union speech) and other events which might have been key in his or McCain’s election. The media operated in a myriad number of ways during this election. A better definition of horse race journalism and its role in previous presidential elections might be useful.

Certainly one can come up with at least a half dozen other reasons for the media’s interest in Obama versus that of McCain. A relative newcomer to the politics of

Washington D.C., Obama was fresh and new in a number of respects. But the fact that he was the first African-American male to advance to this stage of a presidential election made him more than a novelty; it was landmark in the history of the United States thus perhaps warranting more substantial news coverage. Again, the issues of race must be factored in, given that the news coverage on Obama was not entirely objective or bias-

218 free, particularly during the earlier months of the campaign when the caustic Rev.

Jeremiah Wright sermons were aired nationwide. What is interesting to note is that while

Obama’s popularity gained greater momentum during the last few months of the campaign, his chances for election were hampered significantly during the months of

March and April following revelations of his association with Wright.

If the election or ruination of a candidate can be based largely on events that occur during the election or are revealed in a candidate’s past (e.g., recall the Republican

Party’s Swift Boat smear campaign against John Kerry during the 2004 election), how do we measure the impact of those events? Perhaps complicating the process even further, factors such as the frequency and duration of the reporting, the economy, unemployment ratings, etc. also play a pivotal role in a pollster’s decision (Shaw and Roberts, 2000).

Understanding the public’s decision on whether or not to vote for a candidate might best be interpreted with a concept referred to as political handicapping or, in this case, the horse race of 2008. Horse race evaluation is generally based on a series of longitudinal surveys or polls that are taken intermittently on a long-term basis to determine how the public perceives the electability of a candidate throughout an election.

Linn et al examined a series of polls or the “trial heat” surveys conducted by

James Stimson in 2008 that measured the hypothetical “winner” of the election: Obama or McCain? By using Stimson’s mathematical algorithm and combining the data from over 900 trial-heat polls over a period of 304 days, the following chart reflects a hypothetical scenario depicting the favorability of each candidate and their likelihood to win office were the election held that day (Linn et al, 2009, p. 460): 219 Fig 4 Horse Race Analysis and Voter Predictions: Obama or McCain? (hypothetical illustration)

As the above chart suggests, the electability of each candidate would vary throughout the campaign based on events occurring at that particular time. Keep in mind that the above chart is purely hypothetical and that Linn’s work is not about public perceptions of who would win. The chart is more concerned with the readjustment of public opinion. But her timeline is useful in chronologically pegging events that, theoretically, might have had an impact on the popularity of one candidate versus the other at any given time during the campaign.

As an example, if one were to compare patterns in the above chart to actual news events that occurred during the campaign, one would find that although Obama maintained a consistent advantage or approval percentage over McCain, he ran into some trouble March 16-18 and April 25. Referring back to the section on media bias, this was the time period when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tapes were released and made public.

220 Here, he lost traction and tied with McCain. Also, between September 12-22, Obama lost momentum. In looking back at a timeline for the 2008 campaign election, one notes that it was during this time that John McCain officially accepted the Republican Party’s nomination and Sarah Palin was officially announced as McCain’s vice-presidential running mate. Also notice how McCain’s popularity skyrockets in early October (Oct. 2-

12) while Obama’s plummets. These events may have given voters greater confidence in

McCain since many assumed Palin’s addition might placate and win women voters who had previously supported Hillary Clinton.

While the media’s coverage of a political candidate can and will certainly impact the public’s opinion of that candidate, the longitudinal measurement conducted during a horse race analysis gives the reader a very different data set or statistical base to consider during a political race. This interpretation of candidates in terms of who would win if the election were held today has as much to do with the public’s interest in stories with up-to- the-minute breaking news as it does with the ever-increasing deadlines and demands faced by journalists. Hard-pressed to provide in-depth or critical research on a candidate, regular polling has become a standard. In this case, more value is placed on news

“updates” where the outcome is uncertain or in doubt as is the case with the winner during an election (Gulati, Just, & Crigler, 2004, p. 240).

Daron Shaw suggests that political party strategists may often try to assuage media demand for intimate or breaking news on a candidate with less sensitive data to boost a candidate’s standing in the polls vis-à-vis an opponent. Examples include

221 Clinton’s (1992 and 1996) and Bush’s (2000) decision to buy television airtime in non- battleground states for publicity reasons and rankings, in general (Shaw, 2006, p. 68).

Horse race politicking gives the reader a birds-eye-view of which candidate the public thinks might win the election at any given moment during the campaign.

Obviously more quantitative than qualitative, horserace analysis quickly tells you which candidate would win were the election held that day but it doesn’t tell you why the respondent would have voted the way they did. In other words, it doesn’t give you the underlying reasons or motives why a candidate was chosen over the other. In the case of

Linn’s essay, although knowing the general political leanings of certain publications is helpful in making a rough estimation of the likely political party voting tendencies of respondents, specific demographic data was absent from the survey.

As an example, knowing if a participant is a 65 year-old evangelical white

Christian vs. a 21 year-old Muslim radical allows us to interpret and make more qualified assumptions regarding the likely voting behavior or candidate support in a tracking poll. Thus, while we can assume participants chose McCain because of the

Jeremiah Wright tapes, we cannot be sure. As Obama’s election relates to the media, if we are to assume that Obama was the media’s favorite because of his skin color or white guilt--as both Goldberg and Limbaugh attest--how did these perceptions of a more positive media coverage truly impact or affect the voter’s decision at the polls if at all?

While the impact and residual effect of horse race news coverage on political elections is clearly useful, it might be helpful to look more carefully at the types of news

222 media that interpreted the campaign for us. The Election of 2008 was unique from a media perspective given the number and types of non-traditional sources that covered the campaign. Unlike presidential campaigns of ten or twenty years ago, where media coverage was limited to network television news and print newspaper reporting, the 2008 election embraced new media in a number of ways.

A broad term for media studies, new media is the collection of on-demand devices that includes both Internet websites, computer multimedia and any tools that allow the user instant access to information and even simultaneous engagement with other users on the same medium (generally online, in this case. Examples include blogging and instant messaging). If we consider or refer to traditional news mediums (e.g., print newspapers, magazines, television news programming on major network stations) as hard news, we can logically refer to these new tools of communication as soft news. Was the role of soft news significant in the election and if so, how?

Soft News versus Hard News: Impact of Both in the Voting Process

Typically “defined as any story that focuses on a human interest topic, feature,

[or] non-policy issue,” soft news works in stark contrast to the policy-driven, facts- oriented nature of hard news or mainstream news seen on major television networks like

CBS, ABC, or NBC (Scott & Gobetz, 1992, p. 408). Popular among the 18-25 age demographic, soft news television programming is relevant in our question of rhetorical race management, given that “young voters preferred Obama over John McCain by 68 percent to 30 percent, the highest share of the youth vote since exit polls began reporting

223 results by age in 1972” (Dahl, 2008). How significant was soft news media programming in Obama’s win at the polls?

The recent emergence and burgeoning growth of daytime television talk shows and certain radio programming can be considered a form or type of soft news. As evidence, one need only refer back to Rush Limbaugh’s complaint of a liberal, weepy- eyed media that seemingly followed Obama’s every waking moment to ascertain that certain factions of the media, particularly television talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh of FOX News probably were not huge Obama fans, to say the least. If 53 percent of the

American public voted for Obama that means 47% did not.73 They voted for McCain.

And while horse race polls, in general, do not tell us exactly why a voter did or did not vote for a candidate, political affiliation is a cardinal rule in the large majority of voter decisions.

Twenty, even forty years ago, analysis of presidential news coverage found little or no real evidence of partisan bias in political news reporting (Kaid, 2004, p. 239). Of course, twenty or forty years ago, the media was largely dominated by three major networks and print newspapers. If Kaid tells us that there was no partisan bias, perhaps that was because the public had few options or alternatives to network television. With the introduction of more specialized, more esoteric media (e.g., cable, soft news, Internet websites), listeners are able to tune in (and tune out) news commentary that complements

73 Scott Rasmussen was probably the most accurate of all pollsters in reporting the final outcome for the 2008 election. Only off by a percentage point, he predicted Obama would win by 52% and McCain lose by earning only 46% of the popular vote. See this site for more details http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/the-rasmussen-presidential-approval-index-is-this-newer- measurement-worth-anything.php . 224 and is consistent with their beliefs and attitudes. With more specialized media tools comes inherent bias. Commonly known as partisan politics, this predilection for news coverage that is not only biased but overtly slanted towards one candidate vs. the other dominated the Election of 2008 in a number of ways. Let us return to Rush Limbaugh to support this claim.

Boasting roughly 15 million listeners, Rush Limbaugh’s radio talk show is aired on over 650 radio stations throughout the country. Marked by decidedly conservative themes and positionality, Limbaugh is credited with hosting the most popular radio talk show in the country.74 Sean Hannity’s own conservative radio program runs a close second with 14 million listeners. Generally, like-minded audiences tend to both watch and listen to media that espouses similar values, e.g., conservative and Republican audiences are probably more likely to listen to Limbaugh than watch MSNBC, a more liberal news program and vice-versa.

In Niche News:The Politics of News Choice, Natalie Stroud refers to this politics of choice as partisan selective exposure, or a behavior that leads individuals to select news sources that match their own views. Consequently, if Obama is grilled during a defensive interrogation on Bill O’Reilly’s show but affectionately embraced like a brother on Thom Hartmann’s or Jon Stewart’s show, this is seen as indicative of the ideological stance of audiences who probably listen to or watch those respective programs. From a political party standpoint, the equation might work thusly: Republicans

74 This claim is cited on the Talker’s website of radio show rankings and is based on Arbitron audience rankings. The reader can access their site to determine the neutrality of this claim at http://www.talkers.com/top-talk-radio-audiences/. Similar numbers are cited on the Pew Research Center’s website, http://www.journalism.org/node/9373. 225 watch Bill O’Reilly’s programming while Democrats delight in the dry humor and sarcasm of like-minded liberals with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Of course, measuring or gauging the impact of those ideological stances on actual voter turn-out at the election polls in November is far more difficult to calculate or even estimate. But given its surge in popularity within the last ten years, soft news has made serious inroads into both audience viewership and the profitability of network news stations.75 Especially impactful on the youth demographic of voters ages 18-24, soft news indirectly manages race by not only hard-wiring pre-existing partisan beliefs about a candidate but by educating audiences who had little or no interest in politics or candidates prior to the program.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example to better understand how soft news can also play a role in rhetorical race management. If an 18 year-old regularly watches either Jon

Stewart or The Stephen Colbert show and listens to an interview with Barack Obama, he or she may gain a positive perception of a black man as U.S. president. In turn, they might be likely to share these insights with family and friends and change predisposed opinions and attitudes at the same time. Of course, this is equally true if he or she regularly watches the Rush Limbaugh Show, but the far-reaching effects of soft news on a demographic that historically showed little to no interest in political news gains purchase for one reason. When one considers the exponential growth in youth voter

75 Though Anthony Crupi reports higher ratings and viewership numbers for the major networks in his “Broadcast News Rebounds in 2011” in Adweek, the article also cites their losses in audience share since 1992, largely due to the sheer numbers of alternative news sources like cable, the Internet, etc. Go to this site for specifics: http://www.adweek.com/news/television/broadcast-news-rebounds-2011-137343.

226 turnout during the election and Obama’s command of that vote, one should at least consider the possible role of soft news in that outcome.76 In one study that evaluated findings from the 2000 Election Study, Baum and Jamison (2006) concluded that soft news does, indeed, have an indirect effect on voter behavior:

We find that politically inattentive individuals who consumed daytime talk shows (a popular form of soft news) were more likely than their nonconsuming, inattentive counterparts to vote for the candidate who best represented their self- described preferences. This suggests soft news can facilitate voting “competence” among at least some citizens.

In 1990, 74 percent of Americans said they had a great deal or some confidence in the press. A decade later, that number had fallen to 58 percent. During the same period, confidence in other institutions remained stable. Even as early as 1985, the audience’s lack of trust in ABC News rose from 13 percent to 36 percent while CNN’s went from

15 percent to 28 percent (Doherty, 2005). What has happened is that audiences have been lured away from the traditionally objective or neutral stance of network news to partisan mediums that have a decidedly ideological persuasion. As a result, those audiences become hard-wired in their original attitudes and convictions thus further reinforcing existing political beliefs. Whether this is a negative or positive consequence is also debatable.

76 According to the Pew Research Center, in 2008, 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972. See their website for more details at http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/. 227 Stroud argues that one added effect of a partisan media is that it can inspire more active political engagement and participation in the political process, even helping some members of the public to decide on their favorite candidate earlier in the election cycle

(Stroud, 2011, p. 118). Perhaps more sobering is how partisan news can also serve to reinforce and entrench negative beliefs or misconceptions about a candidate or political issue. Unfortunately, the actual impact of Rush Limbaugh’s scathing diatribe of Obama versus a reverent description of John McCain and its effect on the public’s final decision at the voting poll is probably almost impossible to measure. But what any discussion of partisan news and selective exposure may ask us to consider is the value of news, in and of itself, especially as it relates to its definition. If Limbaugh’s (or Bill O’Reilly’s, Jon

Stewart’s or Stephen Colbert’s) opinions are considered as soft news, are they just as valid as that of hard news?

Typically described as “more sensational, more personality-centered, less time- bound, more practical, and more incident-based than other news,” the virtues of soft news programming and its ability to effectively contribute to the democratic process have been widely debated (Patterson, 2000). Oftentimes perceived as a media form that trivializes weighty issues like political campaigns (see Zillmann et al, Edy & Snidow), Brewer and

Cao contend that soft news television shows are not only associated with greater knowledge about primary campaigns but that audiences are better informed as a result of soft news programming primarily due to the in-depth candidate appearances on these types of shows (p. 19). Inclusive of newspapers, news magazines and network television news programming, hard news, on the other hand, is historically categorized as being 228 factual (see Baum and Scott & Gobetz). Shows like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show

(liberal) or Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor (conservative), on the other hand, tend to be more opinionated than conventional news and are therefore perceived as examples of soft news simply because there is an implied political allegiance within the program itself. Unlike hard news, soft news television interviews tend to allow the political interviewee more time to elaborate on issues or questions that conventional news stories on network television or newspaper journalists generally don’t allow, usually for reasons of time. Evocative more of cocktail hour chit-chat than a hard news story, soft news programming may be absent of any public policy component focusing more on sensationalistic entertainment than hard factual data (Baum, 2002, p. 92). But just as importantly, it can still offer potential for affecting public opinion on candidate choices during an election.

For example, in their study, Brewer and Cao (Young, 2004) cite research that tied late-night television show political exposure to the public’s rating of presidential traits as well as its effect on the attitudes of television viewers towards a political candidate and voting intentions (Baum, 2005). In another study, more than half of the 222 news stories that appeared in Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show in 2005 were targeted on political issues while a fourth specifically addressed issue frames.77 Generally perceived as satirical programming more focused on comedic spoofs or “fake” news that oftentimes comes at the expense of politicians and celebrities interviewed on the show, soft news is gaining

77 These findings are based on a content analysis that examined news stories and interviews in 52 episodes of The Daily Show in 2005. 229 greater ground as a medium that can change public opinion. Research “suggest(s) that

The Daily Show may have the potential to educate viewers about politics (including policy issues), draw their attention to events in world affairs, and encourage them to think critically—or perhaps cynically—about traditional news” (Brewer & Marquardt, 2007, p.

249). The demographics for soft news is especially compelling given its focus on the youth market, a demographic largely written-off as non-voters who have little or no interest in the political process. The primary demographic for Stewart’s show is 18-to-34 year-old viewers. Even as early as 2004, a 13-minute segment of CNN starring Stewart was downloaded 1.5 million times, surpassing the viewership of “Crossfire,” a CNN current affairs program that aired from 1982 to 2005 (Cave, 2004). Commenting that the percentage of American viewers who claim they regularly watch network news to be 3 to

4 times higher than those who follow any particular talk show or entertainment news format, Markus Prior adds that “soft news still attracts millions of viewers and ranks among the top 3 news formats for about a third of the population” (2003, p. 154).

Whether soft news’ allure and fascination with the youth market significantly impacted their actual vote during the election is debatable. What is significant and should go without question is the commercial value of soft news or entertainment programming.

When Tina Fey impersonated Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live in September of 2008, just two months prior to the election,

Saturday Night Live enjoyed audience ratings it hadn’t experienced since 1994.78 But

78 The UK Guardian reports that Tina Fey’s impersonation on Saturday Night Live (SNL) was watched by around 17 million viewers, according to the Associated Press. 230 just as some shows can elevate the stature or perceptions of a political candidate in the eyes of its audience, they can equally damn or relegate that same candidate to widespread public ridicule. Fey’s unflattering, satirical portrayal of Palin is such an example.

Alternatively, when political candidates make appearances on programs that are in sync or in agreement with the political leanings of the shows’ general audience, these cameo appearances can serve to not only boost the audience viewership of the show, they may also reinforce or hard-wire preexisting beliefs and attitudes about that candidate and perhaps political perceptions about that candidate’s opponent and political issues in general (Iyengar, 2011).

Iyengar cites a study where participants were asked to examine fictitious news headlines and choose the accompanying story they would prefer to read, if given a choice. Not surprisingly, Republicans and conservatives tended to favor news stories from Fox, while Democrats and liberals eschewed Fox in favor of CNN and NPR instead

(p. 61). Given that soft news programming tends not to be objective and, to some extent, even partisan, the concern or fear is that these types of programs may serve only to reinforce existing attitudes or beliefs.

Since the large majority of us have developed an alliance to the primary political parties early in life, it is obviously the swing voter that a candidate is most interested in wooing and winning come election time. New data suggests that the percentage of swing voters has substantially declined in recent years. A Pew Research Center study “found

This made SNL the third highest-rated show of the week in the US, behind Dancing with the Stars and CSI. Fey's portrayal of Palin boosted SNL's ratings by 76% during the season compared to the same time during the previous year. Their website can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/20/ustelevision- tvratings. 231 that self-identified Democrats are more liberal than in the past and [that] self-identified

Republicans are more conservative” than in the past (Berg, 2012, p. A14). How much of this allegiance is due to the impact of soft news media? One observation that is certain is that Obama embraced both new media, soft news and the Internet, in general, unlike any other presidential candidate during the election. For that discussion, we focus on the powers of new media and the role that it played during the campaign.

The Internet King

A chapter on the media’s interpretation of Obama’s rhetoric is probably warranted since the media has a significant hand in affecting the public’s opinion of a candidate, particularly when that rhetoric is unusually newsworthy.79 But some discussion on the role of the Internet in Obama’s election is equally salient since much of the new media

(e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) is driven by the consumer and not the media. Over the course of the 21-month campaign, Obama raised half a billion dollars online (Vargas,

Jose Antonio, 2008). To what extent was Obama’s rhetoric responsible for affecting and realizing these levels of engagement?

Although certainly setting a precedent for the sheer numbers of Internet users and participants who volunteered to support his campaign, Obama was not the first

79 By definition, “newsworthy” might be defined as any event that enrages the public nationwide and becomes a unilateral outcry. The revelation of Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. was one such perfect storm. In response, Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech, aired on national television Tuesday, March 18, 2008, was viewed online nearly 2.5 million times by that Friday afternoon. Online searches for Obama skyrocketed 7,627 percent the day after he gave this speech. In addition to this, the speech received almost unanimous positive, even glowing approval by both the media and the public (as seen on the hundreds of Internet blogs that allowed the public to post their opinion following the speech). The reader can refer to the AFP’s article at this site for details http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hk5k_4GTjX1jadJTk23xAnxcxYUA. 232 presidential contender to take advantage of new media. In 2004, a year after using the

Internet for online contributions, Howard Dean broke Bill Clinton’s record for political fundraising for the Democratic Party (Anderson, 2004). In 1992, Bill Clinton’s administration invested almost $2 trillion in the information superhighway and is credited with penetrating listserv and email markets to gather data to reach citizens directly to mine their voting habits (Gronbeck, 2009, pp. 230-231).

What sets Obama apart is the level of ground-up user support or the grassroots strategy that he and his team cultivated and commanded throughout the campaign. As an example, the fact that 3 million people signed up to receive Obama’s online vice- presidential announcement should come as no surprise and, perhaps, is not out of the ordinary, given society’s recent embrace of Internet technologies. What should come as a surprise is the fact that Obama’s first joint appearance with vice-president Joe Biden could only be viewed and seen on www.BarackObama.com – not CBS, ABC, CNN, or

MSNBC. Given that 50 percent of American households now get their political news online, Obama’s team courted Internet users for good reason (Rasiej and Sifry, 2008).

As with horse race analysis, it is difficult, if not impossible to gauge the actual impact Internet technologies might have had on the voting decision of users during the election. But it is safe to say that unlike Dean and Clinton, Obama sparked a different digital revolution in that his was truly a bottom-up operation. By “bottom-up,” I mean a media campaign where members of the public are actually in control of the outcomes of that media. In this case, the millions of emails that were sent, worldwide or the hundreds of Facebook social groups that sprung up the day following Obama’s candidacy 233 announcement is an example of this grass-roots or bottom-up campaigning. The public wrote the messages, decided who would get (or would not get) those messages, and controlled actual outcomes of their own editorial; not ABC, CNN, newspapers, or mainstream magazines. This ability to contact and enlist the American public created a

“snowball effect” that allowed Obama to enlist millions of supporters online without costing his campaign a penny.

Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and FOX News consultant, comments that the total sum of the speeches, media marketing and public relations announcements on

YouTube alone was watched 14.5 million hours. Trippi adds that to buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV would have cost roughly $47 million (Cain Miller, Claire, 2008):

 During the campaign, Obama gained 5 million supporters in third party social networks.

 Obama maintained a profile in more than 15 online communities, including BlackPlanet, a MySpace for African Americans, and Eons, a Facebook for baby boomers.

 On Facebook, where about 3.2 million (during the campaign) signed up as his supporters, a group called Students for Barack Obama was created in July 2007.

 It was so effective at energizing college-age voters that senior aides made it an official part of the campaign the following spring.

 And Facebook users did vote: On Facebook's Election 2008 page, which listed an 800 number to call for voting problems, more than 5.4 million users clicked on an "I Voted" button to let their Facebook friends know that they made it to the polls.80

80 See Richard MacManus’s February 9, 2009 article, “Presentation: Barack Obama’s Internet Strategy” on the Read/Write/Web website for a more complete overview of the sheer magnitude of his team’s ability to penetrate so many Internet markets. Authored by Igor Beuker of viralblog.com and research by Paul van Veenendaal http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/barack_obama_internet_strategy_presentation.php. 234 The following are statistics from Obama's main website/social network,

My.BarackObama.com:

 On MyBarackObama.com,Obama's own social network, 2 million profiles were created.

 In addition, 200,000 offline events were planned.

 About 400,000 blog posts were written.

 And more than 35,000 volunteer groups were created - at least 1,000 of them on Feb. 10, 2007, the day Obama announced his candidacy.

Just as John F. Kennedy took advantage of an electronic medium better known as the television during the early 1960s, Obama, too, took advantage of new media during the election of 2008 in much the same way. As a newcomer, suddenly thrust into an election where Internet technologies had also matured, simultaneously, Obama’s timing was more than serendipitous. Many cite Obama’s ability to interact with his constituents as a form of homespun earthiness or approachability that his competitors were unable to match. As it relates to the Obama team’s talent for masterminding the intricacies of

Internet marketing, Joe Tripp adds “this medium demands authenticity, and television for the most part demanded fake. Authenticity is something politicians haven’t been used to”

(Cain Miller, Claire, 2008). What is interesting to note is that Trippi’s definition of authenticity fails to consider how much inauthenticity or deliberate marketing went into

Obama’s campaign. It may seem incongruous in a presidential election but any discussion of the media would be remiss if there was no mention of the degree or level of actual marketing that went into this campaign as well.

235 The Marketing of Barack Obama

In “The Marketing of Barack Obama,” Manoj Sadasivan’s discussion of Obama’s campaign strategy reads more like a Harvard business school case study than a scholarly political paper (Sadasivan, 2009). In his essay, Obama’s campaign is outlined in terms of market segmentation and target marketing. Key in crafting the Obama “hope” and

“change” taglines that emblazoned the millions of posters, bumper stickers and advertisement circulated nationwide, David Axelrod, chief political consultant for

Obama’s team, promoted Obama as an agent of change.

In one of the costliest presidential elections of all time, of the $1.7 billion that was spent by candidates, “Obama spent $740.6 million, eclipsing the combined $646.7 million that Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry spent four years earlier” (Salant, 2008). But in his emphasis on market segmentation and fine-tuning reach to specific voter demographics (e.g., voters in the 18 to 24 age group broke 68 percent for Obama to 30 percent for John McCain, according to exit polling),81

Sadasivan’s discussion spends very little time on the commercial power of branding, a key construct that drove the campaign. Obama isn’t the first presidential candidate to visibly employ marketing strategy in a campaign. Bill Clinton is one such example. But while one text even suggests that Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign was more akin “to the best run [marketing] strategy of Proctor & Gamble, McDonald’s and Quaker,”

(Newman,1993, p. xv) the Clinton campaign pales in comparison to the magnitude of

81 See CNN Politics’ “Exit Polls: Obama wins big among young minority voters” at http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-04/politics/exit.polls_1_exit-polls-obama-camp-john- mccain?_s=PM:POLITICS 236 Obama’s suggesting a “seismic shift on the business horizon” unlike any other (McGirt,

2008, p. 86).

In looking at other publications outside of conventional essays and papers normally cited in scholarly research, books and articles like Inbound Marketing

(Halligan & Shah, 2010) and “How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama,” (Quelch,

2008) predicate a markedly different theme for the type of editorial normally written on political candidates. While Quelch squarely (and very succinctly) hits the nail on the head by summarizing the eight top strategies Obama’s team employed during the campaign,

Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, a major advertising agency, is even more exacting: “Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand. New, different, and attractive. That’s as good as it gets” (McGirt, p. 87).

Roughly three weeks before he won the general election in November of 2008,

Obama won Advertising Age’s marketer of the year award for 2008, beating out companies like Apple and Zappos.com. Winning the votes of hundreds of advertising and marketing personnel, nationwide, Obama’s ability to enter the market as a relative unknown and develop global name brand recognition was cited as one of the primary reasons he surpassed even Nike, Coors and Proctor & Gamble in the competition

(Creamer, 2008). So, in many ways, if the Presidential Campaign of 2008 was interpreted or perceived as a marketing campaign, one must ponder the following question: was

Obama, himself, perhaps a commodity?

Accused of celebrity fandom by rival John McCain, the sheer level of public exposure (marketing exposure?) that Obama enjoyed was not typical of most presidential 237 contenders. Gracing the cover of the Rolling Stone’s March 2008 issue, Obama was featured on the cover of Time 14 times during 2008 and 12 times by Newsweek.82 This doesn’t include front cover spreads for Vanity Fair (July 2007), Vibe (July 2007), GQ

(August 2007), Atlantic Monthly (December 2007) or the countless other magazines, television appearances, posters, coffee cups, dolls and other marketing paraphernalia that blossomed shortly after he announced his candidacy in February of 2007.83

Of course, any media criticism of Obama must be tempered by the level of one’s own investment or lack of investment in Barack Obama, himself, and the Democratic

Party, in general. It makes sense that Rush Limbaugh and Bernard Goldberg are critical of Obama since they represent the opposing side (e.g., conservative Republicans). But when the criticism comes from a third party or outside arbiter who really has no stake in either the Republican or Democratic Party, we are inclined to consider the source. The very left-wing, perhaps radical, World Socialist Web Site also weighed-in on Obama’s campaign marketing success in the Presidential Election of 2008. But unlike Linda

Clarizio, president of AOL (Quote: "I think he did a great job of going from a relative unknown to a household name to being a candidate for president") or Business Week marketing columnist’s Jon Fine (Quote: "It's the f***in' Web 2.0 thing"), Tom Eley of the Socialist Web left readers with the following prophesy on Obama’s branding expertise: caveat emptor or let the buyer beware. Mistaking competency as a politician

82 This NBC News online piece compares Obama’s media exposure to that of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Read further at this site: http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2008/12/17/4432215-obama-appeared- on-half-of-time-covers?lite. 83 The reader can access this site to appreciate the volume of media exposure Obama received as early as 2006 http://www.reobama.com/MagazinesUS.htm. 238 with the ability to target market or reach audiences with millions of slick “HOPE” and

“CHANGE” slogans and propaganda seems to be his biggest beef. But, as well-informed scholars, we must stop to ask ourselves if his argument holds any merit:

The World Socialist Web Site has long argued that a particularly degrading feature of US political life is the promotion of persona and image as a means of confusing and diverting the social anger arising from the shared reactionary policies of the two-party system. With the Obama campaign, the image-making reached a new level. (Eley, 2008)

The implication, perhaps, is that there should have been some sort of anger or rush to change regarding social justice in this election, something previous African-

American rhetors and political candidates always did. As discussed in Chapter 1--and based on the majority of mainstream media accounts--there was none. Instead, millions were spent on posters, propaganda, and Internet social networking tools to elect a black candidate whose political campaign platform was an equal blend of all issues, favoring only universal health care. The question is why? What are we missing in our analysis of

Barack Obama?

Conclusion

Since no project or literary analysis of Barack Obama’s election would be complete without at least a cursory examination of the role of the media, this chapter focused primarily on media bias for two reasons: (1) to illustrate that there was some element of bias in the Election of 2008 and (2) to demonstrate that the bias was primarily limited to cable news or soft news media.

239 A chapter on the media was seen as particularly relevant in our discussion of rhetorical race management because the media, in some ways, further polarized a widening chasm between liberals and conservatives. No news or research data could be found that indicates any significant levels of media bias or preference shown to a U.S. presidential candidate in any previous elections to the extent shown to Obama during the election of 2008. If the media’s preference or adulation of Obama was based on racial guilt, the unfortunate consequence was increasing animosity between political parties. As it relates to Obama’s ability to manage race, it may appear that a liberal media served him well during the election; however, in Chapter 6, evidence will show differently.

If one assumes that only right-wing, conservative talk show hosts like Rush

Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly were anti-Obama, the reader is wise to consider another important factor: both Limbaugh and O’Reilly have considerable audiences. Those audiences did not take lightly to Obama’s antidote for rhetorical race management or the logical appeals of MLK’s theological exigencies during the 1960s. In Chapter 6, I conclude this project with a discussion on the illusion of a post-racial America and the very real consequences of electing an African-American as president of the United States.

240 Chapter 6

Racializing Postmodernism in the Age of Obama

All the hunters gather up; we have a nigger in the White House

Buck Burnette, Offensive Lineman, Univ. of Texas at Austin, Facebook page, November 5, 2008

On November 5, 2008, the day following Obama’s election, a curious thing happened as it relates to the media. While mainstream newspapers like the New York

Times were trumpeting his victory as our country’s first breakthrough in race relations on the front page (“Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory”), other news sources were less kind.

Following his election, an anti-Obama backlash in the form of racial slurs, racist websites and a string of violent crimes lodged against Obama supporters quickly sprouted-up across the country. Widely perceived as his largest demographic of voter support, the number of racially-sparked incidents that occurred at college campuses is perhaps a particularly ironic example. The day after Obama’s election, racist hate messages were scribbled and spray-painted on the walls of the Free Expression Tunnel at

North Carolina State University (Allred, 2008). At the University of Texas at Austin, back-up center Buck Burnette was kicked-off the football team for posting a particularly egregious comment on his Facebook page: “All the hunters gather up, we have a nigger in the White House” (Parks & Heard, 2009). A few states away, a life-sized caricature doll of Obama was found hanging from a noose on a tree at the University of Kentucky. 241 The number of violent crimes, including assaults and attacks on supporters either driving cars with Obama bumper stickers or wearing Obama paraphernalia numbered in the hundreds just two months following the election. A black church was torched in

Springfield, Massachusetts while owners of a motel in Huntsville, Alabama replaced an

American flag with a Confederate flag protesting voters’ decision “to put a Marxist in the

White House” (Keller, 2009).

Even Michelle Obama got a taste of this racial antipath. Compared and likened to

Aunt Jemima, the venerable black pancake mammy of the kitchen and a slavery era more than 100 years ago, numerous U.S. websites matter-of-factly referred to her to new role in the White House.84 Dressed comfortably in slave clothing with a rag tied to her head and her right breast flopping over the American flag, she graces the cover of a popular lifestyle magazine in Spain where even a British writer calls it a “racist train wreck” headed straight for collision.85

Back in the U.S., the number of hate group websites mushroomed, growing from

150 in 2008 to 512 in 2009 then to 824 in 2010. In 2011, the numbers grew to 1,274, roughly a 755% increase in just three years (Potok, 2012). Seemingly isolated incidents

84 The reader can access Ugly America’s site to gauge the extent of racism and hatred of blacks voiced online: http://uglyamerica.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/is-michelle-obama-americas-new-mammy/

85 This disturbing image of Michelle Obama graced the August 2012 cover of Spain’s magazine Fuera de Serie. The reader can inspect this website to read the original article at: http://fueradeserie.expansion.com/2012/08/10/personajes/1344591523.html. A critical analysis of the article is available at http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/08/michelle-obama-undressed-lost-in- translation-or-just-racist/n Catherine Squires also makes reference to the media’s Aunt Jemima portrayal of Michelle in “Bursting the Bubble: A Case Study of Counter-framing in the Editorial Pages,” in Critical Studies in Communication.”

242 of racial tension, these underreported events were, perhaps, a form of backlash that even the White House anticipated months before the actual election day.

The White House traditionally takes safety precautions when any newly elected president wins office in response to eccentric kooks or possible assassin attempts. For

Obama, things worked a little differently. Even as early as 2007, the Secret Service was called upon to provide protection at a significantly higher level not normally required for presidential candidates but for good reason. On August 24, the day before the Democratic

Convention, police officers confiscated a Dodge pickup truck loaded with bullet-resistant armor, wigs, two rifles, walkie-talkies, and mounted scopes. The truck was headed for the

Mile High Stadium at Invesco Field where Obama was scheduled to speak (Johnson,

USA TODAY, 2008). The number of death threats that never get past White House security or make the headlines in newspapers and websites should give room for pause, if nothing else.

As it relates to rhetorical race management, this alarming resurgence in isolated hate crimes and the burgeoning growth in the number of hate groups released a perverse and very dangerous set of dialectics more akin to a Ku Klux Klan tea party or scenes from The Birth of a Nation. Were we really as post-racial as we thought we were the day following Obama’s election? Obama’s reluctance to forcefully address the race question or any question concerning social activism or social unrest is, in many ways, a moot point for one reason: it was not the message or the rhetoric that was problematic but the messenger himself. If we turn back to Chapter 2, these isolated incidents of racial hate crime speak to the new racism described by Kinder and Sears in 1991. Entrenched 243 stereotypes that are embedded in the psyches of thousands, if not millions, don’t respond well to conventional rhetorical race management. Consequently, if Obama’s election is reflective of a new way of thinking that many refer to as the dawning of a post-racial

America, the reality is that this assumption is not universal. Instead, these incidents of racial antipathy and hostility harbor some unpleasant truths. Historical racism is alive and well but has been compartmentalized and rendered politically correct. How do these acts of violence and hate crimes fit into the equation of rhetorical race management?

Chapter 6 opens with details of the hidden backlash of racial antipathy that erupted only days following Obama’s election. I suggest that the identity crisis we assumed Obama faced was, in reality, our own. More specifically, if Obama harbored any illusions or misconceptions regarding the existence of historical racism in the United

States, the likelihood is good that he no longer does. If Obama’s election heralds the dawn of a progressive attitudinal shift in this country’s politics, the public’s response does not indicate it. Since he assiduously avoided any discussion of racial grievances, save on one occasion, Obama clearly was not interested in protecting or championing the rights of blacks, the poor, or any other socially disenfranchised group. So what does this tell us? Perhaps that historical racism is alive and well. If this is so, how did other

African-American leaders manage historical racism in the past?

I have spent little time on either spirituality or religion since neither is endemic of traditional political campaigns. But as the first African-American to become a presidential candidate in the history of the United States, Obama was not a typical contender for the office. His ability to take advantage of his one opportunity to infuse 244 religious spirituality into his rhetoric may provide the missing link to our question of rhetorical race management. I refer back to his “A More Perfect Union” address.

Certainly his only open and very candid directive that referenced racial injustice, that one speech was likened to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech by a number of scholars. While I don’t attempt to deify Obama, I conclude this paper with a final chapter on the value of prophecy and redemption, its role in Obama’s speech and our discussion of rhetorical race management.

A Chicken in Every Pot: The Culture Industry

During the Election of 2008, Obama clearly managed race on the surface, from a distance. But given the backlash of hate crimes and instances of racial animosity that erupted shortly after his election, we are reminded that even the most sophisticated, most lavish political campaign in history cannot eradicate age-old stereotypes or change human behavior.86 Isolated crimes of violence, notwithstanding, we go back to our original argument by reiterating two critical elements in that argument. One, Obama won the election by a sizeable majority, in spite of historical racism. Two, and perhaps more importantly, he was able to resurrect and mobilize a polity unlike any other candidate in the history of presidential elections. As it pertains to our question, perhaps race was

“managed-out” of the election while managing in something quite different. For the most

86 According to the Politico.com website, the 2008 campaign was the costliest in history. A record- shattering $5.3 billion was spent by all candidates during this election. See more details at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15283.html.

245 part, scholars seem uninterested in addressing this void or failure to tackle issues concerning race or social justice with a few exceptions.

Smith and King (2009) suggest that Obama’s election is a far cry from post-racial egalitarianism. Instead of signaling racial harmony, it is merely a collusion of modern alliances that joined forces, tacitly agreeing to avoid any discussion of race or social issues in order to assure an African-American candidate’s election (p. 26). Commenting that racial equality has improved to the extent where “neither candidate [needed] to focus on race or race-related problems, Smith and King pore over the stark economic contrasts and inequities between blacks and whites that persist while implying the obvious: perhaps a post-racial America is necessarily bereft of concerns regarding racism or social injustice. Might it be that a post-racial presidential candidate is expected to focus on the

American Dream and a “chicken in every pot” at the expense of the socioeconomic realities and racial inequities that continue to plague the nation even today?87

If we fast-forward from Herbert Hoover’s campaign cry in 1928 to Obama’s election some 80 eighty years later, logic tells us that the political campaign strategy needed to elect a black man as U.S. president in a historically racist country requires a different set of tools or ammunition to win election. From Hoover’s “a chicken in every pot” to the sound bites of Obama’s “hope” and “change” mantra, we realize we need another weapon in our arsenal of battleground politicking. In Obama’s case, effective

87 Attributed to President Herbert Hoover’s 1928 election campaign, Hoover’s quote is reflective of the illusory pretense of prosperity the U.S. assumed shortly before the worst stock market crash and economic depression of all time. The implication is that poverty and world hunger would become a thing of the past with Hoover’s election. 246 rhetorical race management also required a certain level of consumerism and brand name marketing not typical of traditional U.S. presidential elections.

In Dialectic of Enlightenment (1972), Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno spend an entire chapter in their discussion of a phenomenon known as the culture industry. For Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry might be interpreted as the

“last remnants of precapitalism” where the tools of commercialism (in this case, radio and television, newspapers and the media) serve merely as an accomplice to the slow degradation of a society made numb by institutional mass reproduction. Perhaps more disturbing, Horkheimer and Adorno tell us we are the victims of a perverse phenomenon.

The culture industry is not limited to Hollywood celebrities or corporate profits, in fact far from it. In our postmodern, postracial world “even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system” (p.

120).

Certainly the election, itself, was a far cry from Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s interpretation of the culture industry in the strictest sense of the definition. Written more than 40 years ago, their text problematizes the blatant materialism in society where even

“[t]he ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what will happen in politics”

(p.123). One need only watch television for an hour, or two, or tour any major U.S. city to confirm that the cultural chaos of mass production lives and thrives worldwide. But their text does not take into consideration the possible need for some element of mass marketing to overcome social factors like historic racism. We must also recall the enormity of the hurdle that Obama faced and why a certain degree of commercialism, 247 even crass capitalism, to some extent, might not only have been useful in this particular election but almost mandatory. Perhaps more telling, what is the cost in human capital, or one’s identity, when managing race during a political election?

Shelby Steele paints a portrait of the hopelessness of Obama’s chances of winning the U.S. presidency in his text, A Bound Man. Published in 2007, even the title of the book implies the underlying prognostication and Obama’s inevitable failure at the polls

(A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win). For better or for worse, Steele was wrong in his prediction but, perhaps, more importantly, it forces us to recognize the one character flaw that Obama will never be able to cure or solve: his color, his racial background. As Steele quietly reminds us, Obama’s “racial pedigree will always precede his politics” (p. 3). Thus all the slick marketing campaigns and all the

Axelrods88 in the world are in vain simply because they cannot erase history or effectively manage and control for race in the equation. Since Steele is also biracial and comes from a white mother and a black father, he assumes Obama’s identity crisis for him, confessing that he, too, understands “what it is like to have no race to go home to at night” (p. 4).

If Obama was unsure of his identity and who he was before Steele wrote his book, odds are good he is quite clear on it now. And what is most peculiar in all of this is that no one realized that it was not Obama who faced an identity crisis but us, the American people. The weight of the cultural baggage that many of us had carried was suddenly

88 Referencing David Axelrod, the legendary marketing strategist who is credited for launching Obama’s political career and was key in helping Obama win the election. Britain’s Observer devotes a full-length feature write-up to Axelrod’s many accomplishments at this site http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/aug/05/observer-profile-david-axelrod. 248 lifted off our shoulders with Obama’s election but for others it was not. As Steele tells it,

Obama’s role was that of a bargainer. When bargainers seek success in America, they are forced to negotiate or drive a bargain with White America as well if the race card is to be played: I will not hold this country’s ugly history of racism against you if you will not hold my color or race against me (p. 74). As it relates to Barack Obama and the Election of 2008, this “bargain,” in many respects, was not kept and it is Obama who must now pay the price. Obama’s marketers and strategists orchestrated his campaign under the guise of Martin Luther King Jr.’s second coming but one wonders if they understood the far-reaching implications of his election success from the stony parapets of an obdurate fortress called historical racism.

So, as we carefully tuck away our HOPE and CHANGE button(s) and remove our

Rolling Stone posters—emblazoned with Obama’s infectious grin--from the wall, we might also stop to reflect upon the intrinsic value of that Obama political paraphernalia.

Is it not conceivable to imagine that these were the very tools that were needed to assure and convince a dubious polity of Obama’s electability as this country’s first African-

American president? And whether it was David Axelrod or Obama, himself, who was visionary enough to plan announcement of one’s run for the presidency on the steps of the Old State Capital in Springfield, Illinois--where Lincoln launched his run for the U.S.

Senate in 1858--or schedule campaign speaking dates on the anniversary of “Bloody

Sunday” at Brown AME Church in Selma, Alabama, these serendipitous “coincidences” proved magical. Upon hindsight, perhaps a dash of Burke’s dramatism mixed with a pinch of pop culture then stirred with a generous helping of Adorno’s & Horkheimer’s 249 political schmaltz were the required ingredients for winning election. Hailing him as our next prophet and savior may sound naïve, but some discussion, or at least mention, of the power of the black church and spirituality is probably warranted. While Chapter 4 looked at comparisons between Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech and and Martin Luther

King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, let us unravel some of the prophetic tropes within

Obama’s speech to see how they might address our question on rhetorical race management.

If we look more closely at David Frank’s parallel between King’s “I Have a

Dream” speech and Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address, we go back to this question of rhetorical race management. Was the role of religion and spirituality significant in Obama’s handling of race during the election? Following his “A More

Perfect Union” speech, Obama was widely seen as a prophet second only to King (Frank,

2009). A number of scholars have analyzed and cross-examined that speech, lavishing praise and accolades that attest to Obama’s skill in resurrecting DuBoisian double- consciousness (Terrill, 2009) or prophetic prophecy (Frank, 2009) but few stop to consider how Obama was able to manage race in that one speech as well. What specific acts or deeds were cited in that speech that equate to that of a prophet?

Performing Post-Racial Prophecy

George Shulman (2008) comments on the importance and perhaps absolute necessity of a visionary storyteller who works to repress or at least draw attention to the moral injustices of a sovereign imperialism that has abandoned its constituency (xvi). In his text, Shulman tells us that these storytellers or “prophets are called—often responding 250 only reluctantly—to public responsibility” (3). Though Shulman’s intent in this passage of his text, “Introducing Jeremiah’s Legacy” is meant to interpret political theory through the Hebrew voice of prophecy [and to] identify key markers of biblical prophecy, this question of prophetic redemption strikes a chord for an obvious reason: could it be that

Obama was “called” in the same sense that Jeremiah or any of the other biblical prophets were called?

The Election of 2008 was unusual, if not extraordinary in that an African-

American not only won the election, he overcame a serious threat to his campaign that a candidate—black or white—normally does not face or survive politically. I refer to

Obama’s race speech or his “A More Perfect Union” address with my question. How does a novice political state congressman not only dig himself out of the throes of political catastrophe but turn that response into a speech that, according to one scholar,

“stands out as a descendant of King’s theology and rhetoric” (Frank, 2009, p. 168). Was

Obama’s performance perhaps indicative of how a postmodern prophet must perform in the twenty-first century? Although most scholars do not trace Obama’s speech to the power of prophetic tradition, any analysis of his rhetorical race management style is best- served by at least considering its likely impact upon scholars and the general public who heard that speech (p. 170).

When Obama gave his “A More Perfect Union” address in response to Reverend

Wright’s vitriolic sermons, he called upon the preamble of the U.S. Constitution in his opening lines during that speech: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

The irony of these words lies in the fact that the men who wrote them clearly did not 251 intend for that “more perfect union” to include African-Americans or Negro slaves at the time. Thus, perhaps, the even greater irony is that Obama chooses to recite and argue his defense with a narrative that excluded him then much as it is attempting to do so now. Dr.

King also prefaced or began his “I Have a Dream” speech with a similar preamble: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the

Emancipation Proclamation.” Coincidence or premeditated? One cannot be sure but in many ways, is it not conceivable to imagine that Obama’s rhetoric served as the elixir or antidote to the unspoken cultural and racial identity crisis that continues to plague

America more than 50 years after King gave his own speech?

Obama was presented with a rare, opportunistic venue following Reverend

Wright’s vitriolic sermon to publicly confront and address the race question before the

American public when he gave this speech. While not typical of any political candidate,

Obama took deft command of his only real advantage and stake in an unspoken issue that still required closure. Like King, Obama was adroit in his ability to invoke God and religion into his rhetoric. But the Wright apology also serves as, quite truthfully, a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity to springboard into a much greater argument and defense that far exceeded a token apology. Not only that, it did not prevent him from making predictions to resolve uncertainty. A prophet in many ways, Obama’s ability to call out or declare the obvious was evident in this speech yet the function of a prophet go much further than that of a soothsayer who makes predictions (Shulman, 2008, p. 4).

Prophecy can be defined as a genre of speech or action plan that people use to problematize, revise, and live their lives by. If we look at the three basic tenets of 252 prophecy, according to Shulman, we can extract a number of themes and apply some of those basic principles not only to Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address (p. 3). More importantly, perhaps the real question is thus: what manner and style must an African-

American presidential candidate assume in a country tainted with historical racism when addressing the race question?

Simply stated, race was effectively managed by confronting it. By boldly bringing to the fore what the media and press had tactfully ignored both on the air and in print,

Obama’s accusations parallel Shulman’s first tenet on the role of the prophet: prophets are messengers who announce truths their audience is invested in denying (p. 5).

Denouncing the racist lens that many of his adversaries were intent on using to define his campaign, Obama was both candid and blunt:

Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

Perhaps even harsher, Obama goes even further by remonstrating the public for questioning his racial ancestry or heritage. Again, Obama articulates what no one would say yet always suspected. Here, the identity question is raised and parallels to scripture are tempting. Was Jesus Christ not also questioned or tested?

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

253 What is even more remarkable is the level of confidence or assurance Obama had prior to delivering this speech, again, a key prophetic trait. As an example, David

Axelrod recalls the dilemma Obama faced once the Wright tapes had not only gone public but viral as well. Obama stayed up until 3 am the night prior, writing the speech himself, making one final comment to his staff: You know what? I'm gonna make a speech about race and talk about Jeremiah Wright and the perspective of the larger issue.

And either people will accept it or I won't be president of the United States. But at least

I'll have said what I think needs to be said.89 Just as he did prior to writing it, in this speech, Obama stands his ground and articulates what he believes in and what he does not. This is the second tenet of genuine prophesy; Shulman describes this as the act of bearing witness. Not to be confused with the legal definition of the term, bearing witness takes place when prophets testify to what they see, stand for and stand against (p. 5).

Here, Obama is clearly defending his affiliation with Wright as not only righteous, but his misguided rants as typical of any pastor or priest:

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Testifying for what he stood for and against, what is interesting to note is that

Obama not only condemned Reverend Wright’s malfeasance, he defended him at the

89 See CBSNEWS60Minutes for excerpts like these from Obama’s campaign staff (his inner circle) at this site: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-4584507.html?pageNum=2 . 254 same time. In this call-and-response condemnation, he reframes and extends Wright’s

“profound distortion” as America’s own problem with racial conflict:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

What initially was written and intended to serve as an explanation to contain political damage becomes much more in “A More Perfect Union.” An ordinary political speech becomes a nuanced civil rights manifesto. Very much like King (and Jesus

Christ), Obama not only tells his audience he is not perfect, he tells them he cannot solve the problems of racism in America even if he is elected:

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

As it relates to Shulman’s guidelines of the prophetic tradition, Obama continues by assuring, even warning us, that the healing process must begin now:

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice [is] we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

We can do that.

255 But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

Even by assuring us that his conviction in God will help us overcome this obstacle, Obama becomes a soothsayer, of sorts, practicing sociopolitical intervention.

These comments parallel Shulman’s third tenet or principle of the prophetic tradition.

“Prophecy is the office watchmen who forewarn. They name a danger to forestall it” (p.

5). The Bible cites a number of passages that describe the watchman as pivotal in not only predicting disaster, but identify him as a leader, entrusted with the well-being of his flock or followers: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you (Heb. 13:17).

If one stops to consider how a seemingly deleterious event (Rev. Wright’s religious diatribe) could not only have such remarkable consequences but be met with glowing praise, as well, Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” is certainly a prime example.

David Frank goes so far as to suggest that Obama was echoing many of King’s theological refrains in this one speech but I think its impact goes even further (Frank,

2009, p. 168). Obama’s ability to weave in elements of sacrifice (African-American victimage, racial guilt?) within the framework of a public apology served as a powerful weapon not only in rhetorical race management, but in racial control and in resurrecting racial memory, as well.

256 Confirming and Disproving Assumptions and Beliefs

This chapter opened with a discussion of the hidden backlash of hate crimes that erupted following Obama’s election for two reasons: one, to dispel any preconceived notions regarding what might have appeared to be a harmonious political (post-racial) election and, second, to argue how Obama’s rhetoric served as damage control (e.g., following the Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech). His “A More Perfect Union” speech effectively acted as a form of apologia for this country’s racial history and Obama’s implied role as the nation’s healer. In this speech, white America not only received atonement for implied assumptions of guilt for a history of racism against African-

Americans, they were asked to believe that this was their only real opportunity for racial reconciliation. What might possibly have been perceived as a challenge to the election of a black president is vaguely reminiscent of the same hostility and antipathy that King endured during the civil rights era 50 years earlier. Is this merely a familiar refrain being played out to challenge our own post-racial, progressive identity as well?

More importantly was Obama, perhaps, reshaping or reframing identity claims historically associated with African-American rhetors and politicians? By integrating a conversation not commonly associated with African-Americans, is it not conceivable that

Obama was mapping out a new trajectory in a discourse that typifies true postmodern political rhetoric? Terrill’s (2009) reference to Obama’s battle with DuBoisian double- consciousness gains purchase in this analysis. However, unlike DuBois, Obama was, in fact, creating a very different authenticity that few saw or were willing to acknowledge during his campaign run. 257 Ultimately, I argued that it was during his delivery of his “A More Perfect Union” speech that Obama was able to wrest control of human pathos and ethos and truly manage race. In many ways, the remnants, perhaps, ghosts from MLK’s marches and the cries of civil rights marchers during the 1960s rang with a nuanced echo during this speech. Resurrecting vestiges of racial guilt to convince and persuade a dubious audience that one is the best candidate for the job based on previous transgressions may sound, perhaps, simplistic at best. Yet naïve as it may sound, one cannot deny the impact the speech had on the American public nor Obama’s immediate rise in popularity at the polls following it. In many ways, this was the paramount vindicator and proof of Obama’s ability to manage race. I argued that it was primarily because of this one speech that

Obama regained control of the election. More importantly, his “A More Perfect Union” address restored the confidence of American audiences, helping him to win election as the first African-American president of the United States.

What did I suspect prior to the election? What assumptions were proven or disproven? When Obama won the Iowa primaries January 3, 2008, I was stunned. As an

African-American who voted for Jesse Jackson both during the 1984 and 1988 elections,

I had previously seen defeat of other African-Americans during previous elections. Well over 40 years old, my experiences with the realities of racism were firmly embedded.

This acceptance or predilection to simply admit defeat and succumb to the realities of racism in America was not limited to me only. In fact, my mother and many other

African-Americans in my community fully admitted that Obama was wasting his time: the odds of a black man becoming the president of the United States were analogous to 258 winning the lottery or flying to the moon. Like Carol Mosely Brown (2004) and Al

Sharpton (2004) before him, Obama’s attempt was simply another exercise in futility; good p.r. that sold more newspapers and made the U.S. look good, from a global perspective, but certainly unrealistic. His charisma and ruthless campaigning had been the only reasons he had come this far. The chances of him winning the ultimate contest, the Iowa primaries, would bring quick closure to any naïve assumptions that this country was ready for a black man to be U.S. president. We weren’t going to waste our vote and agreed that Hillary Clinton was the real favorite in this race. After all, not only was

Hillary a woman, she was heir-apparent to the Clinton dynasty. Here, fallacious reasoning and a certain degree of illogic occurs.

Famously known as “the first black president,” Bill Clinton’s illustrious track record for launching initiatives and social programs was so well-known, the

Congressional Black Caucus even anointed him as the first black president at an awards ceremony in 2001. 90 The obvious assumption was that if Bill had taken the black community into his bosom, so would his wife, Hillary. Whether that assumption was true or false, I would never find out.

90In her October 1998 New Yorker essay, Toni Morrison coined the phrase, “our first black president,” for Bill Clinton but it was a metaphorical description that had little to do with his launching of social programs for blacks. At the time, Clinton was facing national ridicule in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. In her essay, Morrison is simply comparing the vicious treatment Clinton endured under a hostile Republican Congress and rapacious media to the vindictive hostility African-American men must endure in a white world. Tony Beam sums up the previous references to Clinton’s blackness in “President Obama Can Return Clinton’s Title” at this site (http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2012/05/president-obama-can- return-president-clintons-title/) but the reader can access Toni Morrison’s very elegant, very eloquent New Yorker essay here: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/05/1998_10_05_031_TNY_LIBRY_000016504?currentPage =2. 259 After Obama’s success in winning primaries in Louisiana, Nebraska, Hawaii,

Wisconsin, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia during Super Tuesday on February 8, 2008, I was dumb-founded. Following the heated, almost volatile campaigning that followed between Obama and Clinton, I began to sense that he would not only become the Democratic Party’s candidate, he would win election as U.S. president. And while Jesse Jackson’s campaigns in 1984 resulted in him winning five primaries and caucuses in the states of Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South

Carolina, and Virginia, this election was very different.

The jubilation, the euphoria, that swept through the nation during Obama’s campaign was more akin to the excitement felt when the Fab Four landed in New York

City in 1964, changing the course of American music forever. Obama’s election was very different from the grudging resistance (indifference?) I remember during Jackson’s campaign almost 25 years earlier. This election seemed more like an action-packed thriller, a bedtime story--the story between good and evil, the story between conventionalism versus change. Was America ready for a black president? Resurrecting white guilt during a political speech might work following the Jeremiah Wright imbroglio but how far does that rhetoric take you once elected president? For that question we must fast forward into the future.

Grappling with the Politics of Race in 2012

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut. Inciting nationwide rage overnight, on the surface, this tragedy may seem far afield of the Obama 260 Administration, in general, and rhetorical race management, in particular. But in many respects, it is not. On December 19, the New York Times suggested that the tragedy would serve as a premonition for the future; a foreboding of things to come during Obama’s second term in office (Baker, 2012).The implication, here, is that Obama would be forced to contend with a perhaps more complex set of problems than those he addressed in 2008.

More salient as it relates to Obama is the more obvious inference: Obama not only won office in 2008 but ran for office and won, again, in 2012. Perhaps the more pressing question might be at what cost? But let us, first, go back to our expectations during his first term in office versus reactions and consequences during his second.

On January 20, 2009, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swore in Barack

Hussein Obama as this country’s 44th President of the United States. Marked by global jubilation of stratospheric proportion, Obama’s inauguration ceremony attendance on the

Washington Mall averaged almost 2 million attendants, exceeding even that of Lyndon B.

Johnson’s 1.2 million in 1965 (The Economist, 2009; Lapidos, 2009). If prices of swearing-in ceremony tickets that averaged $1,750 a piece or the $20,000 for VIP tickets, is any indication of the magnitude of a sold-out event that was seen worldwide, then one might also wonder if Obama’s actual performance would equate with the same splendor of said event (Kravitz, 2009). I posit the Barack Obama campaign slogans like “Change” and “Hope,” on the surface, seemed to imply a significant demarcation and departure from previous administrations in the White House, but upon hindsight (and in reality) these changes would prove to be superficial, at best. This opinion, of course, is open to

261 speculation but what goes without dispute are the things that he accomplished during his first four years in office:

The Obama effect was not ephemeral anymore, no longer reducible to what had been mocked as “that hopey-changey stuffy.” It could be measured—in wars stopped and started; industries saved, restructured, or reregulated; tax cuts extended, debt levels inflated; terrorists killed; the health insurance system reimagined; and gay service members who could walk in uniform with their partners. (Scherer, 2012/2013)

The Washington Monthly printed an article titled “Obama’s Top 50

Accomplishments” in their March/April 2012 issue. From passing universal health care insurance to ending the war in Iraq, the laws, bills and landmark decisions Obama enacted within the span of just four years in office are worth noting91:

- Passed Health Care Reform that’s slated to insure over 32 million uninsured Americans by the year 2014. This after the failure of five U.S. presidents to successfully launch a similar bill.

- Signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth and rescue the U.S. economy from one of the greatest recessions since the Great Depression.

- Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer. Legislation that effectively re-regulated the financial sector following faulty practices that sparked the Great Recession in 2008.

- Ended the war in Iraq.

- Began drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. Troops that numbered at 100,000 were systematically reduced.

91 The definition of “major accomplishment” is, in some respects, relative and a matter of opinion. Whether or not some of these measures or legislation can be considered landmark might be open to conjecture. A joint article, this piece was written by Paul Glastris, Ryan Cooper, and Siyu Hu. The reader can visit the Washington Monthly’s website link at: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_2012/features/obamas_top_50_accomplishme nts035755.php# 262 - Osama bin laden’s assassination. Ordered an elite Navy Seals team in 2011 to raid Osama bin laden’s secret compound in Pakistan and eliminate the terrorist leader.

- Recapitalized banks. Approved controversial Treasury Department plans to lure private capital into U.S. banks via “stress tests” to help buy back, thus minimize existing so-called “toxic” assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.

- Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Ended the 1990s-era restrictions on gays in the military, allowing lesbians and gay males to serve openly for the first time.

- Auto industry economic reversal. As a follow-up to Bush’s decision to loan $13.4 billion to the country’s auto industry giants, Obama injected $62 billion of federal money into the ailing U.S. auto industry in 2009. Currently, auto industry icons like GM and Chrysler were on track to sell 14.5 million new vehicles in 2012, a 13.5% increase from last year.92

- Actively moved to elect two women to the Supreme Court. Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.

The article goes on to mention Obama’s commitment to green energy policies,

restructuring of the credit card industry, etc. but the point is made. Despite vigorous

in-fighting with a Tea Party-controlled Congress that erupted as soon as he entered

office in 2008, Obama managed to pass legislation and measures that included a $1.2

trillion deficit reduction, on top of aggressive foreign policy moves as well (e.g., key

in the ouster of Gaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, drawdown in Afghanistan).93

92 See USATODAY’s story “Industry comeback tops auto stories of 2012” in the Money section of the December 27, 2012 issue. The reader can also go to their site at http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2012/12/27/top-10-auto-stories-of-2012/1791833/. 93 This second paragraph is taken from a second article written by Paul Glastris,“The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama.” It ran in the same edition of the Washington Monthly alongside “Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments.” The reader can visit their website at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_2012/features/the_incomplete_greatness_of_b a035754.php 263 The fact that a Republican-controlled House of Representatives (and a 50/50 split between Democratic and Republican senators in 2008) made the smooth passage of any bill or measure almost impossible merits discussion as well. Obama’s inability to effectively court-and-woo a Republican Congress has probably been one of his most glaring shortcomings.

One particular embarrassment was the notable catastrophe in 2011 regarding the failure to approve the federal budget in a timely fashion. While the country teetered on the brink of virtual insolvency, both Obama and Congress bickered for months in a stand-off that had no precedent. Even the Brookings Institute cited Obama as the major cause of the crisis primarily because he waited far too long to take action or put a plan into place (Haskins, 2011). Here, questions concerning rhetorical race management take a back seat primarily because race no longer becomes the issue. In this case, the issue is partisanship. Here, Obama’s volatile kinship with a hostile

Congress harkens back to Bill Clinton’s administration when the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1995 just as Obama did in 2010 (Packer, 2011). Further complicating the changing-of-the-political guard was the fact that the Republicans had gained an ally: the Tea Party. When the Tea Party seized control of the House of

Representatives, replacing more than 60 Democratic seats with Republicans, the

Democrats lost control of both the Senate and the House. Obama’s ability to pass bills and advance new legislation with relative ease took a nosedive.

A prime example of this hostility or resistance might be measured in the number of filibusters that the Obama Administration struggled with as early as Obama’s first 264 year in the White House. An obstructionist move used by one Congressional group to

stop or prevent another’s party’s bill from reaching the floor, the number of filibusters

almost doubled once Obama entered office. During both Clinton’s and Bush’s

administrations, filibuster motions that required cloture, or closure of the filibuster

process, ranged in numbers between 70 and 80. Following Obama’s election, that

number skyrocketed to 139.94

Filibustering implies one party is resistant to the passage of a bill, amendment, or

legislation being advanced by the other but one must ask oneself why the unparalleled

level of resistance to legislation advanced during Obama’s term. In previous

administrations, presidents like Bill Clinton and even Lyndon Johnson continued to

negotiate with Republican adversaries, in spite of opposing political ideologies.

Unfortunately, unlike his predecessors Obama’s talent for charming the American

public died a hard death with a Republican Congress. This, perhaps, would prove to

be Obama’s greatest shortcoming since he seemed to have only a cursory interest in

working with congressional Republicans, a habit that didn’t go without notice.

Following the 2010 wipeout, “President Obama took to floating above the ugly

congressional fray as if he were the unaffiliated head of state in a parliamentary

system” (Packer, 2011).

When bills that impact farming subsidies, student loan interest rates, and

unemployment payment extensions, lay mired in political deadlock, stagnant on the

94 See the Democratic Underground’s detailed listing of all Senate filibusters since 1969 at http://www.democraticunderground.com/125184064. 265 floor, this inability to swiftly pass or expedite legislation goes noticed by another

group as well: the people who are most affected by the gridlock. In this case, that

would be Obama’s constituency, the American public. Whether it was a Republican

gridlock intent on stymying every Democrat’s bill or the simple fact that the “hope”

and “change” incantations chanted during the campaign of 2008 never materialized,

Obama’s popularity took a nosedive as well.

In an attitudinal study conducted in November of 2011, over 75% of respondents

said they felt the country had gotten off track and was headed in the wrong direction

since Obama’s election versus only 18% who felt the country was on course.

Obama’s approval rating took a similar beating. Only 44% of respondents approved

of the job he was doing versus 52% who felt he was doing a poor job. Obama was not

completely held liable for his lackluster performance since Congress also suffered the

wrath of the American public. One question asked how well do you think Congress is

doing. The approval rating for Congress was only 11% while the disapproval rating

was 83%.95 On the surface, the numbers might seem to be a total reversal of Obama’s

immense popularity during his campaign years between 2007 and 2008. True, the

numbers are no longer as glowing but other signs tell a different story.

95 Politico’s Battleground Poll was conducted by the Tarrance Goup/Lake Research organization. During this survey, 1,000 registered “likely” voters were asked to participate. Unfortunately, the survey does not specify the political party affiliation of the respondent so it is not clear if the survey is based on an equal number of Republican and Democratic voters or varying ratios. Nevertheless, the survey is exhaustive and an excellent source for research on the attitudes and opinions of the American voter during a tumultuous period (e.g., the super committee’s refusal/approval of budget cuts, failure to negotiate with Obama, etc.). The reader can access the survey at this site http://www.tarrance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BG-45- charts.pdf.

266 To understand, his continued popularity in spite of an unprecedented level of

Senate filibustering and embarrassing deadlocks in the nation’s budget approval,

identifying Obama’s strongest ally and real support base might provide answers to

our question on rhetorical race management as well.

One fact that goes without dispute is that Obama was elected not only once in

2008 but again in 2012, in spite of an overtly hostile Congress during both

administrations. Yet, in spite of an openly hostile Congress, Obama has consistently

maintained a level of support from the voters, themselves, time and time again.

Granted, the margin for that popularity was significantly less in the 2012 election

versus the 2008.96 Yet despite the gloomy public approval ratings and a high

unemployment rate (his approval ratings were at 46% and unemployment at 8.6% in

January of 2012), Obama has been able to hold the American public captive with an

almost quixotic loyalty championed during the election of 2008.97 What are we to

make of this conundrum?

How does one survive embarrassing imbroglios like the near disaster of the 2011

federal budget and win re-election? One turns to a group of supporters, a

constituency, that one has always relied on from the onset of the campaign. That

group or constituency would be the American public; the very people who voted for

96 In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by more than 10 million votes. That margin narrowed significantly in the 2012 Election. Romney garnered 58,167,260 votes to Obama’s 61,173,739 votes; a difference of only 3,006,479 votes. See Craig Kannalley’s “Who Won the Popular Vote in 2012?” at this site http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/who-won-the-popular-vote-2012_n_2087038.html.

97 Go to page 46 in Andrew Romano’s essay, “Yes We Can (Can’t We?)” in Newsweek’s January 2012 edition for these statistics. 267 him. As it relates to this question regarding Obama’s ability to manage race in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, is it safe to assume that Obama might have won the public’s unerring support based on the nature of his rhetoric? More importantly, is there any theoretical merit that can be argued regarding rhetorical race management?

In order to answer this question, let us return to our research statements posed earlier in Chapter 1.

Research Questions Revisited

RQ1: How did Obama manage race within his rhetoric during the campaign?

Obama won the confidence and hearts of white Americans by avoiding issues of racial conflict or controversy in the large majority of his campaign speeches, with the exception of his “A More Perfect Union” speech. Very simply, he avoided talking about race until forced to do so following Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons in

March of 2008. Both strategic and deliberate, this tactic can be defined as the rhetoric of rhetorical race management. This presupposition is not typical or based on any previous theory primarily because no African-American candidate has ever come this far in the presidential election process. My argument for the theory of rhetorical race management is based on the striking differences between Obama’s rhetoric and that of previous black politicians.

As an example, Jesse Jackson’s 1984 campaign speech for the Democratic

National Party seemed more focused on negativity, e.g., Reagan’s economic abuse and neglect as president and the rising misery index while detailing historical tributes primarily to African-Americans who suffered racism and segregation during the civil 268 rights era (e.g., Fannie Lou Hamer Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney). Telling

audiences that his “constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the

disrespected, and the despised” who “are restless and seek relief [and] have voted in

record numbers,” might even have been perceived as threatening to white audiences.

This comparison is analogous to the same message and subtle undercurrent in the Los

Angeles Times article during Tom Bradley’s run for governor of California where

similar allusions were made to minority groups voting in record numbers to possibly

undermine the traditional status quo (see Chapter 3).

By comparison, Obama’s campaign speeches were absent of any references to

racial antagonism, maligned populations or injustice. Obama’s consistency in

refraining from particularizing any one ethnic group is evident as early as his 2004

Keynote Address at Democratic National Party’s convention, then on John Kerry’s

behalf:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.

Here, Obama’s abject denial of the need to confer special privileges or recognize any one group versus another is obvious. Again, a clear allusion to this concept of rhetorical race management.

RQ2: What theories might explain Obama’s success at the polls?

269 While the theory of rhetorical race management is new, the fundamental cornerstones of the concept itself, are based primarily on the theories of Kenneth Burke’s dramatism.

Here, dramatism very loosely can be defined as interacting dialectics where the speaker’s words (e.g., in Obama’s case) are driven by very specific, even ulterior motives. As an example, if one refers back to Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address, like many other presidential candidates before him, Obama harkens back to the U.S.

Constitution as this country’s bedrock and legacy for American’s future generations.

What is curiously delightful in his appeal to the U.S. Constitution is that the Founding

Fathers had not the slightest interest in strengthening or restoring the constitutional rights of African-American slaves. In this speech, Obama either ignores or dismisses this fact and instead calls upon the words and intent of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others to support an argument based more on the greater good than highlighting social injustice.

This particular speech resonates with Burke’s dramatism on a number of other levels, as well. Parsing the speech for Burke’s consubstantiality and transformative identification is useful in helping us to understand how Obama effectively redirected Wright’s damning vitriol into a cause, if not for celebration, then certainly unification (see Chapter 4 for a more in-depth analysis).

RQ3: How can we best explain Obama’s election, both from a historical perspective as well as a scholarly perspective?

From a historical perspective, one notes that that while a majority of previous

African-American rhetoricians and politicians relied on allusions and references to moral 270 righteousness, responsibility and debts owed to blacks and the underprivileged, Obama’s rhetoric was absent of any vindication or debts owed to other blacks. Even more surprising, there was no loud outcry from African-Americans regarding this departure from historical tradition. True, there were a number of scholars, both black and white, who were critical of his failure to spotlight and target racial inequality and society’s inequities in his campaign speeches (e.g., Tavis Smiley, Cornel West and Tim Wise) but for the most part, the African-American public was almost silent on the issues of social programming, debts owed for centuries of slavery, or current disparities on the current socioeconomic ladder.98 Why might this be? If we revisit Chapter 2, we refer to Dana

Cloud’s rhetoric of silence to help us understand this quandary.

As Cloud reminds us, the rhetoric of silence is marked by an uneven power struggle where the marginalized are silenced out of a fear of physical retribution (Cloud,

1999). Here, Cloud’s theory must be reversed for one reason. In the case of the presidential election, Obama clearly operated from a position of power. What he did not have was historical control. Thus, Obama was forced to consider the historical context in which he was operating. But just as the black mill workers in Cloud’s example were fearful of retribution some 50 years later, Obama and his audience of African-American voters, in many ways, were also operating within the context of fear. To be more blunt,

98 To gain a more complete picture on Obama’s naysayers, the reader can go to this NPR site. Both scholar Cornel West and radio talk show host Tavis Smiley went on a 18-city tour in January of 2012 to basically lambast Obama for his failure to address and serve the needs of African-Americans, poverty, and welfare in this country. As NPR suggests, both men acted as “lightning rods” to call attention to the socioeconomic disparities that Obama stoically remained silent on both during his campaign and again, once elected. Go to this site for more details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/01/13/145188135/obamas-most- vocal-black-critics-dial-back-attacks-as-election-year-begins . 271 Obama wisely chose not to preach retribution, demand reparations, or insinuate victimage

(see Burke’s mortification and scapegoating) perhaps because of the historical outcome and consequences of such actions during previous elections (see Jesse Jackson’s 1982 and 1984 campaigns versus Douglas Wilder’s election success in Chapter 3). Just as importantly, recall that Obama’s support among African-American voters consistently remained at a little over 95% both before and after his election. This, in spite of the fact that he never openly courted black voter support at any point during his campaign or even after he was elected—not once during his first term nor his second thus far.

Rhetorical Race Management as a Theoretical Contribution

From an ideological perspective, this notion of rhetorical race management contributes to our theoretical understanding of race relations and how politicians must operate in the twenty-first century in order to become elected—a postmodern or post- racial prerequisite, perhaps? Rhetorical race management adds to existing theories in the following ways:

 Unlike critical race theory and other conventional theories concerning race relations, rhetorical race management does not recognize racial inequities or racism in society.

 Rhetorical race management is specific to the marginalized rhetor of color who must not only speak to multiethnic audiences but to audiences comprised of the dominant majority. Both of these audiences may harbor animosity or grievances like racial guilt or historical racism not readily apparent on the surface.

 Rhetorical race management is invoked both strategically and deliberately. Issues of racial victimage or socioeconomic ills particular to a specific ethnic group are discussed but only at opportunistic moments. The politics of resentment and victimage are called upon but only for the benefit of specific audiences. In most cases, they are not.

272 To further support this theory and claim that Obama used strategic race management during his campaign, one must keep in mind that although Obama gave dozens of speeches, he never once voiced concerns regarding socioeconomic hardships like poverty or disparities specific to African-Americans or any other ethnic or cultural group for that matter. This is the crux of my argument and what I believe to be the essence of a political speech that fails to mention economic disparities or social ills, especially when the rhetor him or herself, is of color and is probably expected to voice concern about such issues. Does this mean that Obama avoided talking about racial inequities or issues regarding race, in general? In many ways, yes, it does. But more importantly, it was Obama’s decision to revive and resuscitate the mission and vision of

Dr. King to salvage a personal infraction with his minister that is particularly disturbing and perhaps warrants explanation of why a black politician reaches to Dr. King in a moment of crisis. Again, this is the marker of strategic selection. Obama’s predilection for calling upon Dr. King is discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. Not surprisingly, another scholar saw this same parallel and was equally troubled.

On January 20, 2013, Obama was sworn in for his second term as the President of the United States. Not three days earlier, Cornel West, Princeton University scholar and long-time activist in race relations, gave a talk on the Tavis Smiley Show. On that program he, too, alluded to Obama’s paradoxical choice of words and decision to invoke racism and social injustice when the timing is right. Given that every U.S. president must be sworn in prior to their first day in office, West was clearly unhappy that Obama would be sworn in on the Holy Bible—in this case, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible: 273 When I got the news that my dear brother Barack Obama—President Obama— was going to put his precious hands on Martin Luther King’s Bible I got upset,” West said.

You don’t play with Martin Luther King, Jr. and you don’t play with his people. By his people, I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally good people committed to peace and truth and justice, especially the Black tradition that produced it.

All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King, Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power regardless of what color they are.

The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes a moment of political calculation. And that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr died…he died…for the three crimes against humanity that he was wrestling with. Jim Crow, traumatizing, terrorizing, stigmatizing Black people. Lynching, not just ‘segregation’ as the press likes to talk about.

So I said to myself ain’t nothing wrong with putting your hand on the bible, even though the bible’s talking about justice, Jesus is talking about the least of these, but when you put it on Martin’s bible, I said ‘this is personal for me,’ because this is the tradition that I come out of.

So I say to myself…as much as I’m glad that Brother Obama won, when Barack Obama attempts to use that rich tradition of Frederick Douglas and Ida B. Wells- Barnett, use that tradition of A. Philip Randolph, use the tradition of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel, use that tradition of Tom Hayden and so many others struggling to produce that voice that pushed Martin in the direction that it did, I get upset. People say “oh there goes Brother West and Brother Smiley hating on Obama,” I say no-no. We’re just loving the tradition that produced Martin Luther King Jr. and we’re not going allow it to be sanitized, deodorized and sterilized. We want the subversive powers to be heard. That’s what made me think when he said he was going to put his hand on that Bible.99

The excerpt from West’s monologue is perhaps too long but all very necessary in order to make a point. He substantiates this suspicion, this argument, that Obama invoked

99 This speech was taken from Cornel West’s speech on the Tavis Smiley Show’s “Poverty in America” forum on January 17, 2013 at George Washington University. 274 the name and words of Dr. King by romanticizing King. Again, there is certainly nothing wrong in venerating or honoring historical leaders. What is disconcerting, even disturbing, is the manner in which Obama invokes the words of Dr. King. As West previously stated, Dr. King died for his beliefs in racial and social justice. Yet Obama freely makes reference to him in spite of the fact that he, himself, has never shown any interest in reconciling social inequities, poverty or the glaring socioeconomic disparities that continue to exist between whites and people of all colors in this country. This is what puzzles me and can only be explained by a new theory—in this case, the theory of rhetorical race management.

If we go back to our earlier question—did Obama avoid race or did he avoid talking about racial inequality or social injustice—he did, indeed, talk about race but not the discussion of race that previous African-American politicians, activists, and leaders generally preach.

At Bethel AME church in Selma, Alabama, Obama gave a speech three days prior to the horrific events of a civil rights march known as Bloody Sunday that occurred

March 7, 1965 more than forty years earlier. At that speech, Obama spoke to a congregation of both common church folk and several illustrious, perhaps fabled pioneers of the civil rights movement as well. More importantly, his audience was almost exclusively African-American.

In a textual analysis of a speech given on March 4, 2007, Obama spoke about race the entire time yet he never mentioned racial grievances or made promises regarding socioeconomic problems. More to the point, he spoke to members of the Freedom 275 Movement but he failed to offer any assurances of establishing laws or legislation that might work towards gaining true parity between blacks and whites in this country— something all of these men and women had struggled and fought 40 years earlier. Of course, the problems of the 1960s are very different from the problems of today.

Solutions to the sky rocketing incarceration rates for blacks, high unemployment rates, or substandard schools that black and Hispanics traditionally attend are notable examples.

But instead of offering solutions, the speech was a lesson in racial identity and his authenticity as a black man who has no roots in the African-American experience of slavery and Jim Crow segregation that his listeners did. This was a speech where the primary intent was to confirm and validate his rightful place in the legacy of the civil rights struggle. More importantly, there was no intent to solve or address any of those problems, something I’m sure many of his constituents, both black and white, assumed he would address.

In speeches given to black audiences, Obama often embraces Dr. Martin Luther

King, Jr. and the debt he owes to the Civil Rights Movement before launching into topics that are specific to his audience. For example, during a speech given at the convocation at Howard University on September 28, 2007,100 Obama draws parallels between the struggles of civil rights workers during the 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama vis-à-vis the men and women who left their homes and colleges on September 20, 2007 to rally and

100 Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Howard University Convocation, Washington, DC, September 28, 2007.

276 demand justice during the Jena 6 rally.101 This is a race-specific speech in that Obama is focusing on an issue that would be most germane or resonate with a demographic group which has a vested interest in the outcome of said event. In this case, he weaves-in references to his efforts to revamp the death-penalty laws, the ability of blacks’ to overcome the devastation of Katrina, and eliminate racial profiling, all issues primarily exclusive to black males, Obama is speech is well-constructed in that he appeals to interests exclusive to blacks. As with all of his speeches, this speech is well-received.

What might be problematic, though, is the reality of Obama’s genuine sincerity in attacking the problems he promises to address in the black community.

I conclude this analysis of Obama’s rhetoric with another conjecture, perhaps speculation, regarding his very deliberate attempt to change or redirect our perceptions of his own role as the heir-apparent and assumed torch-bearer for the civil rights movement.

Since announcing his candidacy to run as U.S. president on February 10, 2007, Obama has been consistent in aligning himself with Dr. King and the leaders of the Civil Rights generation. What is perhaps more curious is how he is able to extract himself from that earlier generation of black leadership by creating one of his own as well.

Following a speech given in Selma, Alabama at Brown Chapel AME church, while Obama consistently made comparisons between himself and leaders of the Civil

Rights era, he was also careful to mark a clear delineation between his role as an leader of today’s generation versus that of his benefactors some forty years earlier. He makes this

101 Though there are hundreds of websites that report the Jena 6 riot and rally in Jena, Louisiana, this BBC link is useful in that it provides a vivid color photograph showing a contentious demonstration. Like the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, all the participants are visibly determined, angry—and black. 277 distinction by separating his purpose or role in political government by aligning himself and his predecessors with Biblical prophets: Moses and Joshua. In his speech, Obama makes reference to former Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis and Ralph Abernathy as being a part of the Moses Generation. And while Moses might be considered as one of the greatest prophets of all time, Obama makes it very clear that he is not a part of that group; he is leading the Joshua generation. Referencing the Bible,

Joshua was both a disciple and servant of Moses. This distinction is important in that it indicates that he might possibly be making a deliberate attempt to not only separate himself from any allegiance to his Civil Rights forefathers, but to create his own legacy, possibly blurring any connection to giants like King, Lewis, or Abernathy:

There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge...So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

I’m here because somebody marched. I’m here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I thank the Moses generation; but we've got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn't cross over the river to see the Promised Land. God told him your job is done. You'll see it. You'll be at the mountain top and you can see what I’ve promised. What I’ve promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You will see that I’ve fulfilled that promise but you won't go there.

We're going to leave it to the Joshua generation to make sure it happens.102

102 Obama delivered this speech at the Brown Chapel AME Church on March 4, 2007. 278 Conclusion

I conclude this project by returning to the media to gain a different perspective on reasons why Obama was successful, in spite of a number of challenges. Since pro-Obama or liberal media sources tended to wax eloquent on why Obama won the election in spite of firmly entrenched historical racism (e.g., we’re now in a post-racial era), I turned to conservative, generally anti-Obama media sources to get their take on reasons why he beat out Mitt Romney. Rush Limbaugh’s confession on his November 12, 2008 show was particularly memorable. With head hung despondently, he publicly admitted his own personal guilt and responsibility for Romney’s loss:

RUSH: Just as I predicted ladies and gentlemen -- wait 'til you hear the sound bites -- this election was lost because of your host, Rush Limbaugh. I am the primary reason. There are others, but I'm the primary reason the Republican Party lost. And I am, by the way, the primary reason the Republican Party will keep losing, until I am denounced by the Republican Party. Which, I'm gonna predict to you... What is today? The 12th of November. I'm gonna lay out a possible scenario where that could happen, because we're trending in that direction.103

Of course, Limbaugh is being sarcastic and perhaps indulging in a certain degree of self-mockery to confront an even larger problem. While his admission may sound more like the ultimate in egoism, many of his comments are not far afield of some very real truths. Chiding Democrats and a liberal media for blacklisting the Republican Party as being anti-immigration, Limbaugh touched on an even more pressing point: the GOP’s

103 The reader can review the transcripts from Rush Limbaugh’s show, “Ruling Class GOP Blames Me,” which aired on November 12, 2012. Go to this link for the full transcript http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/11/12/ruling_class_gop_blames_me .

279 failure to embrace a new demographic that is quietly outpacing every other ethnic group in the country: the Hispanic market.

Not five days earlier, Forbes magazine credits Obama’s success to high-tech wizardry but also concurs that Romney missed the boat by offending both Latino voters and women during his campaign (Denning, 2012). Exit polls following the election confirmed that almost 75% of the Latino vote went to Obama versus only 29% for

Romney. Romney’s well-known hardline stance on immigration reform probably did not help. Eliseo Medina, the secretary-treasurer for the Service Employees International

Union probably said it best: “The sleeping Latino giant is wide-awake and it’s cranky,” said Medina. “We expect action and leadership on immigration reform in 2013. No more excuses. No more obstruction or gridlock” (Preston & Santos, 2012).

One can only speculate as to the specific reason why Obama won, in spite of a still troubled economy and high unemployment rates, but the one trait or characteristic that remains consistent is Obama, himself. And whether one calls it charisma, style, or simply the power to pull at your heartstrings, if one had listened to his State of the Union

Address delivered February 12, 2013 during a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, one would have left the rotunda filled with a sense of awe. Obama is consistent in how he manages to capture the hopes and dreams of his audience—the hopes and dreams of the little guy.

In a speech peppered with more than a dozen new bills and proposed legislation,

Obama was careful to end that speech with references to real people with real names. He spoke of New York City nurse Menchu Sanchez’s bravery in surviving Hurricane Sandy 280 and 102 year old Desiline Victor’s tired, aching feet as she waited patiently for six hours to cast her ballot under a hot Miami sun. Evoking the tears of many of the

Congresswomen who sat in the chamber and openly wept that night, Obama affectionately told stories of the bravery and courage common to everyday folk like you and me. Not surprisingly, it is this power, this ability to resurrect the lives of a nurse in

New York or a feeble, old black woman, voting perhaps for the first time in Florida that continues to strike a chord, resonating with us all.

As I come to a close in this project, I go back to what I stated not only in the first chapter, but throughout this dissertation: rhetoric. It was—and is-- Barack Obama’s gift for rhetorical persuasion and his ability to almost effortlessly nuance that rhetoric with allusions to the American Dream that was responsible for helping him win election not only in 2008 but again in 2012.

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297 VITA

Connie Johnson was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BS degree from

California State University Dominguez Hills in business administration not realizing her true passion was communication studies. She returned to the world of academia several years later and earned her MA degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at

USC in 1999. She continued her graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin and earned her PhD in 2013. Connie has taught speech and persuasive speaking skills at five colleges and universities since 2008. Currently an assistant professor at East Georgia

State College in Swainsboro, Georgia, Connie teaches speech and intercultural communication, in addition to a course in critical thinking. While her preferred goal is to continue teaching as a professor in communication and rhetorical studies, she is also exploring opportunities in corporate communications, specifically in the area of training

& development.

Permanent Address: 19403 Pricetown Avenue, Carson, CA 90746

This manuscript was typed by the author.

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