Moving to the Radical Center

In the final weeks, presidential campaigns typically move to the political center to win independent swing voters, but the process is complicated by the fact that there are two distinct centers in American politics. As the New Republic's John Judis has noted, there is the "moderate middle," occupied by fiscally conservative and socially liberal upscale white voters; and the "radical center," consisting of the mirror opposite -- white working class voters who are economically liberal, culturally conservative and tough on national security.

It is now clear that both candidates for president believe the election boils down to who can win the radical center. If the moderate middle, with its wealth, funds political campaigns, the radical center, with its numbers, decides them.

In their most important decisions to date -- whom to pick for vice president -- Barack Obama and John McCain both chose candidates likely to appeal to white working class voters, Scranton-born Joe Biden and "hockey mom" Sarah Palin. Yes, Biden shores up Obama's foreign policy credentials and adds greater experience to the ticket; and Palin appeals to white women and to the Republican base. But Biden's and Palin's populist profiles and convention speeches were aimed directly at radical center voters who have been the linchpin of every successful campaign, Republican or Democratic, in the past 40 years. Representing half the voting population, non-college educated white voters have shifted back and forth, mostly to the Republicans (as Nixon's "silent majority," Reagan Democrats, and Gingrich's angry white men), but sometimes toward the Democrats (voting for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Congressional Democrats in 2006).

Obama and Biden would seem to have the upper hand, given the miserable state of the economy, their economically populist program, and McCain's remarkably out-of-touch comments. (Most working class voters know how many houses they own.) McCain and Palin, however, have recent history on their side, as cultural populism has routinely trumped economic populism. According to political analyst Ruy Teixeira, Al Gore lost the noncollege educated white vote by 17 points in 2000 and John Kerry by 23 points in 2004. While the military used to be full of Democrats and the Ivy League full of Republicans, notes Georgetown University's Anthony Carnevale, now the reverse is true.

Traditionally, Republicans have appealed to radical center voters by arguing that Democrats are cultural elitists, weak on national security, and favor minorities. The first two arguments were front and center at the Republican convention; while the latter was held in reserve.

In her acceptance speech, Sarah Palin attacked the elite media and revived Obama's comments at a San Francisco fundraiser that working class voters are "bitter" and "cling" to religion and guns. As a state-school graduate and small town resident, with a husband who is a union member and snowmobiler, Palin's critique had far more bite than similar arguments made by McCain (and, before that, Hillary Clinton). On national security, Mike Huckabee hit Obama hard for his willingness to sit down and talk with America's enemies, claiming McCain wants to hunt down fanatics while Obama wants to give them "a place setting at the table."

Of course, Obama knows these vulnerabilities and has moved to the center on both cultural issues and national defense. In recent weeks, he endorsed a Supreme Court decision on gun control; supported the death penalty for child rapists; donned a flag pin; backed restrictions on late term abortions, voted for wire tapping and began emphasizing the need to increase troops in Afghanistan. Significantly, Obama has not similarly pivoted to the right on bread and butter economic issues where he is already in sync with the radical center: calling for a middle class tax cut, supporting labor unions, improving public schools and providing broader access to health care.

But waiting in the wings is the issue of race. At the convention, Republicans made no overt racial appeals, perhaps because American voters, to their credit, are now turned off by racist tactics. But it seems only a matter of time before conservatives will target Obama's Achilles heel -- his support for affirmative action. The issue isn't salient now, but with anti-racial preference initiatives slated to be on the November ballot in Nebraska and Colorado, affirmative action could play the role that welfare, crime and busing did in earlier elections.

Democratic support for racial preferences has always been unpopular, but for Obama, affirmative action fuses vulnerabilities raised by the two most combustible moments of the primary campaign -- his longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his apparent condescension toward bitter low income whites. The idea behind affirmative action - that whites owe a debt the blacks for the history of, and ongoing reality of, racial discrimination - is unpopular with whites, particularly in tough economic times, and may remind them of precisely the type of angry black militancy that Obama said marked Wright's generation, not his. Likewise, if Obama accuses McCain of racism or divisiveness for raising the issue of affirmative action, he could reignite the same class divisions inspired by his remarks to San Francisco donors. While affirmative action has strong support from elites, including the business community and higher education leaders, voter initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan have revealed powerful opposition from rank and file white voters who see racial preferences, not attempts to abolish them, as divisive. Suggestions that their embrace of colorblindness is unenlightened will only worsen Obama's predicament.

Thus far, Obama has sent conflicting signals on affirmative action, saying, on the one hand, that his own privileged daughters do not deserve a preference in college admissions, yet strongly opposing McCain's decision to back a ballot measure to ban racial preferences. To win working class voters, Obama must make clear that he will not play racial favorites, and empathizes with the struggle of all working class people. The best way to do that is to forthrightly declare, as he has hinted, that he favors shifting the basis of affirmative action from race to class. The move would not only be good defense; it would amplify the Obama campaign's most powerful theme: of moving beyond old divisions to bring the country together.

But would shifting to the radical center on national security, culture and affirmative action look inconsistent and simply affirm the stereotype that liberals don't stand for anything? Not at all. For years, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman ran and governed as "tough liberals" -- strong on national security, supportive of civil rights (but never racial preferences) and champions of economic mobility -- and often won decisive electoral victories.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Barack Obama and Joe Biden could knit together a radical centrist agenda around a simple and coherent theme: the need to promote greater economic and political democracy. This profound commitment to democracy was central to the thinking of one of America's last great "tough liberals," teacher union leader Albert Shanker, who strongly supported public education and trade unions while also fiercely opposing dictatorships abroad and racial preferences at home.

At Shanker's memorial service in 1997, Bill Clinton noted, "Al Shanker would say something on one day that would delight liberals and infuriate conservatives. The next day, he would make conservatives ecstatic and the liberals would be infuriated." But during his lifetime, Shanker emphasized the common democratic thread of his positions. To Shanker, trade unions were not just economic interest groups but were critical institutions in a democracy -- giving workers a democratic voice in the workplace and in the Congress. Likewise, public schools were more than places to train future employees to compete internationally; they were institutions that taught democratic citizenship and helped bind children from vastly different backgrounds together to teach them what it means to be an American. The centrality of democracy, however, also drove Shanker to be a strong internationalist and defense hawk who believed America should project its values abroad and be the world's leading voice against dictatorships on the left and right. And he believed that it was essential that a liberal democracy have a single standard for individuals of all races and that affirmative action should be open to low income people irrespective of race.

As the polls tighten with the McCain-Palin ticket pushing the mantra of "reform," it will become all the more important for Obama and Biden to distinguish the type of "change" each campaign offers. Were Obama and Biden to tie their various policy proposals to the theme of promoting economic and political democracy, they could blunt Republican efforts to paint Democrats as elitists who look down upon radical centrist voters. They could also sharpen the debate, making clear that McCain and Palin's hostility to organized labor and support for private school vouchers were not just wrong but undermine American democracy. Most importantly, a coherent democratic theme would give Obama and Biden a great and noble vision to implement once elected.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is author of Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy.

Comments

[palinsnohillary]

Wait a minute...a­ffirmative action also benefits women and McCain's ridiculous choice of unqualified Slick Sarah is the most outrageous example of tokenism and the dark side of affirmative action ever. They dare NOT attack Obama on this issue or else risk absolute ridicule...on the other hand, with the gaffes of the past week, the repubs just might open themselves up this way.

[FearlessFreep]

If "radical center" isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is.

[Richard D. Kahlenberg - Huffpost Blogger]

It's a paradox not an oxymoron: white working class voters are in the political center, swinging back and forth between political parties, but they're also radicalized, particularly on economic issues, in the sense that they support programs to dramatically improve economic inequality in this country. In 1968, the same voters who liked Robert Kennedy expressed support for George Wallace; the key is to make RFK's direct appeal based on class.

[jeanrenoir]

I'm amazed Obama hasn't checkmated the Republicans already in one fell swoop by denouncing race-based affirmative action, saying that there are now millions of lucky well-off black kids like his who don't need any preferences whatsoever, while there are millions of poor white girls just like his daughters who desperately do. So call for CLASS-based, race-blind affirmative action! Call for help for ALL the poor to unite the country behind an idealism we can ALL believe in!! This one move would win more than enough Reagan Democrats in WI, MI, and OH to demolish McCain in all three states, and would probably put Obama over the top in NC and VA, too, which would mean a landslide. Another advantage of this "September Surprise," which should be announced in a major speech covered by ALL networks, iike the speech on race, would be that it's simply the RIGHT THING TO DO.

[Richard D. Kahlenberg - Huffpost Blogger]

Amen. And Obama should do it before McCain raises the issue and makes Obama look defensive.

[oldfart1]

Racism is alive and well and a critical factor in this campaign, and there are probably some very young and very naive people who don't already know this (10 year olds?), so there may be a point to this column. However, it's already there, it's always been there, it's been the 1200 pound gorilla in the room from the beginning. One thing that the campaign has proved is that it need not be fatal. The second point is that Obama and his supporters may well have figured it right after all; there are much worse things, and Sarah is their living embodiment. The Alaskans (who know her best) have already turned against her, and soon the whole country will. Obama is doing everything right, he is staying calm and cool, and he and Joe Biden will shine in the debates. Be cool, stick to the facts, and let the feeble old man and his latest girl friend (who is God's very special gift to Barrack, many thanks to the Holier Than Thous, I didn't even dream she would be so bad as she is turning out to be) fade away.

[nomobull]

enough

[PioneerKing]

Republicans don't want to go near affirmative action.

At their convention, and since then, republicans stated this election is about personalities.

Republicans would want to stay away from affirmative action now that they have turned to Palin as VP.

It was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party who put real cracks in the glass ceiling, otherwise Palin would not have been given a shot as VP.

When republicans attack affirmative action white women will be reminded, they have been the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action plans.

McCain and the republicans have blocked and voted against equal pay and worker protection for women and minorities (the republicans need the Latino vote).

Republican's have turned their quest for the presidency into one of the highest profile affirmative action programs in history.

Republicans are running an octogenarian, (seniors also benefit from affirmative action) who is self described as “someone who does not understand the economy,” is computer illiterate and still has a 18th century world view about women and politics for president.

For VP republicans have nominated a hockey mom, with a disabled child (the disabled also benefit from affirmative action) who does not have a clue about world politics and has been very proud of the fact that she “has not really been following what has been happening in Iraq and Iran with very much detail.”

Let the republicans bring on the affirmative action debate, they won't win on that issue this year.

[SeanGardner]

"The idea behind affirmative action - that whites owe a debt the blacks for the history of, and ongoing reality of, racial discrimination - is unpopular with whites"

You mentioned affirmative action in your post, but apparantly didn't have the courage to tell the truth about affirmative action. I am not talking about the supposition, conjecture and rampant demogoguery about "blacks and latinos" supposedly "stealing jobs from whites." I am talking about the TRUTH: that white women (yes, white women like Sarah Palin who was an AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BABY) benefit from affirmative action more than anyone else. Government data and private industry figures have confirmed this.

In fact, the AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APA), among many other groups, has done an exhaustive, comprehensive study that deals with the facts about affirmative action - (click on this link: http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/affirmaction.html). Yes, African-Americans do benefit from affirmative action. Latinos benefit from it. Asian Pacific Americans benefit from it. Arab-Americans benefit from it. But as the study clearly says, "Although opinion polls reveal that many Whites believe they are unfairly discriminated against by affirmative action policies, it is Whites who benefit most. This is because of their larger numbers in most sectors covered by affirmative action interventions." A good example of this point is the affirmative action program...TITLE IX, which Sarah Palin benefited from.

If you're going to write about something, at least tell the truth about it.

[oldfart1]

I read the APA report, and it said nothing like that at all. What it actually said is that both ethnic minorities and women are discriminated against. Which is more discriminated against is hard to say, because their backgrounds are not comparable. However, there is one interesting point: the highest paid university President in the country is a black woman. I "knew her when", and I still can't figure out how she did it. Carly Fiorina was another big puzzle. But of course, for every woman or minority fraud, there are hundreds (thousands? who really knows?) of grossly overpaid white male CEO's. And there is no doubt that Sarah is a classic example of "balance" gone wrong: even the guy who innocently started her on her road to fame, fortune, and even infamy, says so.

[SeanGardner]

So where did that quote come from? You know, this quote: "Although opinion polls reveal that many Whites believe they are unfairly discriminated against by affirmative action policies, it is Whites who benefit most. This is because of their larger numbers in most sectors covered by affirmative action interventions."

That came FROM THE REPORT. Who are you trying to fool? Next time read the entire report - not just the first two sentences.

I notice you didn't challenge the fact that government date and private industry numbers prove that white women benefit from affirmative action more than anyone else. So when you're ready to talk facts, I'll be waiting.

Oh, here is another link that gives even more clarity to my point: http://www.aapf.org/focus/episodes/oct30.php

[Political Know How]

It's pathetic how some whites are opposed to equal access to opportunities. I fear that if affirmative action were abolished, white people would blatantly discriminate against qualified minorities simply based on their own racist views.

Racism is alive and well in America. Laws are needed to protect minorities against the willful, bigoted actions of whites in positions of power who hire employees, approve mortgages, admit students into college etc. Race relations will get worse if affirmative action is watered down anymore. It already disproportionately benefits white women.

[Richard D. Kahlenberg - Huffpost Blogger]

So here's an important distinction: affirmative action that employs racial preferences (e.g. admitting an underrepresented minority student who has a lower academic qualifications) and nondiscrimination laws (that recognize that discrimination continues to occur and seeks to stamp it out.) The vast majority of Americans are against preferences and for anti-discrimination laws because they see the two as entirely consistent.

[BadmotherinAK]

Senator Obama should not bring this issue up. If he is asked in the debates or in an interview about AA, without thinking or hesitating, he should say he's for class-based preferences. Period. No long explanations, no rigomorole, just keep it simple. This is a trap issue if he lets it become a trap issue.

All good Americans should be for poor kids getting an education.

[JMBrodie]

So, in order to get elected, Obama has to appease racists by dissing Blacks?

And here I thought Rev. Wright was his Sistah Souljah/Willie Horton moment.

[Michael Gene Sullivan - Huffpost Blogger]

Um, yeah. Let's not run a campaign based on reality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gene-sullivan/barack-obama-is-the-nomin_b_124297.html