Subtle Racism in Political Campaign Messages

The United States is rooted in a belief of discrimination and racial inferiority. Initially, it was the Founding Fathers who upheld such inequality by drafting a Constitution which accepted slavery, ensuring southern states that non-free persons would count as 3/5 of a person in order to compromise Congressional representation. It would take a bloody Civil War, several Supreme Court decisions, and a movement lead by a reverend from Atlanta, Georgia before African Americans would be granted equal voting rights. In the years following the Civil Rights Movement and the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits federal or state government from infringing on a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” racism continued to permeate American government and politics. Countless politicians were elected despite blatant discriminatory views, such as bans on interracial marriage. Eventually, these ideals would become socially unacceptable, in most elections, as the United States entered an era of egalitarian thought.

Racism would not be eradicated though, as public opinion would suggest, rather it would be revealed in the privacy of the voting booth. One victim of such deception was former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. In 1982, both pre-election and exit polls had Bradley heavily favored in the California gubernatorial race. Bradley, an African American, would lose the election to his white opponent George Deukmejian. Following the results, Deukmejian’s campaign manager commented on the inaccuracy of the polls, stating “if people are going to vote that way, they certainly are not going to announce it for a survey taker.” The “Bradley Effect,” as political scientists would coin it, would go on to plague numerous African American politicians such as Harold Washington, Douglas Wilder, and David Dinkins. Author Daniel Hopkins discusses the “Bradley Effect” in his 2008 Harvard study, and while he concludes that it no longer exists, he does acknowledge that before 1996 African Americans running for office performed approximately 2.7 points worse than polling numbers. Although the public would no longer tolerate explicit racism, anti-black sentiments clearly continued, and politicians began to capitalize through more subtle means. Thus, modern politics has created a paradox in which African American candidates avoid policy discussions with racial undertones while white politicians implement implicit racial messages as a means to influence the electorate.

Political campaigns appeal to racial beliefs through either explicit or implicit messages. Explicit messages make blatant racial claims using such words as “black,” or “race.” In the past, white politicians’ strategy when facing a black opponent was to link unfavorable policies explicitly to African American citizens. Between 1940 and 1970, these prejudice policies directly targeted blacks, such as measures against racial integration in marriage, housing, and the workplace. In 1942, 68 percent of whites favored school segregation yet in 1995 only 4 percent responded similarly (Schuman et al. 1997). As society progressed and anti-discriminatory laws were passed, politicians shifted away from explicitly racial messages. As Gregory Huber notes in his article “The Race Card Revisited,” “even those who hold negative views of blacks consciously resist explicit appeals by instead embracing a widely held egalitarian antiracist ideal that is stronger than the racist counterpart.” Thus, white politicians would have to be subtler in their messages. The Willie Horton advertisement from the 1988 Presidential election exemplifies such implicit attempts at appealing to anti-black views. The portrayed an African American convicted felon who was serving a life-sentence. It then describes how Horton was released on a weekend furlough program and committed an additional robbery and rape. The program was supported by Massachusetts Governor and Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, and was the critical blow to his candidacy.

Political scientist Mendelberg outlined the four fundamental goals of racial cues in campaign messages. First, the cues needed to appeal to white Americans’ internal conflict between the concept of egalitarianism and resentment towards minorities for lacking hard work and individualism. Second, racial cues must create a memory, which is readily employed during political decision-making. Thirdly, the content must not be explicit and lastly, the audience must not recognize the racial cues. Racial cues can either be verbal, for example, continually citing the term “inner-city” as a means to invoke images of African Americans, or visual, such as a political advertisement discussing illegal immigration while flashing images of Mexican immigrants. Racial messages prove more successful in campaigns with strong racial attitudes. Such endorsements often prey on the negative minority stereotypes as well as white dissatisfaction with minority advancements. Both older whites, as well as uneducated voters are most susceptible to these anti-black implicit messages. These tactics often times increase voter turned in biracial elections by roughly 3 percentage points (Hopkins 2008).

When explicit campaign messages proved unsuccessful, white politicians began to portray African Americans through implicit racial cues as opponents of American values and tying them to controversial issues such as affirmative action, welfare, and crime.

White politicians have capitalized on the fact that traditional American values are in fact that of ‘white’ American values, therefore blackness itself is in violation. The 2008 election exemplifies such tactics, as Republicans made several attempts to portray African American and Democratic candidate Barack Obama as out of touch with traditional American values. Rumors of his ties to Muslim extremists were circulated in correlation with the advertisement of his middle name Hussein. In addition, Republicans have attempted to depict Obama as an elitist. Georgia Congressman Westmoreland even referring to the Senator as “uppity,” but would later issue an apology, claiming he was unaware of the term’s racial connotation. McCain also attacked Obama’s celebrity in a televised advertisement making comparisons to socialite Paris Hilton and pop star Britney Spears. Although none of these attacks had a severe affect on voters, the strategy of separating the Black candidate from traditional white American values continues.

Historically, “racialized” campaign messages have implicitly linked both African American citizens and politicians to welfare reform. In a 1999 publication titled Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Anti-Poverty Policy author Martin Giles notes that “By 1973, 75% of magazine pictures featured African Americans as the face of welfare, despite African Americans making up only 35% of welfare recipients.” Thus, politicians have used this stereotype to depict African Americans as opponents of individuality and dependent on government assistance. Giles uses the results of an experiment in which a welfare story was embedded in an 11-minute news clip. The clip was shown to two separate groups, one using a white woman in the welfare story and the other a black woman. The results showed that people were extremely accurate in recalling the race and gender of the black female recipient, thus confirming that the racial narrative incited implicit associations between blacks and welfare (Giles 1999). This image has continued well into the 1990s, yet has lessened since the passage of the welfare reform bill in 1996. Notably, Barack Obama has illustrated awareness of the racial sentiments and has spoke little on the subject of welfare reform. Nevertheless, John McCain has attempted to depict Obama as a reckless government spender.

Another racially charged policy issue is affirmative action. Just days before the 1996 Presidential election, Republican candidate Bob Dole traveled to California to announce his support for Proposition 209, a measure that would end state affirmative action programs. President Clinton later responded with a “mend it, don’t end it” approach to maintaining federal affirmative action programs (Petrow 2006). Obama has successfully avoided this subject matter in the 2008 election, as his position on the policy is not even listed on the issues section of his web site.

Another manipulative tactic implemented by politicians in elections is to pray on whites’ fear of the black man as a criminal. White voters often associate violence and criminal activity with minorities, specifically African Americans. Not coincidently, one adjective used by Republicans to describe Barack Obama is “dangerous.” Although this is most often in reference to Obama’s foreign policy views, it is no doubt a subtle attempt at evoking the subconscious belief that African Americans are violent. Obama has proved his awareness of these attempts though, and while several political pundits criticize him for not getting angrier, he realizes that such hostile emotions will only play into the “angry Blackman” stereotype. Even in the first Presidential debate, Obama remained mostly calm and not too aggressive with John McCain. White politicians, on the other hand, are not subject to such emotional restrictions. It is also no surprise that Obama’s most damaging attack was his link to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Sermons in which Wright angrily states "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme," were immediately damaging to the Obama campaign and he was forced to cut relations with his pastor of 20 years.

It is important to note racial messages are not solely exclusive to white politicians. In August of 2008, Democrat Steve Cohen faced a racial charged primary in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District. Cohen, a white Jew, faced tough competition against African American Nikki Tinker in the states only black majority district. Tinker used implicit racial cues in several television advertisements. One ad showed several images of Klansmen and the other challenged the Jewish incumbent for “praying in our churches” (“Cohen Hangs on In TN-9 Dem Primary”).

While the 2008 Presidential campaign has exemplified racial cues to discourage support for African American candidate Barack Obama, it has yet to be determined if the messages will truly influence the electorate. However, a recent September 2008 poll, conducted by Associated Press/Yahoo, illustrates McCain might have made an impact. In questioning 2227 adults (1083 registered Democrats and 798 Republicans), the poll found that racist views might cause roughly 2.5 percent of Democrats to “turn away from Obama because of his race.” In addition, one-third of white Democrats cited a negative adjective describing blacks while roughly twenty-five percent felt “if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.” Such results are surely noteworthy, considering the past two presidential elections have been decided by slight margins.

As the current Presidential election includes the first African American candidate it is uncertain whether the “Bradley Effect” will transcend national politics. Researcher Daniel Hopkins argues that we have seen the end of polling inaccuracy due to undisclosed racism. He basis his analysis off past elections and cites the welfare reform bill of 1996 as the end to erroneous polls. Conversely, there has never been an African America presidential candidate, thus the affect of racial cues in national campaigns is unknown.

The electorate has certainly evolved over the past fifty years and has become more accepting of African Americans. While few feel that blacks are inherently less intelligent many still hold the belief that they lack the motivation to succeed (Schuman et al. 1997). However, there are countless minorities who still face discrimination, including Latinos, Middle Easterners, and homosexuals. Will these groups face similar implicit messages when they begin running for federal positions, or has America progressed beyond personal attacks to focus more on issues and policies? Ultimately, the future of race and politics will rest on the 2008 Presidential election and the candidacy of Barack Obama.