orgtheory.net

Fabio

Over at blackprof.com, Terry Smith links to an article by Earl Hutchinson that pokes a hole in the Obama bubble. According to Hutchinson, black voters may dump Obama for a more electable candidate. This argument, which has some plausibility, really misses the point: Obama doesn’t need the black vote. To put it bluntly, Obama’s chances for president do not hinge at all on increasing the black vote beyond what democratic candidates normally get, which hovers around 90%. 

Why? The early Democratic primaries are in states that have small black populations - Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. The first primary state with any sizable black population is South Carolina – which comes fourth in the current calendar, a week after New Hampshire. To see my argument, let’s consider the outcomes of the early democratic primaries (IA,NH, NV):

• Obama landslide – This situation, done without the black vote because they simply don’t exist in large numbers in these states, creates a Kerry style chain reaction. Early wins create a band wagon effect where all Democrats jump on board the “electable candidate.” See Kerry 2004, Gore 2000, Carter 1976.
• A mixed result – Obama does well in one early primary and not in the others.  Or so-so in all three. In this case, I think that the Hillary machine will effectively finish off Obama with a crushing defeat in South Carolina, which will come primarily from white democrats. Even if Obama dominates the South Carolina black votes, it wouldn’t be enough to off set the monolithic white vote behind Hillary (or Edwards in the upset). South Carolina also has a nack for putting the breaks on non-establishment candidates in the GOP primaries as well. See Buchanan 1992 or McCain 2004.
• Bad showing – Obama tanks in two or three of the early primaries. Game over. South Carolina isn’t even an issue if this happens.

If you notice, black voters have no real impact in any of these scenarios. And of course, Obama can take the black vote for granted in the general election. The only scenario I can imagine where the black vote will matter is if the early primaries end up with three candidates splitting the three primaries (e.g., Hillary wins in NH, Edwards gets Iowa, and Obama gets NV). Then the expectation of a Hillary cake walk is shattered, which allows Edwards, a local favorite, to split the white democrats in South Carolina. If Edwards and Hillary do manage to split white SC democrats, then Obama’s possible strength in the black community may allow him to assemble a winning coalition of white anti-hillarite professionals and African Americans. Otherwise, when you sit down and count votes, you can see that Obama faces the unusual possibility of being the first Black president who was elected without any extra effort to mobilize the black vote.