Black America Needs a Reality Check on Obama Presidency

During the hard fought Democratic primaries between presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, black voters flatly said in exit polls that they backed Obama because he was black. But joy at getting the first African-American in the White House wasn't their only motive. They expect an Obama White House to fight hard for civil rights, affordable health care, quality education and job creation programs, and criminal justice reform. In a July New York Times poll Obama was rated far above Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as the new go to guy on civil rights.

Obama is an African-American, a one time civil rights attorney and street organizer. He's been tagged a liberal Democrat. This further heightens black expectations that he will be more sensitive than Republican rival John McCain or past white presidents to the plight of blacks, especially the black poor. But Obama's presumed liberal voting record and activism on civil rights and poverty are things of the past. He had to change to win his fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Black voters make up about 12 percent of American voters. If Obama won every black vote in every state it wouldn't have insured him the Democratic nomination, let alone the White House. This has everything to do with the make-up of the Democratic Party. From the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s the Democratic Party has been a loose, unwieldy, and always fragile coalition party. The coalition traditionally has been made up of farmers, blue collar ethnics, blacks, Latinos, Jews, labor unions, and in recent years, liberal interest groups such as environmentalists, abortion and gay rights advocates.

The Democratic coalition badly unraveled in the 1968 presidential election. Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon spotted an opening that election. He appealed to the Silent Majority of disaffected blue collar, urban white ethnic and conservative Jews who were outraged over so-called liberal permissiveness, the urban riots, antiwar protests, and Lyndon Johnson's pro big government Great Society programs. They deserted the Democrats in droves. A decade later the flight of white Democrats, especially white male Democrats, turned into a stampede to back Ronald Reagan. They bought his tout of strong defense, blast at tax and spend Democrats, and his downplay of civil rights.

To win the White House, Bill Clinton coaxed some Reagan Democrats to vote Democratic. To do it he had to drastically retool his approach. That meant casting the Democratic Party as a centrist even conservative party that championed strong defense, tax breaks for the suburban middle class, radical expansion of police power, revamp of welfare and downsizing government.

This Republican lite non-racial, centrist pitch did not threaten or alienate the white middle-class. Al Gore and John Kerry pretty much followed Clinton's script in their presidential bids in 2000 and 2004. They were virtually mute on issues such as racial profiling, affirmative action, housing and job discrimination, the racial disparities in prison sentencing, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, failing inner city schools, criminal justice system reform, and the shape of the Supreme Court.

Obama is at heart a centrist Democrat. During his stint in the Illinois state legislature at times he voted as a liberal Democrat on abortion rights, some criminal justice, civil liberties and environmental issues. At other times, there were nuances, compromises and caution in his position on these same issues.  This drew raves from Republican legislators as a flexible politician and consensus builder who listened to the views of his Republican opponents. On the presidential campaign trail, Obama has been lambasted for flip flops on the Iraq War, tax cuts, FISA, abortion, gun control, and the death penalty. These are not so much flip flops as his repositioning as the centrist Democrat that he has always been.

In any case, civil rights and the ramp up in spending on education, housing and jobs, and health care programs have not been a priority for presidents in the past half century. Lyndon Johnson was the sole exception. That was only because of relentless pressure from the civil rights movement and the urban violence that tore America. 

As president Obama will be no different.  He will be pulled and tugged at by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil, banking and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, moderate and conservative GOP senators and House members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all will vie to get White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests.

An Obama White House will be a historic and symbolic first. But it will be a White House that keeps a firm, cautious and conciliatory eye on mid-American public opinion, and corporate and defense industry interests in making policy decisions and determining priorities. In that sense, an Obama presidency will be no different than that of other occupants of the White House, whether Republican or Democrat, and white.