James Taranto: Why so few blacks have made it nationally
One of the most memorable election-night images was of Jesse Jackson, tears streaming down his cheeks as he waited for President-elect Obama to speak at his Chicago victory rally. Our thought as we watched: Are those tears of joy or of regret? Our conclusion: probably both.
Jackson waxed triumphant yesterday morning on CBS's "The Early Show," saying that Obama "stood overcoming so much. . . . I thought about those who suffered to make it possible--the marchers, the murdered, the martyrs, many of whom are nameless and faceless. But in some sense, their suffering was redeemed last night with that victory." We do not doubt the sincerity of these sentiments, but there is little question that Jackson has mixed feelings about Obama. In an unguarded moment less than four months ago, he fantasized about castrating Obama to punish him for "talking down to black people."
One reason Jackson might resent Obama is that the younger man has accomplished something the older man tried and failed. Jackson sought the Democratic presidential nomination twice, in 1984 and 1988, and while he did win some primaries, his was never more than a race-based protest candidacy. Was America unready to elect a black president in the 1980s? There's no way to answer that question, but it does seem fair to surmise that someone like Jesse Jackson would be unelectable even now.
Jackson, of course, was an unlikely candidate for many reasons, not least that he had never held elective office. But here is a striking fact: Before Obama, only two black elected officials, Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and ex-Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in 2004, had ever sought their party's nomination for president.
This is partly because election to statewide office is almost a prerequisite for the presidency, and there remains a paucity of high-level black statewide elected officials. Obama is only the third black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. Only two blacks have been elected governor in that period, Virginia's Doug Wilder and Massachusetts' Deval Patrick. This is not because blacks are excluded from public office: Their numbers are generally healthy in the House, in state legislatures and in local governments.
Blacks' uncompetitiveness in statewide elections is in part a perverse consequence of legal efforts aimed at electing more blacks. Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department has pressed states to draw district lines so as to create majority-black districts. Such districts usually elect black lawmakers--but those lawmakers do not have to compete for votes outside the black community, so that they are unprepared to face the more diverse statewide electorate.
Obama was something of an exception. His state Senate district included some black areas, but his political base is Hyde Park, the prosperous, integrated neighborhood around the University of Chicago. (Mosely Braun, the second of the three black senators since Reconstruction, earlier represented Hyde Park in the state House.) It may be surprising that a Hyde Parker wasn't too liberal to make it to the White House, but not that he had cross-racial appeal....
Read entire article at WSJ
Jackson waxed triumphant yesterday morning on CBS's "The Early Show," saying that Obama "stood overcoming so much. . . . I thought about those who suffered to make it possible--the marchers, the murdered, the martyrs, many of whom are nameless and faceless. But in some sense, their suffering was redeemed last night with that victory." We do not doubt the sincerity of these sentiments, but there is little question that Jackson has mixed feelings about Obama. In an unguarded moment less than four months ago, he fantasized about castrating Obama to punish him for "talking down to black people."
One reason Jackson might resent Obama is that the younger man has accomplished something the older man tried and failed. Jackson sought the Democratic presidential nomination twice, in 1984 and 1988, and while he did win some primaries, his was never more than a race-based protest candidacy. Was America unready to elect a black president in the 1980s? There's no way to answer that question, but it does seem fair to surmise that someone like Jesse Jackson would be unelectable even now.
Jackson, of course, was an unlikely candidate for many reasons, not least that he had never held elective office. But here is a striking fact: Before Obama, only two black elected officials, Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and ex-Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in 2004, had ever sought their party's nomination for president.
This is partly because election to statewide office is almost a prerequisite for the presidency, and there remains a paucity of high-level black statewide elected officials. Obama is only the third black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. Only two blacks have been elected governor in that period, Virginia's Doug Wilder and Massachusetts' Deval Patrick. This is not because blacks are excluded from public office: Their numbers are generally healthy in the House, in state legislatures and in local governments.
Blacks' uncompetitiveness in statewide elections is in part a perverse consequence of legal efforts aimed at electing more blacks. Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department has pressed states to draw district lines so as to create majority-black districts. Such districts usually elect black lawmakers--but those lawmakers do not have to compete for votes outside the black community, so that they are unprepared to face the more diverse statewide electorate.
Obama was something of an exception. His state Senate district included some black areas, but his political base is Hyde Park, the prosperous, integrated neighborhood around the University of Chicago. (Mosely Braun, the second of the three black senators since Reconstruction, earlier represented Hyde Park in the state House.) It may be surprising that a Hyde Parker wasn't too liberal to make it to the White House, but not that he had cross-racial appeal....