BARACK OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

• First, the impact on the Party.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are evenly dividing the traditional constituencies of the Party—the black vote and the working class vote.  Obama is clearly winning the vast majority of blacks—about 90%, while Clinton is winning about 60 to 70% of the working class votes.  This split is thereby challenging the Party’s reputation as the Party of racial reconciliation.  The coalition of blacks and working class Democrats has been a powerful coalition that extends back to at least LBJ.  But with the rise of Ronald Reagan, white working class voters began to vote Republican.  In fact, since 1964, Republicans have won 7 out of 10 presidential contests.  Also, no Democratic presidential candidate since LBJ has captured a majority of white support.  There is a racial divide, and the Obama candidacy is exacerbating this divide.  Bill Clinton won over whites in broadening the Party’s base, but still had problems with this.  So, it seems that identity politics is back!  Obama is struggling to win small-town America’s vote and his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright has not helped this.  For that reason, perhaps, Clinton has been rolling up significant majorities among whites.  And with the dominance by Obama of the black vote, once loyal to the Clintons, the dominance of race in the campaign is real.  Obama simply has had great difficulty connecting with working-class whites in key electoral battleground states (e.g., Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas).  While he edged out Clinton in the popular vote in the 22 states on February 5, he lost among white voters by a margin of 52 to 43%.  Although Obama has attracted white affluent voters, he cannot seem to make inroads with the white working class.  This is a formidable challenge and it demonstrates a racial divide that is serious within the Democratic Party. 

• Second, it is very instructive who did not come forward within the Democratic Party during the month of April, the most difficult month for Obama in the campaign.  The Wright sermons and the comments about working class folks he made in San Francisco caused him immense problems with the white working-class.  As Daniel Henninger has pointed out, he needed support and words of encouragement.  Where were the famous people who had endorsed him:  Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Oprah, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle, Jay Rockefeller, Toni Morrison, Roger Wilkins, Robert Reich, etc.?  Where were all the big-city mayors who had endorsed him:  Richard Daly (Chicago), Frank Reynolds (Cleveland), and Sheila Dixon (Baltimore)?  No one went on TV to give him support.  No one wrote an op ed piece for a major newspaper.  Henninger writes:  “The list is long this week of supporters who let Barack Obama hang out to dry.  More than a few were last seen running out on Hillary Clinton.  Perhaps the solution here is for the two soloists to meet, flip a coin and spend the next six months running against John McCain.  It looks like they’re the only friends they’ve got.”  Politics is about preserving your own standing and your own political situation, not defending other candidates.  We saw that selfish, self-centered dimension in Democratic politics last week!

• Third, what is the theology behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary, bizarre and offensive comments?  You cannot understand Wright if you do not understand Black Liberation theology.  Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, is one of the foremost adherents of this theology.  Although it extends back to the days of slavery, Black Liberation theology is a product of the 1960s.  It pulls on the revolutionary message of Scripture, especially the story of the Exodus.  God fought for and defended the Hebrew slaves.  For many black theologians, there is a straight-line connection between Hebrew slavery and black slavery.  God wanted both free!  The language of Black Liberation theology is especially instructive.  Black theology speaks strongly of the judgment of God; He punishes evil and sin—and no person and no nation are exempt.  Black pastors have championed consistently the suffering of the less fortunate and blasted those who cause the suffering, hence, Rev. Wright’s diatribes against America, its government and its whole society.  One black leader writes of Wright:  “As Moses ‘damned’ his own followers for worshipping the Golden Calf . . . Wright, in the language of the prophets, damned his own country.”  James Cone, one of the key theologians of Black theology has written this:  “Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community.  If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him.  Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. . . In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors.”  Black theology attacks what it believes are the structural evils of white America.  There is little grace and little mercy in Wright’s sermons, for His God ruthlessly judges and relentlessly condemns.  There are so many things that can be said about the shortcomings of Black Liberation theology, but most importantly is the central message that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  God is a God Who exudes grace and mercy and Who forgives.  His message of salvation is for all people, regardless of who they are.  Whites who have been involved in so much of the past shortcomings and sin toward blacks (e.g., slavery) must be forgiven and embraced, just as whites must forgive and embrace blacks.  Black theology can build an identity for blacks but it also builds a huge wall that promotes hatred, not harmony and love—the core values of genuine biblical Christianity.

See Michael Gerson, Washington Post (2 May 2008); Michael Powell, “A Fiery Theology Under Fire,” in the New York Times (4 May 2008); John Harwood, “A Fault Line That Haunts the Democrats,” in the New York Times (4 May 2008) and Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal (1 May 2008).