The Setting

It was in January 2006 that first-term United States Senator Barack Obama officially entered the campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Twelve-months later, Obama, 46 years old, gained victory in the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, 2007-- Obama 38%, Edwards-33%, Clinton 29%. Obama's Iowa victory warranted the following headline in the New York Times (January 4, 2007): “New Face And A Call For Change Shake Up The Democratic Field.” Elaborating on this headline, even the conservative columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks, found himself in a rare celebration mood toward a genuinely liberal development in American life as well as a liberal development inspired by an African American political leader. Brooks clearly struggled to wrench-out-of-his-inner-rightwing-soul the following observation on Obama's Iowa Caucus victory:

Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You'd have to have heart of stone not to feel moved by this. An African-American man wins a closely fought campaign in a pivotal state. He beats two strong opponents, including the mighty Clinton machine. He does it in a system that favors rural voters. He does it by getting young voters to come out to the caucuses. This is a huge moment. It's one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance. ...Obama has achieved something remarkable.

For a progressive like myself, however, my favorite observation by a leading columnist on Obama's Iowa Caucus victory was penned by the eloquent Bob Herbert of the New York Times (January 4, 2007):

This is new. America has never seen anything like the Obama phenomenon. ...There is no longer any doubt that the Obama phenomenon is real. Mr. Obama's message of hope, healing and change, discounted as fanciful and naïve by skeptics, drew Iowans into the frigid night air by the tens of thousands on Thursday to stand with a man who is not just running for president, but trying to build a new type of political movement. By midnight, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd had been chased from the race; John Edwards was all but literally on his knees; and the Clintons were trying, for the umpteenth time, to figure out how to remake themselves as the comeback kids. Shake hands with tomorrow. It's here. Senator Obama's victory speech was a concise oratorical gem. No candidate in either party can move an audience like he can. He characterized his stunning victory as an affirmation of “the most American of ideas—that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.” Mr. Obama has shown...a capacity to make people feel good about their country again.

Interesting as the foregoing observations by David Brooks and Bob Herbert on Obama's Iowa Caucus victory were from their differing ideological vantage points, I felt something quite basic regarding the historical background to Senator Obama's presidential primary quest was missing. Although Bob Herbert emphasized the impact of Obama's Iowa victory in helping to awaken “a new kind of progressive political possibility”, let's call it, in our country's early 21st century oligarchic and plutocratic democracy, there were two important earlier primary election campaign-quests by an African-American politician during an earlier phase in the evolution of today's plutocratic patterning of our American democracy.

Namely, Jesse Jackson's campaign-quests in 1984 and 1988 for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. While in that Reaganite Era the Republican Party's patently Negro-phobic anti-civil rights movement skewed political appeal skillfully hamstrung and marginalized liberal political possibilities, it was not the American labor movement or other liberal avenues like the women's movement that kept the “hope of liberal or progressive possibilities” from dying completely.

So at this important moment in Barack Obama's campaign, mention of those crucial Jackson campaigns in l984 and 1988 is warranted—a story brilliantly related in Black Presidential Politics in America: A Strategic Approach (State University of New York Press. 1988) by the University of Maryland political scientist Ronald Walters. Professor Walters, it should be mentioned, was a unique electoral analyst insofar as he was also a campaign adviser for Jesse Jackson, that being a pioneering experience at the time for an African-American political strategist. Other African-American political strategists who had experience as presidential campaign advisers followed in Walters' tracks, such as the late Ron Brown (who was an adviser to Senator Edward Kennedy's aborted campaign for the Democratic nomination and adviser to Clinton's successful 1992 campaign) and Donna Brazille (who gained the post of campaign director for Al Gore in 2000).

There's no doubt that Obama's current 2008 quest for the Democratic presidential nomination is a unique electoral phenomenon, paving a way to new political possibilities in our country's oligarchic and plutocratic politics. But Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 campaign-quests also represented a unique Black American-connected electoral thrust, though at a lower level of systemic political impact than Obama's campaign. Above all, Jackson's campaign-quests—beyond any previous electoral undertaking by Black political personalities—afforded African-Americans a preliminary sense that their ethnic-bloc political culture and its leadership personalities contained attributes of national-level political capability. The African-American political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell at Princeton University has formulated this point by underlining what she calls “the explosive popularity of Jesse Jackson during his mid-1980s presidential bids.”

...Jackson's moral fervor and church-based oratorical style were important elements in his explosive popularity among black voters. Black voters assessed Jackson as more intelligent, compassionate, moral, inspiring, knowledgeable, and honest than either Dukakis or Bush in 1988. Jackson was perceived as a true leader who was deeply concerned with addressing racial inequality. (See article in Wilbur Rich, ed.- African American Perspectives on Political Science (Temple Univ. Press. 2007) p. 113.)

The long presidential-primary road from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama was, as it were, dirt-and-gravel in composition. The Barack Obama presidential-primary road is a bona fide modern turnpike, and on this modern presidential-primary turnpike a Black politician of exemplary caliber and capabilities is now traveling en route to the White House. Can he arrive there victoriously?

Obama's Transition From Iowa Caucus To New Hampshire

We can gain some understanding of Senator Barack Obama's transition from Iowa to New Hampshire from an interesting survey of 422 “likely Democrat voters” that the University of New Hampshire Survey Center undertook between December 16 and 20 for the Boston Globe. It was published in the Boston Globe (December 23, 2007), twelve days before the Iowa Caucus on January 3 and seventeen days before the New Hampshire primary election.

First, the Boston Globe Poll presented an overall ideological profile of the New Hampshire “likely Democrat voters” who –when contrasted with 410 “likely Republican voters”--were decidedly liberal on two major issues (healthcare coverage; reversing Bush tax cuts) but marginally liberal on one issue (driver licenses for illegal immigrants). Some 80% of polled Democrats favored “government's responsibility for healthcare” (65% of Republicans polled opposed); 72% of Democrats favored “repealing Bush tax cuts” (51% of Republicans opposed and 38% favored); and 54% of Democrats favored “driver licenses to illegal immigrants”(82% of Republicans opposed).

What these polling results on major policy issues tell us is that in the two-week period leading up to the New Hampshire primary election, “likely Democrat voters” were on balance solidly liberal in outlook. This situation carried with it the clear suggestion of a fertile primary election arena awaiting the African-American candidate Barack Obama. Thus, things being equal, it appeared to be a question of Obama's electoral-appeal and his organization's vote-mobilizing skills that would determine victory or defeat in the New Hampshire primary.

Of course, citizens' voting decisions are always more complicated than the question of where they stand on major policy issues. Accordingly, the Boston Globe Poll contained very interesting findings in regard how “likely Democrat voters” viewed two important personality issues, what the University of New Hampshire Survey Center labeled “character issues”. In response to the question- “Which candidate has the best judgment?” - the results put Obama on top at 29%, some 6-percentage points ahead of Hillary Clinton at 23%. John Edwards got a 15% response and Bill Richardson 9%.

Furthermore, when the “character issue” query was put to the “likely Democrat voters” in an earlier poll (November 2-7) Obama and Clinton got equal responses at 24%. This meant that Obama was gaining greater character credibility over the nearly 2-month period (early November and late December) between the two polls conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

What strikes me as even more telling evidence of Senator Barack Obama's steady climb to a solid presidential-candidate favorable standing in the minds of “likely Democrat voters” was in the response given to a second “character issue” question. That question was-- “Which candidate do you think is the most trustworthy?”. Again Obama was on top at 29%, some 10 percentage points ahead of Hillary Clinton at 19%, who was tied with John Edwards at 19% , while Bill Richardson lagged behind at 11%. Here again, Obama's transition from Iowa to New Hampshire was facilitated in terms of the “character issue” attitude toward him of “likely Democrat voters”.

However, where Obama's transition from Iowa to New Hampshire might experience rough sledding would be in regard to what might be called the “governance quality issue”. In the Boston Globe Poll, this issue was gauged by two questions. One question was- “Which candidate do you think is the strongest leader?”. In response to this question, “likely Democrat voters” gave Clinton 38% , which was a 14 percentage point advantage over Obama's 24%, with John Edwards at 9% and Bill Richardson at 6%. Nevertheless, it is interesting that when this question was asked in the November poll, the “likely Democrat voters” gave Clinton 45% to Obama's 17%, so within about two months time Clinton declined by 7 points and Obama increased by the same.

If Clinton overwhelmed Obama along the yardstick of “the strongest leader”, it can be said that Clinton smashed Obama along the yardstick of - “Which candidate do you think has the most experience?” Here Clinton claimed a 50% response from “likely Democrat voters” in the upcoming New Hampshire primary, while Obama lagged at the bottom with a 6% response, while Bill Richardson outdistanced Obama at 12% and John Edwards tied Obama at 6%.

Obama's High-Standing On Eve Of New Hampshire Vote: It Failed

While the late December Boston Globe Poll suggested that, even when major consideration is given to Hillary Clinton's strong advantage over Obama in regard to “strongest leader” and “most experience”, Obama could be said to still have a good fighting chance to succeed in the New Hampshire election. He faired very well in the “character issue” section of the Boston Globe Poll, after all.

So, to virtually everyone's surprise, all major polls following Senator Obama's phenomenal Iowa victory on January 3rd down to election-eve of the New Hampshire primary claimed that Obama appeared on-road-to-victory. All major polls put Obama ahead of Clinton by between 5 percentage points (WHDH-TV Poll), 9 percentage points (CNN/WMUR-TV Poll), and 13 percentage points (Zogby International Poll). Clearly, Obama was on high-ground on eve of the New Hampshire vote. But what a difference 24 hours can make!

By 10 o'clock on the evening of the election—January 8th – the Associated Press formally projected Hillary Clinton victorious with 39% over Obama at 36%. The headlines of major articles in leading newspapers explained the surprise of Clinton's victory in their usual “sound-bite fashion”, so to speak. As a USA Today headline put it: “Experience Helps In Giving Clinton The Edge”. A New York Times headline put it this way: “From A Big Boost For Obama To Sharp Blow”, referring of course to the sharp shift from the January 3rd Iowa Caucus victory to the January 8th New Hampshire election turnaround in Hillary Clinton's favor.

Yet there is, I believe, a hopeful-lining (maybe silver-lining too) in Obama's New Hampshire failure. In this take on the meaning of Clinton's New Hampshire victory for the long-haul road to the Democratic Party presidential nomination this summer, I take a cue partly from a headline in USA Today (January 9, 2008) introducing a battery of letters-to-editor: “Fresh Ideas Not Experience Will Be Key In '08 [Presidential] Election.”

Obama's High-Standing On Eve Of New Hampshire: Hope In Exit Polls

What is the broad political meaning of Senator Obama's phenomenal campaign-quest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, despite a defeat by 3 percentage points to Senator Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire? A reasonable answer to this query can be gained from a perusal of the results produced by exit polls following the New Hampshire primary.

Table I

Exit Poll Issues: Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama

	Clinton	Obama
Men	29%	40%
Women	46%	34%
Decided In Last Three Days	36%	37%
Most Likely To Win In November	35%	44%
Economy Top Issue	44%	35%
Healthcare Top Issue	37%	38%
Iraq Top Issue	35%	44%

SOURCE: USA Today

The initial big message out of the New Hampshire voting was, of course, that Hillary Clinton recharged what was her seemingly fading campaign vis-à-vis the phenomenal Obama campaign-quest. (See TABLE I). This initial big message favoring Clinton was shaped by a crucial surprise voting outcome—namely, that as the title of a New York Times article on the election results put it: “Women Backed Clinton—Exit Polls Show.” While Obama and Clinton split the women vote in Iowa on January 3, Clinton reversed that outcome in New Hampshire on January 8, gaining 46% of women voters while Obama fell to 34% of women voters. (See TABLE II).

Table II

Not only was the shift by women voters to Clinton a crucial voting dynamic among Democratic Party voters, but this shift evolved within a two-day period before Election Day on January 8. Within that slim period over several-thousand women registered voters made a late voting decision to support Clinton over Obama, influenced it seems by a belief that Edwards and Obama ganged-up on Clinton during the Democratic candidates debate on Saturday before the election, as well as by Clinton's rather tearful expression of stress-under-fire in an interview at a local restaurant in Manchester which was televised.

Be that as it may, the findings in exit polls (conducted among 1,914 Democratic voters for the National Election Pool) provide evidence that there was a second-level big message contained in the New Hampshire election results. That second-level big message was that, despite overall election defeat by 3 percentage points, a number of specific voting attributes clearly indicated that the Obama campaign sustained what can be called “viable voter-support capability” for the long-haul primary campaign season. What were the specific voting attributes that constituted evidence of “viable voter-support capability” on the part of the Obama campaign?

As shown in TABLE II, first note that Obama gained 40% of the male voters—a 11 percentage point advantage over Clinton's 29%--and, given that 95% of New Hampshire's population is White, that majority backing by male voters of a Black candidate was unprecedented and might be a harbinger for future Democratic primary elections. Second, as shown in TABLE II, among the three “top issues”--economy, Iraq war, healthcare—while on the “economy issue” Clinton had a voter edge of 44% to 35% over Obama, on the “Iraq war issue” Obama had a voter edge of 44% to 35% over Clinton, and on the “healthcare issue” Obama had a slim voter-edge of 38% to 37% over Clinton.

Thus, it can be concluded from the share of New Hampshire Democratic votes cast in terms of “top issues”, Obama did well in a contest against the more electorally established Senator Hillary Clinton and, by extension, the 15-year old “Clinton machine”. Furthermore, this conclusion stands on firmer ground, I believe, for another very important exit poll finding during the New Hampshire primary election.

That finding was reported only in the New York Times (January 9, 2008). In an article titled “Women Backed Clinton—Exit Polls Show” by David Kirkpatrick and Megan Thee, it was reported that:

In another article titled “Retooled Campaign And Loyal Voters Add Up” by Michael Powell, it reported that “A recent USA Today/Gallup poll showed [Clinton] and Obama neck and neck nationally.”

Accordingly, it is above all the foregoing poll findings after the New Hampshire election that I believe suggest the broad meaning of Senator Obama's campaign-quest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. During the two weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucus the national polls had Hillary Clinton leading by 23 points among national Democratic Party registered voters. But this lead disappeared in the wake of Obama's Iowa Caucus victory, in combination with his subsequent meteoric rise over Clinton in all polls (ranging from a low of 5 percentage points to a high of 13) on the eve of the New Hampshire election on January 8.

Thus, although Clinton edged-out Obama by 3 percentage points (39% to 36%) on election day in New Hampshire, Obama's reversal of Clinton's quite long-standing double-digit lead among national Democratic Party registered voters withstood Clinton's New Hampshire election victory. This was a kind of victory-in-defeat for Obama. Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination is standing upright and-in-stride, following the New Hampshire primary.

Another aspect of Obama's victory-in-defeat situation in New Hampshire must also be mentioned. Namely, that in the interim between the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire, John Edwards and Barack Obama arrived at an ideological accommodation, so to speak. Already during the last days of the campaign in Iowa, Obama's message took on the tone of Edwards' message in regard to critiquing corporate plutocratic patterns in American life and politics, and this progressive-liberal element acquired by Obama from Edwards' message persisted during the final days of Obama's New Hampshire campaign.

Assuming that Obama gains the Democratic Party presidential nomination, a fitting outcome of this progressive-liberal ideological fusion dynamic in Edwards' and Obama's messages would be, I think, the selection of John Edwards as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate. This would be a groundbreaking presidential platform choice available to citizens in our crisis-riddled, oligarchic, and lethargic American democracy.

A Concluding Note

Several post-election findings can be noted in support of my observation that in the post-New Hampshire primary period, Barack Obama's campaign is standing upright and-in-stride.

First, the major political analyst reporting in New Hampshire for USA Today (January 9, 2008), Martha T. Moore, reported the following exit poll finding:

Second, in an important Op.Ed. article in the New York Times (January 10, 2008) by the director of polling for the Pew Research Center, Andrew Kohut, suggested that a key to a fulsome translation of the New Hampshire primary election is to be found in how the vote “divided along socio-economic lines.” He went on to say:

Put another way, what the director of polling for the Pew Research Center is telling us is that solid middle-class and upper middle-class White voters backed Obama over Clinton, while lower middle-class and working-class White voters favored Clinton over Obama. Furthermore, this middle-income/upper-income versus lower-middle/working-class income division among New Hampshire voters translated into an important education gap among the voters, with college-educated voters supporting Obama and non-college educated favoring Clinton. Now if one extrapolated these income/education gap findings into future primary campaigns around the country—outside Southern states especially—there is fair possibility that, things being equal, Obama could gain a reasonable share of White Democratic primary voters falling in the middle-income/upper-income bracket, and thus also White Democratic primary voters falling in the college-educated bracket. This, of course, is an analytical conjecture. Only time will tell....

One final observation

As shown in TABLE II, the exit polls produced by the National Election Poll uncovered the very interesting response of New Hampshire Democratic Party voters to the question - “Which candidate is most likely to win in November?” Some 44% responded in favor of Barack Obama, while 35% responded in favor of Hillary Clinton—a 9-percentage point pro-Obama margin. And this margin among Democratic Party voters on this crucial question was larger than a pro-McCain margin among Republican Party voters on this crucial question (40% McCain; 34% Romney).

When push-comes-to-shove, my intuition and instincts tell me that, ultimately, political personality attributes of Hillary Clinton, as they continue to shape in peculiar establishmentarian-liberal ways her campaign message and demeanor, will help to tilt the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination to Barack Obama. This thought gains some credence from keen observations by the columnist Maureen Dowd in the New York Times (January 9, 2008), where she remarked:

Hillary [Clinton] sounded silly trying to paint Obama as a poetic dreamer and herself as a prodigious doer. “Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President [Lyndon] Johnson passed the [1964] Civil Rights Act,” she said. ...Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism.... The people from Hope [Ark.] are arguing against hope.

In a similar vein, another columnist for the New York Times, Gail Collins, juxtaposed what I call Clinton's establishmentarian-liberal message and mindset with Obama's hopeful liberal message and demeanor. As Collins put it in her column for the New York Times (January 5, 2008):

And lastly, as New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, cogently synthesized what I consider the hopeful liberal-–and possibly even a progressive liberal—perspective implicit in the fiber of Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination:

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Martin Kilson, PhD hails from an African Methodist backgound and clergy: From a great-great grandfather who founded an African Methodist Episcopal church in Maryland in the 1840s; from a great-grandfather AME clergyman; from a Civil War veteran great-grandfather who founded an African Union Methodist Protestant church in Pennsylvania in 1885; and from an African Methodist clergyman father who pastored in an Eastern Pennsylvania milltown--Ambler, PA. He attended Lincoln University (PA), 1949-1953, and Harvard graduate school. Appointed in 1962 as the first African American to teach in Harvard College and in 1969 he was the first African American tenured at Harvard. He retired in 2003 as Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government, Emeritus. His publications include: Political Change in a West African State (Harvard University Press, 1966); Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970); New States in the Modern World (Harvard University Press, 1975); The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays (Harvard University Press, 1976); The Making of Black Intellectuals: Studies on the African American Intelligentsia (Forthcoming. University of MIssouri Press); and The Transformation of the African American Intelligentsia, 1900-2008 (Forthcoming). Click here to contact Dr. Kilson.