January 22, 2008
SPA’s Lublin watching South Carolina primary with a keen eye
Statistics show that roughly half the South Carolinians who will flock to the polls on Saturday, Jan. 26, to vote in the state’s critical Democratic presidential primary likely will be African Americans. No one knows for sure how they or anyone else will vote (see: New Hampshire), but few are better positioned to understand the unique dynamics of this historic race than SPA professor David Lublin.
An expert in minority representation, particularly African American representation in the United States, Lublin spent four years prior to coming to AU teaching at the University of South Carolina.
“In South Carolina this is a very heavily courted group,” Lublin said of African Americans. “Nationally, black women actually participate at higher rates than black men. [This year’s race is] interesting in terms of identity politics, they have a gender candidate and a race candidate.”
In a primary campaign like this one, where the leading contenders don’t differ drastically on the issues, people can be more likely to choose a candidate based on factors such as likeability, and yes, gender and race.
“There’s a lot of pride to have someone in your group who does well,” Lublin said. “While I think Obama will get the bulk of African American support, it’s quite clear that it will not be unanimous. I had dinner last night with someone who is an African American woman who is an extremely passionate Hillary Clinton supporter and clearly believes in her candidate. She doesn’t hate Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton’s her candidate.”
Further muddying the waters is the fact that much of the established African American Democratic leadership has endorsed the senator from New York, not the one from Illinois.
“John Lewis of Atlanta, Charlie Rangel of New York, and a number of other people are with Hillary Clinton,” Lublin said. “On the other hand there’s a lot of excitement in the African American community about an African American candidate.”
Elections have been exciting Lublin since his childhood. Asked how he became interested in politics, he replies simply, “I grew up in Washington.” An internship in high school in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office led to another one with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee while he was an undergraduate at Yale. Since receiving his PhD from Harvard, Lublin has authored two books, including The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress.
Of all the races he’s studied around the world, perhaps none is as fascinating as this one, featuring female and African American front-runners.
“I think it’s a very healthy development for our country,” he said. “People are excited to the extent that we Americans tend to like our firsts and to celebrate our diversity, but what’s nice is for the most part people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for what they stand for rather than for some identity aspect.”
Obama, in particular, has run a drastically different campaign than previous African American presidential candidates, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
“He’s what I’ve been calling a post-racial candidate,” Lublin said. “By that I mean he’s not a black candidate in the sense that he’s out to primarily represent black people only. He’s also not a nonracial candidate in the sense that, ‘Please don’t notice that I’m black.’ He’s confident and happy in his identity, proud to be black, but aspires to represent everybody as president.”
Heading into Saturday, Obama leads in the Palmetto state polls, but Lublin doesn’t believe the race is over.
“I think it’s not going to be a cakewalk, but I tend to think Obama has the edge,” he said. “He will get a fair amount of African American support. I think his African American support has increased because they’ve seen some evidence that white voters will support him. I don’t think he would have gotten the level of support he will get from African Americans in South Carolina if he had not received the endorsement of voters from Iowa and had such a strong showing in New Hampshire.”
Following South Carolina, the focus in both primaries will shift to Feb. 5, when more than 20 states will go to the polls. Yet in a race this tight and unpredictable, not even “Super Duper Tuesday” is guaranteed to produce presumptive nominees.
“If that doesn’t decide things, Feb. 12 is going to be very interesting,” Lublin said. “It’s sort of our mini-regional primary here of Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. D.C., of course, has a higher [percentage] black population than any state in the union. Maryland has the highest black population of any state outside the south and one of the highest in the country at one quarter of the state. In both states very few African Americans vote in the Republican primary, so African Americans make up a disproportionate share (of Democratic voters) relative to their state’s population.
“If it comes down to Feb. 12, which is not impossible, we may end up getting (a say). Then we can go from complaining about being ignored to complaining about too many political ads.”
