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November 11, 2008
Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and the Obama Phenomenon
Private Papers
We have been told, over and over again and in no uncertain terms, that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency is ‘historic’. Indeed, insomuch as this election marks the first time, as Shelby Steele pointed out recently in the Los Angeles Times, that a largely white nation has chosen a black man to lead it. The enormity of that achievement is beyond question; how it happened most certainly is not. How has Mr. Obama become President of the United States? And does his election herald a new, post-racial age in America?
The first clue may lie in the historic nature of his campaign, and victory. Haranguing about this being the most important election of our lifetime was asserted, but never shown. We have been told, over and over again — by the president-elect, his surrogates, and sympathetic pundits in the media — that this campaign has moved us beyond race. Properly understood, and with all due respect to the press, about the only thing without historical precedent during this election is the fact of Mr. Obama’s race. Indeed, the claim of a post-racial world is not only prima facie false, but helps prevent a proper analysis of the role of race in the campaign. Indeed, several facts about the election belie the claim of the Obama campaign ushering in an era of post-racial politics.
As a matter of fact, it seems that the only thing vaguely historic about Obama’s electoral victory lies squarely in the racial makeup of the country and the candidate. This is not a small thing, but it is not post-racial. Since McGovern, the American left has put forth dozens of national candidates. Most were white; all failed, some badly. Their inability to attract the enthusiasm of those who have historically failed to vote, in the face of more moderate candidates whose constituencies always did, proved time and again to be their undoing. But with the nomination of a candidate able to energize those very voters, and to further convince them to vote as a bloc, the left finally has found its voice, its apostle.
But has this really moved us beyond race? Not in the least. In fact, electoral politics, were it to imitate the Obama victory, would find itself more racially charged than at perhaps any time since the Civil Rights Movement. Nearly 25% of all those casting votes for Mr. Obama identified themselves as African-American, while a further 12% of his support came from Hispanics. This amounts to nearly 40% of his total electoral support — a staggeringly high number. Obama drew the votes of fully two-thirds of all Hispanics casting their ballots Tuesday, along with an amazing 95% of black voters. In other words, without the overwhelming support of these two ethnic groups, we would today be speaking to rather a different electoral result. For his part, McCain gained the support of more than 55% of white voters, and many of those that Obama did get support from were young people voting in their first election — no mean feat, but one that is not likely to be sustainable going forward.
So how then should we read this? Mr. Obama’s genius lies NOT in his ability to move us beyond race, but in fact the opposite: to energize racial groups in support of his candidacy. It also seems certain that this was very much the candidacy of a moment. Unlike Shelby Steele — who argued that Colin Powell might well have beaten Bill Clinton in ’96 had he chosen to run — this candidacy was built on a base of black and Hispanic voters who would have been largely unavailable to a conservative army general. None of the electoral logic of the Obama victory was available to Powell twelve years ago. Only a progressive politician able to court these racial groups en masse could have achieved this win.
But this was clearly not enough, and indeed there was more. Yet even this piece of the puzzle involves race — though in of an unexpected way. White voters, and particularly younger white voters, have become more habituated to the vagaries of race — and more accustomed to racial heterodoxy — than their parents. How this has happened is a rather elaborate story, one involving their education, their experience (Californians, for example, understand race in an extremely heterodox way) and their socialization. Much of this socialization, of course, involves the lessons and exemplars drawn from popular culture and media. While we may point to the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey here (a story in some ways more compelling than Mr. Obama’s) as an obvious factor in Mr. Obama’s electoral success, two further figures have also done much to change the perception of the country about the efficacy of race as a barrier to success, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.
Jordan was, of course, the greatest basketball player ever to lace up sneakers, and has with great success parlayed his prowess and popularity into a money-making empire. Mr. Jordan further leveraged this in his far-flung business endeavors, and has become fantastically wealthy. He is not the first African-American to achieve wealth and fame, though he may be the first to do so by leveraging an appeal to white fans (pace Ms. Winfrey). In his perceptive study of his career, David Halberstam emphasized the importance of Jordan’s ability to transcend race and appeal to white America and its corporate leaders, in the process becoming an enormously popular spokesman for various products, most famously Nike, a brand with broad market appeal the world over. When Gatorade asked if we’d like to be like Mike, they weren’t just (or even primarily) talking to black kids. His appeal was, and is, universal.
More obvious, though, is the connection between Mr. Obama and Tiger Woods, the part-African American golfing phenom who in his early thirties is already well on his way to becoming a billionaire. This is of course based largely on his dominance of the professional golfing world. Woods likely will become the most successful champion of all time by the time he retires, and routinely wins multiple major championships in a single year. His absence from the tour this year due to injury has cost the golfing world millions of dollars, for Mr. Woods is also the most popular athlete in the world, as a variety of polling and marketing data routinely demonstrates (it is a measure of Mr. Jordan’s popularity that he also continues to appear on these lists more than a decade after his retirement from the game). But golf alone cannot account for his popularity. Race is a factor, certainly. In this whitest of all the major sports, province of the chamber of commerce and the country-club set, Woods is in his own way something of a sporting revolutionary. His personal magnetism is undeniable, but his real value to the sport lies in his great ability (akin to Mr. Jordan) to connect with white fans of the game.
Mr. Obama, for his part, shows the same genius for connecting with white America as Mr. Woods, who is genuinely adored in and out of the sporting world, for his golfing achievements, and his personal story. Mr. Obama’s trail has therefore already been blazed by the cross-over appeal of Winfrey, Jordan and Woods. Their personas and achievements have allowed him to tap into a white electorate already more receptive to the notion of prominent, establishment blacks — especially younger voters, who may have no recollection of a world before Oprah and Michael. Mr. Obama’s genius has been in translating this kind of broad appeal into the area of politics, and away from those of business media and sports. In so doing, he has created a coalition large enough to (with minority bloc voting, massive voter turnout and Republican unpopularity of near Biblical proportions) achieve the presidency. Whether this is possible twice, or indeed can be forged into a more enduring coalition, is a matter for the future.
Whatever the case, let us not take from the near past the wrong lessons. This election was certainly not post-racial, but instead had a great deal to do with racial voting patterns, including subtle changes in the WHITE electorate — brought on by what we might call the ‘Tiger Factor’.