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Black Is ElectableBarack Obama's skin color is an enormous advantage in the 2008 race.

By Anne ApplebaumPosted Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, at 8:01 PM ET

Barack Obama"Will Americans vote for a black man for president?" If I had a 10-euro bill for every time some incredulous foreigner has asked me that question in the last week, I'd be very rich, particularly given the current exchange rate. I didn't have a proper answer prepared—I don't have a crystal ball, after all, and the polls change every day. But it hardly mattered, since any mildly positive reply wasn't believed. Surely, I told one British acquaintance, the Iowa caucus vote is evidence that at least some Americans will vote for a black man for president. He disagreed, citing the atypicality of Iowa. After all, "There are plenty of states where you hardly see any black faces at all." Alas, he seemed to have forgotten—or perhaps never knew—that Iowa is one of them.

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One can laugh off these British prejudices of course, but they got me wondering how many of them we Americans share. All of us have grown accustomed to the idea that darker skin is a crippling liability in a national election. But right now, at this admittedly odd historical moment, isn't it actually an enormous advantage?

To see what I mean, back up and focus (again) on who is in the White House, how he got there, and who wants to replace him. In case you'd forgotten that George W. Bush is the scion of an American political dynasty, or that Hillary Clinton is married to a former U.S. president, let me remind you. And let me also remind you that, at many points in the past, these sorts of connections would have been an advantage: Though we like to remember our first president gallantly turning down the chance to be crowned king, Americans love dynasties. Think of the multiple Gores, Landrieus, Browns, Longs, Dingells, Rockefellers, and Udalls in politics, not to mention the Adamses, Kennedys, and Roosevelts.

And no wonder. Even aside from the money and the connections, growing up surrounded by politics is probably a good way to develop political opinions. Marriage to a politician is probably even better. Besides, from the voters' point of view, surnames function as a form of branding, particularly in very large, inattentive electorates such as those of India, Argentina, and the United States. In theory, you know what you'll get, more or less, if you elect a Gandhi in India, a Kirchner in Argentina, or a Clinton in America: You can save yourself the time it would take to read about them.

Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she is running for election at a moment when the flaws of oligarchy and dynasty are on display as never before. One of the least talented members of one of our most prominent families—the wrong brother, as some would have it—is in the White House. And at least in this narrow sense, she has more in common with him than she does with her husband. Bill Clinton was the man from Hope. She is the woman from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

No wonder the clichéd word change works like magic for Obama. And no wonder it is beginning to seem, possibly for the first time in history, that it is better to be black. To put it bluntly, for a large, frequently inattentive electorate, there could be no more potent symbol of his differentness, his non-Clinton-non-Bushness, than Obama's dark skin. His race also functions as a form of branding, telling you that he is the anti-oligarch in this race, " the man from Hawaii by way of Jakarta, Chicago, and Harvard." It's even more effective than a famous surname. You don't even have to hear him speak to know he isn't related to this president or any other: Just look at his photograph.

Naturally, I can't speak for all Americans, and I have no idea if primary voters will eventually line up behind him, let alone the national electorate. But I'll bet that if they don't, it won't be because of his skin color—while many of those who do vote Obama will be motivated by his skin color. Just to spite the oligarchs.

As for the expats I know, I can promise that most of them, even the Republicans, would vote for Obama in New Hampshire or South Carolina if they could, precisely because he is black. At least that would show all our snotty foreign friends that we really aren't governed by dynasties. At least that will make us feel, once again, that we come from a country where any child really can grow up to be president.

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Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post and Slate columnist. Her most recent book is Gulag: A History.

Photograph of Barck Obama by Emmannuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.

COMMENTS

Comments from the Fray

Dear Ms. Applebaum:

Any male child can grow up to be president.

--Hamhock96

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Actually, I think Americans are ready for a black president, but they are not ready for a black (and true black, not just mixed race) first lady. It would be too much a departure from the usual white-glove donning first ladies that Americans have grown used to.

Also--Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson. There is a lot of novelty surrounding Barack Obama--his foreign upbringing/ his mixed race parentage/ mixed race and mixed religion extended family, etc. He is more of a foreigner living in our midst than a typical African American. However there is no such novelty surrounding Michelle Obama. She is just a regular black American woman, a 'known quantity", with all the stereotypes that come with that characterization. That's why I think Michelle Obama will be a handicap for Barack Obama.

--icemilkcoffee

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Reply to icemilkcoffee:

Overlooking for a moment your unfortunate choice of words ("true black, not just mixed race"), I agree with both your novelty point and your pointing out how different Michelle Obama is--ethnically, nationally, and background-wise--from her husband. I just don't know that voters will: (a) see her as inexorably linked to her husband's success, and, more importantly, (b) note the differences between them, in the first place. We are in America, after all, where one equatorial African ancestor at any point in the family tree=Black (unless you speak Spanish. Then you'll be Hispanic.)

Oh, and one more thing: the American public are experts on how "Blacks" (and "women" and "Mormons" and "gays") do everything in perfect tandem, as though with one great collective brain.

Marzipan

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I lived for a few years in Europe and I immediately recognized the phenomenon Anne is referring to. I don't mean to gloss over America's racial problems (and we've certainly exhibited them to the rest of the world plenty), but, in talking to the French, English, etc, I often found myself wanting to tell people bluntly: "Look, you know next to nothing about race in America". It's very easy to pass of cynicism as thoughtfulness, when you actually know little about a topic. After all, you can easily get called out for being naively optimistic, but rarely for being naively cynical. The Brit who did not seem to realize how white Iowa is is a case in point. Whenever I found myself discussing the South with Europeans (and I'm a Northerner) I would invariably have to point out that African Americans are moving in huge numbers to the South, which comes as an utter shock to most Europeans.

--kurtosis

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