Irrespective of how well Bernie Sanders does in Iowa and New Hampshire, his campaign has nowhere near the critical mass of black support he will need for nomination.
From HuffPollster:
The most recent South Carolina poll was released yesterday by Public Policy Polling. Their analysis should generate considerable concern from Sanders supporters, because the Senator’s campaign (as currently structured) is operationally incapable of changing the racial dynamic in the nomination cycle:
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads with 54% to 24% for Joe Biden, 9% for Bernie Sanders, 2% each for Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb, and 1% for Lincoln Chafee.
This is the worst performance we’ve found for Sanders anywhere in quite a long time, but it speaks to his continued difficulty with African American voters. He gets only 3% with them- well behind Clinton’s 59% and Biden’s 27%- and in a state where a majority of Democratic voters are black that makes it hard for him to do very well.
South Carolina is indicative of the problems Sanders will have with the black vote in the South, Midwest and Northern Industrial states. Considering the data from Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and South Carolina, where a similar dynamic obtains among Latino voters, this would seem to indicate that Sanders has some work to do; and it’s not all that clear at present that his campaign has the capacity to do it.
I think the dynamic totally changes if he wins either, or both, of the first in the nation contests. Obama’s surprise Iowa win, coupled with Hillary’s surprise third place finish, put dead to bed stories like this one about Obama failing to connect with black voters. A liberal/black coalition has stopped her before and could stop her again.
There are massive differences. The Iowa victory, a black candidate winning over a largely white state, showed the country that Obama was a plausible President, and the black vote that strongly flocked to his campaign after that victory was already headed in that direction before it. Suffice to say, Sanders is a long way from being a historic first black candidate for office like Barack Obama, and has a nagging perception problem on racial issues that never afflicted Obama during his run.
I am saying it is too early to dismiss Sanders as a lost cause, were he to win either or both early states it would make him the immediate alternative to Hillary Clinton, and that would enable him to pick up more union support, more support from minority centered organizations, and the support of currently undecided voters who are worried about her trustworthiness and/or commitment to the middle class. He will get nowhere near the level of support Obama had out of the gate after Iowa, he may even get nowhere near the level of support to be a real threat for the nomination past the early contests, but to argue today’s ceiling is permanent is to ignore the real momentum and exposure to his candidacy wins in those states would provide.
It was Bill Clinton’s (uncharacteristic) racial tone-deafness mentioned in passing in the Salon article you cited that solidified Obama’s black support; more importantly it solidified support from black political players and operatives, such as Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina.
Sanders is playing the 2008 Clinton role in this race, with this critical distinction:
Unlike Clinton in 2008, Sanders has no credible black political support and no credible black community outreach.
I discussed this dynamic in another thread. I have no animus against Sanders as a candidate; however his campaign’s institutional culture is incapable – at present – of relating to the black electorate.
The “ceiling” you referenced is directly due to that institutional campaign culture. Simply put, Sanders’ campaign repels black voters because it does not reach out to them in any politically competent way.
The political incompetence generates hostility on the ground, to Clinton’s advantage. Long story short: Bernie Sanders’ campaign is a Hillary Clinton outreach mechanism to black voters.
I’m not sure about an institutional incapacity. Maybe Massachusetts is just different, but out where I am I’m just not seeing that inability to bring in minority support. On the contrary, in fact, given the demographics in the pro-Sanders groups here.
It’s a fluid situation. We still don’t know whether Sanders’ candidacy will crash and burn before it even reaches South Carolina. We also don’t know that he won’t continue to gain strength. But either way, it seems clear that there’s nothing baked in about the earliest contests yet. So I have trouble believing that voter preferences, in any group, are irrevocably set in any of the later ones.
I think I accounted for the major difference between him and Obama, not to mention Hillary 2016 on the black outreach front. I would argue he has already responded to legitimate criticism by making substantial institutional changes to his campaign and it’s strategy, and that once he begins changing as a candidate and moves from a name dropping strategy to a listening and responding strategy, he will be well on his way to being competitive. His name recognition in this community is substantially lower than Obama’s was at the same time, for obvious structural reasons (Vermont vs Illinois as a launching pad) and the basic reason that Obama was the most well known black politician in the country before he ran for President.
Deval Patrick would have had somewhat similar struggle if he ran, since he is not well known outside of the largely white Massachusetts political realm, with the difference that if he won in Iowa or New Hampshire you might see the rally round the flag affect you did with Obama that you won’t see with Sanders.
But he is largely an unknown presence in this community, bad headlines and self inflicted wounds notwithstanding, and that will change as debates happen, ads hit the airwaves, and the air of inevitability around Clinton is possibly deflated by primary victories.
He has had black endorsements, but they are not from the black political class, though considering the bulk of them from politicians like John Lewis to influential donors like Magic Johnson were aligned with Hillary Clinton in 2008, it is unclear how important those endorsements are. Apparently when it comes to the SC political class Sanders and Clinton are well behind Biden when it comes to institutional support. So I definitely agree it’s an apples and oranges comparison, and I think I took pains to make it clear. But I also think you are making a presumption that this field, the players, and their potential supporters are a lot more static than they have proven to be.
No one would have expected a double digit victory for Sanders in Iowa or NH, which is currently projected, when he ran. No one saw the rise of Trump on the right. We are dealing with a wild card race, and race itself is probably the biggest wild card of all.
There are exceptions like the 2008 Oprah endorsement of Obama, but Cornel West would help Sanders about as much as he did Bill Bradley and Al Sharpton..
And nobody gives a damn about the political opinions of hip-hop artists.
The issue is whether Sanders can develop a politically effective ground game in the communities he needs to win. Sanders, alas, has no credible or statistically significant organizational presence in those communities.
What does exist is a variant of what we discussed in the matter of Chicago’s Mayoral race. I quote from a downthread comment I made.
In order to achieve that potential, Sanders would have to create credible campaign organizations in these communities, and he has yet to do so.
*As distinct from operatives.
And the parallels with the Emmanuel/Garcia race are striking in that regard. Despite historically low approval ratings in black communities, once it came down to the devil they knew and the devil they didn’t they stuck with the devil they knew. And that’s because Chuy was unknown outside of his community and outside of the lakefront liberals, many of whom were split between him and Rahm to begin with. Anti-machine neighborhoods going to Rahm 2-1 like Hyde Park that never voted for a Daley confirmed that the Obama endorsement and late ground game made up for any lost love.
Sanders does not have a national infrastructure or the kind of long term credibility the Clinton’s have with minority constituencies, in the absence of a candidate of color it could be fatal. I will say, harnessing the BLM pushback and demonstrating he gets that movement could go a long way if he plays his cards right. He hasn’t yet, but I would still argue an SC primary after Bernie dealt two defeats to Clinton is a different beast than the one you are analyzing today. We simply don’t know how that scenario plays out.
“Obama is a Republican in blackface”?
Not the kind of endorsement that would be popular with many POC, I’d think.
Iowa and NH are paying attention now. SC will pay attention soon. More and more states will pay attention soon after that.
What you’re saying about SC now was similar to what people were saying about Iowa a few weeks ago, even — the talking heads were all saying Bernie Sanders could ‘win NH’ because he ‘lived right next to it,’ but he’d never have a shot at those Clinton-loving folks in Iowa. Even Nate Silver said Bernie’s momentum cooled and that Iowa looked out of reach for Bernie… and a few weeks later, so much about that.
It was silly, just like it’s silly to suggest that a guy who was getting arrested leading sit-ins to end segregation in Chicago, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in DC, and who’s family escaped the holocaust (and knows full well the dangers of institutional racism) couldn’t appeal to black voters.
He’s the only one in this race with a plan to tackle systemic racism — when Hillary was asked for her plan by leaders in Black Lives Matter, she told them that wasn’t her job and that they had to make one. Bernie listened to BLM and created a good plan that’s won wide praise.
When SC gets to really know Bernie, I think they’re going to like him.