Why The Next President Will Probably Be Black Too
BuzzFeed
2013-01-03
Ben Smith, BuzzFeed Staff
If there is anything approaching an iron law of American politics, it’s this: The next president will be a member of the same race as the current one. It’s a rule that has held through 42 of 43 transfers of power. And there’s every reason to think it will hold through the next one. The next president will, in all likelihood, be African-American, most likely one of the two African Americans who would make anybody’s list of the top 10 contenders for the Democratic nomination.
This is, obviously, the sort of statistical bullshit with which political and sports pundits amuse themselves all day on cable TV and talk radio. It’s equally true that 43 of 44 presidents have been white men.
But there are also strong reasons to believe that the Democratic nominee, at least, will be African-American. First, African-Americans represent a vital voting bloc in Democratic primaries, and they — like most ethnic groups — typically rally around the favorite son or daughter. Black voters represented an overwhelming 55 percent of the vote in South Carolina in 2008, and almost 20 percent in, for instance, Florida. And the liberal white Democrats who make up the primary electorate in places like Iowa obviously have no problem voting for a black candidate.
But there are also strong reasons to believe that the Democratic nominee, at least, will be African-American. First, African-Americans represent a vital voting bloc in Democratic primaries, and they — like most ethnic groups — typically rally around the favorite son or daughter. Black voters represented an overwhelming 55 percent of the vote in South Carolina in 2008, and almost 20 percent in, for instance, Florida. And the liberal white Democrats who make up the primary electorate in places like Iowa obviously have no problem voting for a black candidate.
Indeed, as Obama showed, the two great tranches of the Democratic coalition are well-educated white voters and voters of color, of whom most primary voters are still black. (That has only become clearer as the Democrats shed, and win without, working class white voters.) The candidate who can unite those two constituencies is the one who wins the primary. Without a true white liberal champion, a la Howard Dean, an African-American primary candidate has a head-start in 2016.
Second, the strongest sub-rosa argument that backers of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards made against Barack Obama in 2008 is now moot: A black man, they claimed, simply wouldn’t be able to win in November. He has twice. Indeed, you could easily argue from recent precedent that a black man has a better shot than anyone of getting elected President of the United States in the current decade…
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