An April 1 piece on the NY Observer titled “Gonna Fly Now! Clinton Runs as Rocky In Philly” presents a fairly typical account from the campaign trail, reporting on Hillary Clinton’s stump speech and how it speaks to blue-collar white voters in Pennsylvania.  The article also quoted several Clinton supporters whose views are a telling reflection on an important segment of the electorate and an object lesson for what an Obama presidency can represent.

The article’s author doesn’t characterize the remarks as typical or atypical, but the message is clear:

“We need her,” Barbara Vizzini, a 46-year-old equipment operator from Middletown, said before Hillary Clinton took the stage at a rally in Fairless Hills Monday night. “If we don’t get her, we’re going to end up with John McCain.”

What about Barack Obama? Why couldn’t he beat the Republican nominee?

“The race thing,” interjected her colleague Daniel Kirner, 52, from Tullytown.

“I mean, a president named Barack?” agreed Ms. Vizzini.

One of these Clinton supporters recognizes that race may play a negative role in the general election if Obama is the nominee.  But do they realize that by choosing to vote for Clinton on the basis of this sentiment that they would just be reinforcing a race-based rationale with their vote?  Given no preference between Clinton or Obama on policy issues, it would make more sense to support Obama, as a principled statement about the irrelevance of race, and in an effort to vote for a candidate whose election will nullify the narrative that race matters in the general election.

Equally disconcerting is the “president named Barack” response, which is indicative of either gross ignorance (as though a candidate’s name would be any predictor of how they would govern) or a reflection of a smug nativism embodied in voting for a “Hillary” instead.  In either case, the point of view speaks to an electorate that continues to harbor irrational prejudices and that places visceral reactive factors over policy- and leadership-based considerations in selecting a presidential nominee.

The article continues:

Hillary Clinton has spent the past few days courting the white, blue-collar workers who are most receptive to her no-nonsense message of hard work and experience. They also happen to be the people most suspicious of Mr. Obama. Some, like Ms. Vizzini, like him well enough, but echoing Pennsylvania governor and Hillary surrogate Ed Rendell, they think he will have problems with some white voters. Others think he’s an unreliable upstart who will stumble when it counts, or worse, that he’s simply a fraud.

It’s hard to accept that final line as an inference drawn from a close examination of the candidate himself.  Where do the perceptions of “upstart”, “unreliable” and “fraud” come from?  I don’t believe they come from Obama’s record or from his comportment on the campaign trail.  Instead, they are further evidence of simple prejudice.  

And finally, the article provides an example of the worst kind of misinformation to which voters are deliberately clinging as a rationale for voting against Obama:

“She’s got this one locked,” said Mary Yates, a 67-year-old retired worker in a chemical factory. “No Muslim is going to be president. No drug addict. If Hillary isn’t the one, everyone I know will vote for John McCain.”

In light of the whole “race chasm” discussion of late, it’s clear that there are a number of ways to look at how race is affecting the Democratic primaries, and no simple overall pattern.  Without question, there are some voters in Pennsylvania who will cast votes based on prejudices.  Surely, the same has been true in earlier contests this year, and we will unquestionably see prejudices affect the decision of some voters in the general election in November when Obama faces McCain.

I would urge all voters who find abhorrent and anti-democratic the prejudices expressed in the NY Observer article to take into consideration what an Obama presidency will do for this country.  It’s impossible to predict exactly how Obama will govern, but based on his abundant abilities I think we can expect an effective administration and a new kind of leadership that will help heal our internal rifts and repair the American image around the world.  And these accomplishments, by a mixed-race president, will not only send an irrefutable message to Democrats in Pennsylvania, like those cited here, but to all those who have pre-judged Obama based on his racial background or on misinformation.  The resounding message will be that race is irrelevant to ability, that a name portends nothing about a candidate’s capabilities, and that the truth about character cannot be overcome by viral smears and willful disbelief.

We need a President Barack to prove to the prejudiced and the skeptical and the misinformed that they were wrong in their assumptions and beliefs.  And with that proof, I am hopeful that we will attain the critical mass in the American electorate to move us past this tipping point in our history, to discrediting racial prejudice and truly living up to the best of our democratic ideals.