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Echoes of 1990 campaign sounding fainter this year
Journal Graphic by Richard Boyd II
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Published: November 2, 2008
The 1990 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina was one of the nastiest, most racially tinged campaigns in many years.
During that campaign between Harvey Gantt, who was the mayor of Charlotte, and longtime Sen. Jesse Helms, race became a central issue.
Gantt had the lead in most polls until the contest took a sharply racial turn at the end and almost all of the previously undecided voters went with Helms.
This year, polls give Sen. Barack Obama the best shot of turning the state blue of any candidate in since 1976.
Because of the unprecedented nature of Obama's candidacy, analysts say they will not know how big a role race played until after the election.
Race has been a factor throughout the campaign both nationally and, at times, in North Carolina.
But this year's presidential campaign, post-convention, has been largely free of racially charged attacks.
Political experts say that such tactics might have sparked a backlash for several reasons, including the state's changing demographics and a rise in the number of black voters, as well as a groundswell of support for Obama.
Still, there have been hints of racial politics.
In April, the North Carolina Republican Party ran a television ad mentioning controversial statements by the pastor of Obama's black church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Democrats roundly denounced the advertisement as playing on racist fears, and McCain and national Republicans asked state GOP officials not to run it.
Early on, Obama himself was dogged by accusations from some black supporters of Hillary Clinton that he wasn't "black enough." During a racially charged primary fight with Clinton, in which he had trouble attracting support from older, white voters, he gave a landmark speech on race widely viewed as a pivotal moment in the campaign. In the speech, Obama called for the country to acknowledge long-standing racial divisions and work to move beyond them.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., was Gantt's campaign manager in 1990.
"It's 18 years later, and in my heart of hearts I believe race is less of a factor today than it was at that time. It's a factor, but not to the extent that it was 18 years ago," Watt said.
California, 1982
Pollsters have had difficulty in the past accurately predicting high-profile races featuring black candidates because of the so-called Bradley Effect.
The theory, named after Tom Bradley, a black man who lost a bid for California governor in 1982 despite holding a commanding lead in the polls, argues that some voters lie about their preferences to pollsters to avoid appearing racist.
A similar phenomenon emerged in the race between Gantt and Helms. In the final days, the Helms campaign aired a now infamous advertisement that featured the hands of a white man crumpling a job application and attacking Gantt's support of affirmative action.
Carter Wrenn, a consultant for Helms during that race, said he could tell from internal polling data that many of those undecided voters planned to back Helms, but weren't saying so to avoid appearing racist.
"If you saw someone who was a white, rural, conservative Democrat who was undecided in the Helms race but voting for other Republicans, you could tell they would vote Helms at the end," he said.
The most recent polls show Obama and McCain deadlocked in North Carolina, though a sizable number of undecided voters remain.
Researchers who study the Bradley Effect say that it is more likely to appear in campaigns that turn on racially coded issues such as crime or affirmative action. That was the case in 1990.
In part because the presidential race has focused on the economy, Wrenn and other veterans of the Helms-Gantt race say they would be surprised to see such a lopsided break among undecided voters this year.
A New York Times poll conducted in late October found that a third of voters nationally said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because of his race.
"The demographics of the state have changed significantly since Senator Helms used those tactics to great effect," said Kerry Haynie, a political scientist at Duke University.
Since 1990, the state has had an influx of younger, more highly educated workers in cities and suburbs. Those newcomers have lessened the effect of the conservative voters who traditionally made up Helms' base.
"I think we're past the point in American politics where you can be blatantly racist and have that work for you," Haynie said.
State Republicans denied that their Obama-Wright ad, which was aimed at state Democratic candidates who took money from Obama, was racist.
After the initial airing this spring, the ad has not resurfaced.
"We felt like we got our message out effectively," state GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox said of the decision not to put the ad back on the air.
Since then, the presidential campaign in the state and nationally has been largely free of direct racial messages, Haynie said.
But, he said, more subtle racial appeals have popped up at the end of the campaign, including false whispers that Obama is a Muslim, the tying of Obama to radical terrorists and focus on redistribution of wealth.
"When Senator McCain talks about taking your money and giving it to people who don't deserve it, that summons up subtle racial images, the welfare queens of the Reagan era," he said.
In interviews with 24 white voters in rural parts of North Carolina this week, most said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because he is black.
Ronald Childers, a white Democrat who works in a truck plant in Mount Holly and plans to vote for Obama, said that more than a handful of white co-workers have told him "I'm not going to vote for that ‘N-word.'"
He said he's tried to change a few minds at his plant, with little success.
"First, I tell them, look he's got a white parent and a black parent, so he's not really black, he's mixed," he said. Obama's white mother was born in Kansas. His father, who was black, returned to his native Kenya shortly after Obama was born.
"Then I tell them, you don't judge a man by his skin color. Those days are over," Childers said.
Union support
Despite the lack of direct, late-stage racial appeals of the type that hurt Gantt, some Obama supporters in North Carolina fear that similar sentiments will hurt Obama's chances on Election Day.
Labor unions have been particularly aggressive. The American Federation of Government Employees is running a radio ad in North Carolina that says: "There are a hundred good reasons for how you vote this year and only one bad reason -- prejudice."
MaryBe McMillan, the secretary-treasurer of the N.C. State AFL-CIO, said that leaders of local unions are taking that same message directly to their workers.
"If there is hidden racism going on, when white union members see other white union leaders so passionately behind Obama, they are more likely to take another look at Obama and vote for him themselves," she said.
Pollsters say that Obama's race could also help his campaign. Black voters typically make up about 18 percent of the electorate in presidential races in North Carolina and they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
This year, pollsters predict that a surge of new black voters will boost that number to 22 percent. The high turnout is one reason that Obama is competitive in a state that traditionally votes Republican in presidential races. Jimmy Carter, who won the state in 1976, was the last Democrat to do so.
"This year is historic. It's the first time African-Americans have been able to vote for an African-American for president, so we think turnout will be high," said Dean Debnam, the president of Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, which has conducted several polls on the presidential race in the state.
Ronnie Dunlap, who is black and works with kids in an after-school program in Concord, registered and early-voted for Obama on the same day last week.
It was his first time voting, though he was eligible to vote in the past few presidential elections.
"It's time to make a change. To me, the color of his skin wasn't as important as his stance on issues like the economy," he said. "But it would be an awesome thing to have an African-American in the White House for the first time in history."
■ Sean Mussenden can be reached at 202-662-7668 or at smussenden@mediageneral.com.
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