Politico: Obama Refuses To Pander To Gays, African-Americans, Latinos, or Unions

malik flavors

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Thu Apr-10-08 09:54 AM
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Politico: Obama Refuses To Pander To Gays, African-Americans, Latinos, or Unions

Edited on Thu Apr-10-08 10:00 AM by malik flavors

April 10, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama

Refusing to narrowcast

My colleague Carrie Budoff Brown has a good story on the gay press's dissatisfaction with Obama's refusal to grant them interviews, and he responded to the controversy in an interview in the Advocate in which he made explicit a central aspect of his candidacy:

I don�t think it�s fair to say silence on gay issues. The gay press may feel like I�m not giving them enough love. But basically, all press feels that way at all times. Obviously, when you�ve got limited amount of time, you�ve got so many outlets. We tend not to do a whole bunch of specialized press. We try to do general press for a general readership.

Obama goes on to say that the Spanish-language and African-American press have the same gripe, and makes this central point:

But I haven�t been silent on gay issues. What�s happened is, I speak oftentimes to gay issues to a public general audience. When I spoke at Ebenezer Church for King Day, I talked about the need to get over the homophobia in the African-American community, when I deliver my stump speeches routinely I talk about the way that antigay sentiment is used to divide the country and distract us from issues that we need to be working on, and I include gay constituencies as people that should be treated with full honor and respect as part of the American family.

So I actually have been much more vocal on gay issues to general audiences than any other presidential candidate probably in history. What I probably haven�t done as much as the press would like is to put out as many specialized interviews. But that has more to do with our focus on general press than it does on � I promise you the African-American press says the same thing.

(There is one exception to this trend: The Jewish press, which has gotten lots of Obama love -- more today, including an interesting appreciation of Passover seders -- as he uses it to beat back rumors and speak about broader foreign policy issues.)

But Obama's disinclination to narrowcast, and to target small groups, is an area where his campaign matches his message, and it extends beyond specialty press. He got very few labor endorsements in the first stage of the campaign, for instance, because he didn't pander or focus on narrow issues when he talked to labor groups. Hillary would talk to labor groups about their specific contract conditions, or on a battle over tips, and get roaring applause. Obama would give his stump speech, and receive a tepid response. They came to him, in the end, giving them less leverage over him.

He's also lagged on the fundraising organized by ethnicity: Clinton has been successful in raising millions from specific Asian communities -- Fujianese, Indians; Obama (with the exception of the surge in big African-American money) less so. This applies to electioneering as well: Hillary occasionally sends out press releases to please the Polish, say, or Greek communities, honoring holidays or anniversaries; Obama does much less frequently.

The result, in this case, is that the communities have had to come to him. I spoke with a prominent gay leader about this recently, and he expressed mixed feelings: He likes Obama's message and his promises; but he feels that the organized community -- and the leader himself -- can't call Obama on the phone, remind him of past favors, and demand allegiance, if he wavers once in the White House.

Still, on balance, Obama's promises to be a different White House when it comes to the relationship to the traditional power brokers. He's made fewer promises, and owes less, to labor, and to the organized civil rights communities. And he owes much less, of course -- and most important of all -- to the people who give many of those communities their clout: large donors.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Refusing_to_narrowcast.html