Obama Breaks the Mold of Democratic Party Reformists

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A Different Kind of Insurgent
Obama Breaks the Mold of Democratic Party Reformists
By Bruce Schulman 01/28/2008



On the heels of a decisive victory in South Carolina, Sen. Barack Obama heads into Super-duper Tuesday as a surprisingly strong challenger to the presumptive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. With much of the party leadership against him, Obama seeks to accomplish what few Democrats have managed in the last half-century: transform an insurgent’s campaign, with strong appeal to young voters and to the affluent, educated elite of the Democratic Party into a successful bid for the White House.

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But perhaps even more than JFK, it may be his younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who provides the model for Obama’s current campaign. Bobby Kennedy ran an insurgent’s race, challenging the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and his designated successor, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. Running against the party pros that still largely controlled the nominating process, RFK attracted wine track voters, already nostalgic for Camelot; in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, Kennedy quoted from his “favorite poet,” Aeschylus, and spoke the language of reform and political renewal that animates Obama’s campaign. Kennedy also appealed strongly to minority voters.

Of course, Obama lacks the residual appeal with blue-collar white urban ethnics that Bobby Kennedy, being a Kennedy and an Irish Catholic, could draw on. But like RFK, Obama has assembled an insurgent’s campaign, strong among educated, affluent Democrats, energizing young voters, and simultaneously, exerting powerful appeal among African-American Democrats. That’s a formidable coalition, and one that no previous insurgent Democrat could manage. From McCarthy to Dean, minority voters have found earlier reformers cold.

Obama has something else going for him: the shifting terrain of the electoral landscape. In 1968, Democrats held just 15 primaries that selected a minority of the delegates. Bobby Kennedy may have out-dueled McCarthy 46 to 42 percent in the climactic California primary, but Humphrey, the leader in the delegate count, did not even have to contest the race. In the industrial North and Midwest, party professionals with strong ties to union labor controlled the nominating process. In the South and West, favorite son candidates dominated their states’ delegates, trading them for political favors and influence in the next administration. The excitement that insurgents stoked among rank-and-file Democrats did not matter.

In 2008, more than 40 states will hold primaries, awarding the overwhelming majority of the delegates. At the same time, blue-collar whites no longer form the dominant faction they long represented in Democratic Party politics. The beer track has been slowly drying up.

Obama still faces a tough battle for the nomination. But with his unique appeal and the changing layout of the primary battlefield, he may succeed where previous insurgent Democrats have faltered.

Bruce J. Schulman is professor of history at Boston University and the author of "The Seventies."