Race and Election Issues: Displaced Agency

I was particularly intrigued this week by the Mendelberg article “Executing Hortons: Racial Crime in the 1988 Presidential Campaign”. I understood his general correlation, in that often time racially sensitive issues may influence racial conservatism during elections. In the Horton case study, a young black convicted criminal attacks a middle-class wife and husband during a weekend furlough (a liberal program at the time). Mendelberg shows through a case study conducted among University of Michigan students that, statistically, election issues involving race tend to create deeper racial conservative sentiments among prejudiced-voters. I agree with Mendelberg’s research, however, I think he perhaps mistakes the agency of the issue.

Mendelberg is a little quick to jump the gun on pinpointing race as an election “game-changer”. Firstly, Mendelberg’s research hardly captured a diverse and unbiased response. Assuming the data was collected within a few years of the article’s publication (1997), the response group consisted of impressionable college students during considerable welfare reform under the Clinton administration. Mendelberg also admits that although his research shows a correlation of increased racial conservatism, there may likely still be multiple alternate explanations. Although, Mendelberg is able to establish a positive correlation, I do not think he answers the most important questions regarding the issue. These questions are: Is there a substantial intentional use racist tactics in election campaigns? ( I personally gathered that the relation of racial appeals in the Hortons case was more incidental) What is the process of eliminating racist sentiments from election campaigns?

Do racial appeals by candidates occur more often today? I felt that Mendelberg’s article illuminated an issue, but in a way, it also instigated the issue further. The article acknowledges that Bush was making a statement against liberal programs and enabled crime, NOT an issue directly concerned with racial welfare. The racial stereotypes and prejudice had to be finessed out of the campaign. I believe that Mendelberg attempts to put the agency on the politicians, instead of the voters. The problem should lie in the competency and education of the voters and how they perceive campaign issues. Is the agency displaced in this article? Voters should be able to recognize election issues appropriately; it is not the candidates role to tip-toe around issue because of the possible uneducated perception of prejudiced individuals.