EDMUND BURKEI recently heard a wonderful talk by Professor Cynthia Lee at the George Washington University School of Law about research in how racism affects juries. The research is sophisticated and fascinating, and I might write more about it later. But because this post is about politics, not juries, here in a nutshell is what the research shows: (1) There is still considerable racism in our society – much of it unconscious – and it has significant impacts on jury decisions. (2) Those affects, however, are markedly reduced when the racial aspects of the case are made salient. For example, in a criminal case where the victim is white and the alleged perpetrator is black, the racist affects on a jury are markedly reduced when defense counsel or the judge expressly comments on the race of the people involved, and perhaps asks jurors to do their best not to let the racial aspects of the case affect their decision-making. The research suggests that many people have racial biases but are not pleased about it and do not wish to be controlled by their prejudices. When reminded that they are confronting a decision that could be affected by racial attitudes, a considerable portion of those people are able to fend off their biases.
So thank you John Sununu.
As you may know, former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu appeared on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN. Morgan mentioned that General Colin Powell had just endorsed President Obama for a second time (Powell also endorsed Obama for president in 2008) and asked Sununu whether it was time for Powell to leave the Republican Party. Here is the next exchange that occurred:
Sununu: “Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder if that's an endorsement based on issues, or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama.""
Morgan: ""What reason would that be?""
Sununu: ""Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being President of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.""
The video is available here.
Is a thoughtful statesman like Colin Powell more likely to support a candidate principally because that candidate is black than, say, John Sununu is to support a candidate because the candidate is white? Clearly John Sununu thinks so. Suffice it to say that Sununu made race salient to many voters across the country – especially to voters in New Hampshire, where, because of his prominence, I assume Sununu’s comments have received much more attention than they have nationally.
New Hampshire is a battleground state. Before Sununu’s remarks, Obama was leading Romney by 1.4% in the state, according to the averaging of recent polls by Real Clear Politics. Sununu may be responsible not only for moving some of the approximately four percent of undecided New Hampshire voters to Obama but also for switching some voters who previously intended to vote to Romney to the president, thereby sealing the deal in that state for the president. It will be fascinating to see if New Hampshire shifts toward the president more than comparable states. If so, it may be possible to credit that to Sununu’s making race salient.
UPDATE (November 8, 2012): New Hampshire voters ultimately cast 52.2% of their ballots for Obama-Biden and 46.4% for Romney-Ryan, a margin of 5.8% -- far greater than the 1.4% margin in polls before Sununu's statement. New Hampshire's final figures were very close to those of Iowa and Wisconsin. At the same time, the margin in the president's favor was about one percentage point wider in New Hampshire than in Colorado and Nevada, two points wider in NH than in Ohio, three points wider in NH than in Virgina, and maybe five percentage points wider in NH than in Florida. People more skilled at analyzing election statistics than I will have to judge whether there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Sununu's making race salient made a difference at the ballot box. I can only note that in none of the true battleground states did the president do better than in New Hampshire.