Did My Mother Lie to Me?
BARD, MITCHELL
Perspectives DID MY MOTHER LIE TO ME? BY MITCHELL BARD Like most kids, I remember being told by my parents and teachers that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up-even...
...The truth is, his Catholicism hurt him substantially in the popular vote...
...But among people who earn more than $25,000 a year and have gone to college, the percentage is in the middle 90s...
...The Jackson campaign, for its part, maintains that race is not a factor, that its candidate will be judged on his merits...
...today there are 25, including two Senators...
...A half-century later, the figure had shot up to 82 per cent...
...As was the case for Jews, the progress slowed in the last decade, when the percentage increased from 76 to 82...
...That Jackson has thus far exceeded all expectations in the 1988 campaign is consistent with the observed decline in political prejudice...
...He further noted that given the existing primary system, a winning reputation can be established with less than majority support...
...Although there are no Jews or women in the 1988 Presidential race, one should perhaps not attach much significance to the fact...
...As for the 65-and-over crowd-an ever larger component of the population-only 64 per cent are prepared to give a black candidate their vote...
...Many Americans now wonder if Jesse Jackson will break the race barrier...
...This year, however, the Reverend Jackson has led the Democratic pack in terms of popular vote for much of the primary season, and is deemed by many to have an even-money chance at a spot on his party's ticket...
...His victory has generally been seen as an indication that political prejudice was not a factor after all...
...On the other hand, there are no black Senators, and the total in Congress still fails to reflect their presence in the population...
...The pundits continue to debate the sort of qualities a black, woman or Jew must have in order to be a viable Presidential candidate...
...Before 1972 there had been only 12 Jewish Senators and 92 Representatives in the entire history of the nation, despite the fact that Jews have traditionally played a disproportionately active role in politics, especially Democratic Party politics...
...While there is virtually no difference between the willingness ofmenandwomentovotefora female candidate (a majority of men said no until 1958), some residual hesitancy is evident among Southerners and the older generation...
...Thequestion of whether a woman could even be Vice President was only forcefully raised in 1984 when Walter Mondale chose former Queens, New York, Representative Géraldine Ferraro as his running mate...
...But to get a comprehensive picture of political prejudice in the United States, the electability of women and Jews must also be considered...
...That contest, though, was a poor index of the viability of a female candidate-Mondale would have been soundly beaten no matter who was on the ticket with him...
...BY MITCHELL BARD Like most kids, I remember being told by my parents and teachers that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up-even President of the United States...
...That is more than double the 3 per cent of the total population which is Jewish...
...At present there are seven Jewish Senators and 29 Congressmen, including several from states with relatively small Jewish populations...
...Overall, the figures seem clearly to imply that Jews have come to be accepted as potential Presidential standard bearers...
...Survey research has estimated that the religious issue may have cost him 1.5 million votes votes in an election decided by a little over 100,000...
...It is also significant that 90 per cent of college graduates and 88 per cent of those earning more than $40,000 say they would vote for a black...
...On Super Tuesday, just 21 per cent of the voters with incomes of over $40,000 supported Jackson, as against 40 per cent of those earning under $20,000...
...In 1937, only 31 per cent of those polled said they would vote for a woman for President...
...Were he the Democratic nominee, Jackson would presumably realize both gains and losses-as did Kennedyfrom his "handicap...
...Considering their growing prominence in national politics and the evident decline in voter prejudice, it would seem to be only a matter of time before a member of one group or the other takes the White House...
...One political scientist has said that the individual would need "credibility up front" and would have to look like an "American rather than a subcultural group...
...The trends in the data are to a large extent mirrored by the strides Jews have made in winning national elective office...
...After the 1960 election, the proportion of people who said they would vote for a Catholic went up sharply but it was still under 90 per cent as Kennedy began to campaign for re-election in 1963...
...According to NBC News/ Wall Street Journal exit polls, Jackson received no more than 28 per cent of the white vote in any of the primaries through Connecticut...
...in most states he was closer to the low of 12 per cent he got in Arkansas...
...Yet another symptom of religious bias was the above-average turnout of Catholic Democrats in 1960 PATTERNS OF VOTER TOLERANCE Percentage o(Americans who say ihey would vole for a qualified Presidential candidate falling into one of the following categories Year Black Woman Jew Catholic 1987 79 82 89 - 1983 77 80 88 92 1978 - 76 82 91 1971 70 66 - - 1969 67 54 86 88 1967 54 57 82 89 1965 59 - 80 87 1963 47 55 77 84 1961 50 - 68 82 1959 - - 72 68 1-958 38 52 62 68 1956 - - - 73 1955 - 52 - 69 1937 - 31 46 - and the corresponding decline in the number of Protestant Democrats who cast ballots...
...The survey shows that slightly under 80 per cent of the voters are prepared to cast their ballots for a black candidatemuch more than the percentage who said they would vote for a Catholic just before 1960 (and not far below the percentage who say they would vote for a woman...
...But this is bound to change in the future because the corresponding statistic for those under 50 is 83 per cent...
...Similarly, 75 per cent of those over 50 say they would vote for a woman, compared with 86 per cent under 50...
...Although he had a few impressive primary showings, he was for the most part written off as unelectable...
...Even within the Democratic Party he is seen as being markedly to the Left of the mainstream...
...To give some idea of how feelings about voting for a candidate from a nontraditional category can change once one of its members successfully runs for the nation's top office, I have included the survey data for Catholics in the table...
...After 1972, the numbers changed dramatically, with a record 39 Jews taking seats in the 98th Congress on its opening day six years ago...
...There is a difference across regions, too: 85 per cent of Southerners say they are willing to vote for a Jew, compared to 94 per cent in the West...
...explored the idea of a Presidential campaign, but finally announced her noncandidacy in a tearful speech that may not have helped the cause of future women contenders...
...Others insist that the candidate would have to be in some way extraordinary...
...consequently, it would be possible for a comparatively pedestrian candidate from a nontraditional category to obtain the nomination by building up momentum early in the campaign...
...It is possible to point out various categories of qualified Americans who have never occupied the White House, but the three principle ones are women, blacksand Jews...
...But only when a black with a more centrist platform and substantial experience in elective office declares his candidacy for President will an unambiguous test of the electorate's receptiveness be possible...
...Today the percentage is into the 90s, and the conventional wisdom is that JFK forever wiped away the obstacles to a Catholic becoming President...
...Try to name the Catholics who entered the 1988 Presidential contest...
...Four years ago Jesse Jackson launched his first bid for the Presidency...
...Again as with Jews, the rising statistics are backed up by the growing number of female officeholders...
...In the specific case of Jesse Jackson, the overwhelming share of his support in the primaries has come from fellow blacks and from the lower class...
...If we break the period down, we can see that as early as the late 1950s a majority of the public would have voted for a Jew...
...In the last decade progress has slowed, with support for a hypothetical Jewish candidate increasing from 82 to 89 per cent...
...Mitchell Bard, a new contributor to the NL, is a Washington policy analyst...
...The figure for Southern voters is 71 per cent, versus 89 per cent in the West and 80 per cent in the other regions (but compare that with the mere 32 per cent of Southerners who would have voted for a qualified "negro" two decades ago...
...In the South, the percentage now is 10 points lower than in the East and Midwest, and 15 points lower than in the West...
...The consensus among political scientists, party leaders and members of Congress is that Jackson cannot be elected President because of his views, not because of his race...
...But today it is at least conceivable for anyone to become President-even me...
...Granted, until Jews, women and blacks routinely become Presidential contenders, the American dream, once a myth, will still fall short of reality...
...There is also a substantial gap according to education: 93 per cent of college graduates are willing to vote for a woman, against 76 per cent who have no more than a high school education...
...Referring to the opening stages of the campaign when Democratic candidates were dubbed "the seven dwarfs," Wattenberg observed, "If a Jew was in the race, you would have eight dwarfs instead of seven...
...The table on the opposite page shows the proportion of respondents in Gallup surveys over the past 50 years who said they would vote for a Presidential candidate belonging to one of these categories...
...In 1937, when the electability of Jews and women was initially investigated, only 46 per cent of the people canvassed said they would vote for a Jew...
...The figure for a black contender jumped from 38 per cent in 1958 to 59 per cent in 1965, and then increased steadily to the present level during the years following the adoption of the Civil Rights Act...
...Yet since this has been true from the start, the data are meaningful on a comparative basis, although the absolute percentages for any particular year might give an excessively rosy picture of the voters' openmindedness...
...I am a lew...
...Last year Representative Patricia Schroeder (D.-Colo...
...Yet in the South-where, despite winning five of the 12 primaries on Super Tuesday, he garnered a scant 10 per cent of the white vote-Jackson's candidacy would exacerbate the current trend of white Democrats defecting to the Republican Party...
...In addition, he is something of an unknown quantity, having never held elective office...
...by the mid-'60s the figure exceeded 80 per cent...
...By 1987, the percentage had nearly doubled to 89 percent...
...That caveat notwithstanding, it is immediately apparent from the table that the American public has come a long way toward accepting the notion of a Jewish, female or black President...
...His presence on the ticket in November would be a tremendous stimulant to black voter participation, as the primaries have already demonstrated...
...Prior to John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign the percentage of Americans who said they would support a qualified Catholic candidate was substantially lower than it is for the other groups at present...
...The first of anything," Reform Jewish leader Rabbi Alexander Schindler remarked, " has to be exceptional...
...Among whites, 77 per cent say they are ready to vote for a black, compared with 95 per cent of blacks...
...Like Jews and women, blacks have had greater success of late in gaining political office...
...In 1971, there were only 15 women in Congress...
...But the Democratic neoliberal thinker Ben Wattenberg has suggested that a black, Jewish or female Presidential candidate need not be-or even appear to beoutstanding relative to the rest of the pack...
...I always believed in this American dream, but now that I am approaching the age of eligibility for that august office, I am beginning to wonder...
...In the House of Representatives the number of blacks has risen from 13 in 1971 to 23 at present...
...Given Jackson's surprising strength, the question of whether a black could win a Presidential election is the one on everyone's mind right now...
...New York's Mayor Edward I. Koch has been cited as an example of someone ruled out by the latter criterion...
...Some part of the changes recorded in recent times, for instance, may reflect the fact that bigotry is considerably less acceptable today than it once was...
...Nevertheless, on the question of willingness to vote for a black Presidential candidate there remains a substantial gap between whites and nonwhites, the South and the rest of the country, and the elderly and the young...
...That Kennedy's majority was much larger in the electoral college (303-219) might have been related to his religion as well: He won narrow victories in many states with large numbers of electoral votes and large numbers of Catholic voters...
...It was widely assumed that Kennedy's religion would be a major issue in his Presidential race, even though a Gallup poll revealed that a majority of the electorate (53 per cent) did not know he was Catholic...
...A limitation of the surveys is that they essentially ask people to admit to being bigoted...
...This is obviously well below the proportion of women in the population, but it is a striking improvement over the situation obtaining a few short decades ago...
...Certainly this year the matter simply did not come up...
...After all, no one like me has ever been President...
...In fact, just the year before JFK was elected only 68 per cent of the respondents said they would pull the lever down for a Catholic-less than those who would do so for a Jew...
Vol. 71 • April 1988 • No. 6
