Political Blackout

A few political pundits have speculated on the inability of black candidates for statewide office to get nominated, never mind elected, so soon after the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. Here are some examples: In Alabama, Representative Artur Davis was defeated in his bid for the governorship, while Kendrick Meek, the presumptive Democratic nominee in this year's U.S. Senate race in Florida, is running a campaign that isn't getting any attention. And, as of January, the U.S. Senate's only black member, Democrat Roland Burris, will no longer be in office.

Several guesses have been made to explain this reverse phenomenon, with the most obvious being that race is a factor. Maybe not. In Alabama, Artur Davis is not unelectable because he's black; he's unelectable because he's a Democrat, as Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ron Sparks is given no chance in this increasingly Republican state. Indeed, the fact that most blacks are Democrats in what might be a good Republican year is a very big factor everywhere. With Meek, it's a matter of media disinterest. The blood feud between independent and incumbent governor Charlie Crist and Republican Marco Rubio makes for far more salacious news copy than a nice guy like Meek, who's living up to his name as a candidate as a result. With the obsession over the Crist-Rubio contest, Meek can't even get arrested. Not even in Palm Beach. (That joke is aimed at Palm Beach, not at black people.)

And by the way, Florida has a gubernatorial election to pick a successor to Crist that's getting even less attention than the Meek campaign. I mean, can anyone name the major candidates for the governorship of Florida without looking it up on Google?

Actually, things may be looking up for Deval Patrick, the incumbent black governor of Massachusetts, as he prepares to seek a second term this year. When Scott Brown was elected the first Republican U.S. senator since 1972 in that state, Patrick looked like to be the Tea Party movement's next victim there. Now he's expected to win re-election in the fall.

One theory I've heard is that black voters don't normally get behind black candidates unless and until they're convinced they can win. That's why they supported Obama's presidential campaign after he won the caucuses in overwhelmingly white Iowa and why they likely wouldn't have supported Roland Burris in Illinois, tainted by his association with Rod Blagojevich, this year. It's not hard to agree with this theory. If Charles Barkley had made good on his desire to run for governor of Alabama this year, the political landscape down there would have been very different.

And Barkley is an independent.

As for Davis, he'll be glad in November that it's white Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ron Sparks, not himself, who falls flat on his face in November. And don't count out Meek in Florida just yet. He got himself on the primary ballot entirely with petitions, the first statewide candidate to do so in Florida's history. He obviously knows to run a marathon campaign. So did Obama.