Rendell's race problem -- and ours

(From Greetings: Tony Norman answers questions that arose from the national media frenzy, and questions stated here (not that he reads this blog), about his column on Governor Rendell's comments about whether or not some white voters in our state would vote for a black candidate. In general, I won't editorialize. I'll let his column say it. However, it SHOULD be noted that Senator Rendell was asked the question about the Presidential primary. He didn't "drop it like a bomb"... both of which I wanted to know. So I have to acknowledge that he was asked to answer on the subject. What do I wish he would have answered? Or any Pennsylvanian or any American? Well, my answer would be, "I HOPE that ALL Americans will vote for the best candidate in the race." He did choose to think about it aloud with the staff. I'd like him to have more hope and a higher opinion of the rest of the voters in our state. Maybe his experiences have told him otherwise.)

By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
Friday, February 15, 2008

Nobody feels sorrier for Gov. Ed Rendell than I do.

Thanks to an item in my column on Tuesday, Mr. Rendell has had to deal with a tsunami of unwanted and unflattering national attention. The column, headlined "Rendell Interjects Race Into Pa. Race," was picked up by political Web sites and quickly metastasized.

If the hundreds of e-mails and dozens of calls I've received since Tuesday are any indication, the governor is being unfairly pilloried as a crypto-racist provocateur for suggesting that there are whites in this state who
aren't ready to vote for a black candidate -- i.e., Barack Obama.

Those of us who live in this state are painfully aware that there are many parts of Pennsylvania that will never be confused with a racial Shangri-la.

What little diversity there is in Pennsylvania is concentrated in Harrisburg and the two big cities that anchor both ends of the state. We should probably throw Erie into the mix for good measure while we're at it.

When Democratic campaign svengali James Carville famously described our peculiar political landscape -- it's Philadelphia on the east, Pittsburgh on the west and Alabama in the middle -- it resonated in our bones. It's one of the reasons I riffed on Alabama in that column.

It wasn't my impression that Mr. Rendell was advocating a bigoted electorate as an acceptable status quo or a healthy attitude for Pennsylvania. He didn't rub his hands together and cackle like Simon Barsinister when he made the observation, either.

If anything, he appeared passive, but not indifferent to or malicious about our state's backwardness.

In the context of an on-the-record conversation with the Post-Gazette's editorial board on Feb. 6, reducing the state's electorate to a cohort of "conservative whites" who can't imagine voting for black candidates seemed a tad pessimistic given Sen. Barack Obama's impressive performance on Super Tuesday the previous day. It was also beside the point.

Mr. Rendell, a strong Hillary Clinton supporter, was asked to handicap the April 22 Pennsylvania primary match-up between Barack Obama and his candidate -- not the general election.

I was surprised that our governor believed a voting majority of white Democrats would go tribal by voting the color of a candidate's skin instead of something more substantive like his or her positions on a myriad of issues. I also believe he's dead wrong.

When he said it, I wondered why a white female would necessarily do better than a black male candidate if such political and racial essentialism is at work in the commonwealth.

Did the governor believe Democrats in Pennsylvania were incapable of giving Mr. Obama the same serious consideration that voters in Super Tuesday states did?

Mr. Rendell acknowledged that a woman would have problems in the state, too, but it seemed a nonsensical point since one of them will obviously win the Pennsylvania primary despite the voting clout of racist and sexist Democrats. We weren't talking about the general election.

I thought it was a sad commentary on our state that the governor believed a segment of white voters here are such irredeemable bigots. It didn't seem right that I would give white Democrats, even those in the middle of the state, more credit for being open-minded in 2008 than he does.

Still, there are several myths about that editorial board meeting with Mr. Rendell that I'd like to dispel:
• Regardless of speculation on the blogs and in the MSM, Mr. Rendell didn't "dump" or "strategically plant" his opinion about race in our paper on behalf of the Clinton campaign. We asked him for his opinion and he gave it without equivocating.
• Mr. Rendell made his comments on Feb. 6. The weekend and Potomac primaries had not yet occurred, so he wasn't aware of Mr. Obama's increased viability as a candidate. The Obama of this week is far more powerful than the Obama of last week.
• I wasn't "outraged" by what Mr. Rendell said, but I was depressed by it. I wrote about it in a snarky way because I needed an interesting first item in a column on several topics. It didn't merit a whole column -- or all of this controversy -- in my opinion.
• The governor wasn't being racially insensitive or intolerant. He wasn't trying to "exploit" race. He was being honest about complex racial dynamics in this state that should embarrass us all if he's correct. It's a subject worth serious discussion.

Mainstream coverage of this kerfuffle has been exasperating to watch, especially on cable news. Mr. Rendell really took his lumps on MSNBC, which is disappointing because it is my favorite news network.

Still, the sarcastic tone of my column got the ball rolling, so it's not all Chris Matthews' fault. Do I wish I had devoted a little more nuance, space and context to the issue? -- you betcha. Unlike many who suspect an organized conspiracy, I don't consider Mr. Rendell's words part of the pattern established by other Clinton supporters busted for using race as a weapon.

On Wednesday's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Larry Wilmore said that Mr. Obama is "beating" Mrs. Clinton because he's getting a big bump from Black History Month. The show's "Senior Black Correspondent" then cautioned a sensible return to cynicism:

"After America gets the chance to vote for a black man for president," Mr. Wilmore quipped, "they will decide that about as much change as they want will be a 73-year-old white Republican."

I believe Mr. Obama has a reasonable shot at winning the Pennsylvania primary and beating Sen. John McCain in the general election. Am I living in a dream world -- or is this simply more proof of the audacity of a dope?

Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.