Split views on race relations

THE WASHINGTON POST

June 22, 2008

WASHINGTON - As Sen. Barack Obama campaigns to be the first African-American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of Americans polled say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Lingering racial bias affects the public's assessments of the Democrat from Illinois, but offsetting advantages and Sen. John McCain's age could be bigger factors in determining the next occupant of the White House.

Overall, 51 percent of those surveyed nationwide by telephone June 12-15 call the current state of race relations "excellent" or "good," about the same as said so five years ago. That's a relative thaw from more negative ratings in the 1990s, but the gap between whites and blacks on the issue is now the widest it has been in polls dating to early 1992. This month's poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

More than six in 10 blacks rate race relations as "not so good" or "poor," while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views, the poll finds. Opinions also are divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.

At the same time, there is an overwhelming public openness to the idea of electing an African-American to the presidency. In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be "entirely comfortable" with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain would do should he prevail in November.

Even so, just more than half of whites in the new poll called Obama a "risky" choice for the White House, while two-thirds said McCain is a "safe" pick. Forty-three percent of whites said Obama has sufficient experience to serve effectively as president, and about two in 10 worry he would overrepresent the interests of blacks.

Obama leads in the Post-ABC poll by 6 percentage points among all adults, but among those who are most likely to vote, the contest is a tossup, with McCain at 48 percent and Obama at 47 percent.

His campaign advisers hope race may prove a benefit, that heightened enthusiasm among blacks will make Obama competitive in GOP-leaning states with large black populations. (Whites made up 77 percent of all voters in 2004; blacks were 11 percent, according to network exit polls.) This is hardly the first time a Democratic candidate has faced such a challenge - Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points in 2000, and John Kerry lost them by 17 points in 2004 - but it is a significantly larger shortfall than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton encountered in their winning campaigns.

Many think Obama has the potential to transform current racial politics. Nearly six in 10 believe his candidacy will shake up the racial status quo, for better or worse. And by nearly 3 to 1, those who think Obama's candidacy will affect race relations said it will have a positive impact.