by Cass Sunstein

Peter Beinart, in The New Republic itself, writes that many white Americans like Barack Obama because "it's a twofer. Elect Obama, and you not only dethrone George W. Bush, you dethrone Sharpton, too." Beinart argues that whites like Obama because he's an African-American who is not stereotypically black. On his account, whites are supporting Obama not because of the senator's merits, themes, or promise, but because Obama is an African-American "who doesn't sound or look too black." Obvious questions: Why does Beinart think that? What's the empirical evidence? Has he studied public opinion polls with respect to Obama? Has he investigated competing hypotheses? In terms of such hypotheses, it is easy to generate a large number. 1. Whites like Obama because he speaks the language of depolarization; he wants to discuss political issues in a way that goes beyond angry, old, and increasingly tired divisions of the last decades. 2. Whites like Obama because he opposed the Iraq War early on. 3. Whites like Obama because he is young, tall, and good-looking. 4. Whites like Obama because of his unusual academic credentials and intellectual abilities. 5. Whites like Obama because he appears to be the most effective public speaker since Ronald Reagan. 6. Whites like Obama because they think he would be an excellent president. 7. Whites like Obama because he reminds them, in various ways, of Jack Kennedy. 8. Whites like Obama because they think he can win. 9. Whites like Obama because he can discuss his religious convictions without sounding fake. It would be foolish to suggest, with any confidence, that any one of 1-9 is correct, though I suspect that some of them are significant contributing factors. But it is puzzling that Beinart claims that white people like Obama because of his race, when Beinart offers no evidence in support of that claim. (His openingstory, about Brooklyn in 1994, cannot possibly count as evidence.) Without a great deal of work, we cannot exclude the possibility that Beinart is right, but what he offers is a conclusion, not an argument. To date, most of the discussion of Obama--on the part of those who favor him and those who are uncertain or skeptical--has been impressively race-neutral. In the absence of evidence, Beinart's focus on race, and his dismissal of white support for Obama as an odd kind of racialism, are not a public service.