RUNNING ON RACE

Comprehensive, thoughtful account of the role race played in recent American presidential elections.

Since 1960, writes Mayer (Government/Georgetown Univ.), race has gained an importance in the national process of choosing a chief executive that it has not held since Reconstruction. The author does an exceptional job of plumbing the elections’ content for racial themes and anecdotes. In the close race between Richard Nixon and JFK, for example, Nixon actually had the better record on civil rights; the black vote swung to Kennedy only in the last weeks of the campaign, following a phone call he made to Coretta Scott King after her husband was arrested on a trumped-up traffic charge in Georgia. In 1968, Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey, a liberal strongly associated with civil rights, by proclaiming himself “the law and order candidate,” playing to white fears over recent race riots. Mayer discusses the rise to prominence of Jesse Jackson, who played a small role in Walter Mondale’s failed bid against an ensconced Ronald Reagan, then returned in 1988 with a far broader coalition of labor, environmental, and other progressive groups to run an impressive primary campaign against Al Gore and Michael Dukakis. Ironically, the political season that brought Jackson’s inspiring effort also brought the infamous Willie Horton TV ad, with George Bush and the GOP cynically playing the race card by linking Massachusetts Governor Dukakis to a black felon released on a state furlough program. Mayer also discusses some long-running issues that influenced presidential politics in this era (school busing, affirmative action, welfare reform) and chronicles Reagan’s assault on civil-rights safeguards and social programs. As other races and ethnic groups come to figure prominently in the American political landscape during the 21st century, black/white issues will diminish as factors in presidential elections, Mayer concludes, but it will be some time before they cease to be important.

Slightly arid, but a definitive survey, well written and thorough.