I admit it: Before Illinois Senator Barack Obama raised $25 million in the first quarter of presidential campaigning—a mil less than New York Senator Hillary Clinton—I doubted his viability. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, the only people lower than black men on the presidential-electability totem pole were Mormons and old guys.
Obama’s lightning-fast ascendancy notwithstanding, I wonder if we’re placing too much emphasis on his historic run and creating a false barometer by which to measure how far America has come on race relations. Fact is, in contests that are every bit as protracted and ornery as presidential primaries, blacks have been winning for nearly a generation.
That’s right, I’m talking about beauty pageants. We had one here last week—Miss USA. The winner, Crystle Smith, runs a party-planning company in Texas. This makes it back-to-back black Miss USAs, and six black winners since 1990.
This is significant because Carole Gist’s victory in ’90 predates, by six years, talk of Colin Powell’s hoped-for coronation as president. Though Obama is markedly different from Powell—primped at Harvard and toughened by Chicago’s politics; Powell was lionized (at least before the Iraq war) for his foreign-policy bona fides—he possesses a Powell-esque likability (at least before his recent gaffes).
Which brings me back to Miss USA. The pageant is nothing less than a referendum on what—and who—America thinks is beautiful. Black, apparently, is. (Say it loud!)
Sure, beauty is subjective, but that’s, eh, the beauty of it. Presidential politics are expensive exercises in talking points, triangulation and mudslinging. Ugly.
Obama is part of a new generation of black politicians—among them Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker and Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrien Fenty—with the talent, smarts and connections to mount credible runs for the highest office in the land. If he doesn’t win, someone will surely follow. Pageant contestants rely (mostly) on what God gave them. You’re either Miss USA beautiful or you’re not. No need for opposition research or a spin machine.
And if we want the drama, we could film the dressing-room interactions.