The District Chronicles

Issue date: 12/9/07 Section: Politics

But that's not necessarily to say that Sen. Obama is missing out on opportunities to get the black vote in the upcoming primaries. Indeed, the poll shows his favorability rating among African Americans is excellent - though not quite as high as Sen. Clinton's - especially for someone who is a relatively new face on the political scene.

What's more, by a two-to-one margin, respondents said that "commitment to change" was a more important attribute in a candidate than "experience in public office" - a view that could be seen as helpful to Sen. Obama's candidacy.

Indeed, "change" could prove to be an influential factor in the nominating process. Only 11 percent of African Americans surveyed believe that President George W. Bush is doing a good or excellent job, while a clear majority (57.9 percent) gave him the lowest rating of "poor."

And when asked to name the single most important problem facing the country, the No. 1 answer was the war in Iraq, which was cited by 28 percent of respondents, followed by health care (20 percent), jobs and the economy (15 percent) and education (10 percent). None of the black voters polled identified taxes as the most important national problem, less than one percent named immigration and two percent said terrorism.

Given that the lowest-ranked concerns are among the signature issues of the Republican Party, it is not surprising that 87 percent of those surveyed said they intend to participate in the Democratic Party's nominating process. In Joint Center surveys of black adults conducted in the late 1990s, however, between 35 and 40 percent described themselves as conservative in their political orientation. In this latest poll, that figure has dropped to 21 percent, with 41 percent describing themselves as liberals and 36 percent as moderates.

All of this points to high motivation among African-American voters as we head to November 2008. But between now and then is the party-nominating process, and it will be interesting to see which candidate ultimately lays claim to the black vote.

Ralph B. Everett is the President and CEO of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, one of the nation's premier research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses exclusively on issues of particular concern to African Americans and other people of color.

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