The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.
• Position: Book review

THE BREAKTHROUGH

Politics and Race in the Age of Obama

BY GWEN IFILL

DOUBLEDAY

2009, 266 PAGES, $24.95

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Since beginning work as a reporter for the Boston Herald American in 1977, Gwen Ifill has spent much of her successful journalistic career monitoring politicians of "every gender, color, and creed." She has covered the uneasy transition from the civil rights struggle, the changes in voting patterns following the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the recent breakthrough of black politicians. Over the past year, as she wrote about Pres. Barack Obama's campaign and conducted "dozens" of interviews, she came to realize the subject for this book had been "hiding in plain sight." The Breakthrough explores several topics: the history of the black political movement; intricacies and divisions within the black community and among black politicians; changing attitudes of the white community toward black politicians; and the progress of black politicians in today's political world.

When blacks "marched, preached, and protested" against restrictions limiting where they could eat, sit, and work, they defined their goals in opposition to whites; when a barrier fell, it was "power seized, not given." As the post-civil rights generation of black politicians established customs and institutions, Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as their "single leader." Now, as early leaders "age and fade," a new generation questions, "Does this century require another King--a single leader?" More important, the author asks, "Do all African-Americans want the same things?" She quotes a 2007 National Public Radio-Pew Research Center poll showing one-third of African-Americans believe "blacks are too diverse to be thought of as a single race."

Ultimately, a "new breed of black politicians" has recognized the need to "straddle the racial divide." Most modern black politicians do not adhere to the "traditional orthodoxies" of black politics. Young blacks elected to office fit the profile of white candidates--they attended Ivy League universities or prestigious law schools and have the kind of credentials "white voters expect" and support. In analyzing the "Obama effect," Ifill explains white voters feel more comfortable with black candidates who do not seem to "carry the anger"; conversely, many black voters have suspicions about black candidates without any anger.

This book analyzes the President's campaign strategy and the impact the "Obama effect" has made...