Across the Divide

Obama faces many challenges in what he calls his "improbable candidacy," but few are as complex or emotional as the politics of race. Racial politics are a key source of his campaign's energy, but they could also be his undoing. Obama wants to be the nation's first black president, and he needs to win a clear majority of African-American votes to win his party's nomination. Yet he isn't running purely as a representative of African-Americans, nor can he afford to. He also needs to win the backing of a wide swath of white America. Can he appeal to both black and white, while still being true to himself?

For Obama and his wife, Michelle, navigating the racial riptides can be uncomfortably personal. Michelle likes to tell supporters that her 6-year-old daughter calls the family's new security detail "the secret people." Officially, Obama became the earliest presidential candidate to get Secret Service protection because he's attracting such huge crowds. But NEWSWEEK has learned that a key factor in that decision was a string of racist e-mails sent to his Senate office, something his staff is unwilling to discuss publicly for security reasons.

That kind of overt hatred is not visible on the campaign trail. Many of Obama's supporters are enthralled by the content of his character—by his earnest desire to heal the nation's political divisions and to restore America's reputation in the world. Many also are excited by the color of his skin and the chance to turn the page on more than two centuries of painful racial history. But even that phrase—"turn the page"—is fraught. Black voters are wary of whites who think Obama represents a kind of deliverance—proof that blacks are doing well and that the playing field is leveled.

Obama himself dismisses the idea. At the end of a NEWSWEEK interview in his Senate office, Obama offered an unprompted statement about "post-racial" politics: "That term I reject because it implies that somehow my campaign represents an easy shortcut to racial reconciliation. I just want to be very clear on this so there's no confusion. We're going to have a lot of work to do to overcome the long legacy of Jim Crow and slavery. It can't be purchased on the cheap." Obama was dismayed by the Supreme Court's recent decision against public schools that pursue diversity by taking account of students' race. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests public opinion is divided on the issue but Obama argues that it all depends on how the question is framed. "This is a situation where you had local communities voluntarily trying to promote racially diverse schools," he says. "If that had been described to the public, my sense is that they would have said, 'Why is the Supreme Court getting involved in the way that it is?'"

From his earliest days as a politician, Obama has made a career out of reconciling opposing sides. He's been able to assuage some conservative whites, who have been surprised by his lack of grievance and encouraged by his pragmatism. And he's accomplished that, for the most part, without alienating African-American supporters. The story of how he has walked that tightrope reveals a lot about what kind of politician Obama is, and how he might perform in the White House. It also says something about how far America has come—and how far it has to go.

Obama's first campaign was among the mostly white voters at Harvard Law School. At the time, in the early 1990s, the school was torn over racial issues such as affirmative action. On the left, there was anger at the failure to appoint African-American professors; on the right, there was dismay at the influence of liberal scholars who condemned the criminal-justice system as skewed against minorities and the poor. Amid this turmoil, Obama won election to the presidency of the influential law review by seeking consensus—with the support of a bloc of conservative students.