Whitewashing: How Obama Used Implicit Racial Cues as a Defense Against Political Rumors

Abstract

Although Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, some Whites nevertheless penalized him because of his race. In part, these penalties involved persistent rumors about his citizenship and religion. How did the Obama campaign respond to these rumors? We argue that the Obama campaign drew attention to his bi-racial ancestry and highlighted his association with Whites in order to curry favor with this constituency. We also argue that Republicans and conservatives were most receptive to this “Whitewashing” strategy, although Democrats and liberals were not immune. We test these hypotheses with a content analysis of presidential ads from the 2008 general election, an online experiment manipulating the racial content of an Obama ad, and two nationally representative surveys. Our hypotheses are generally confirmed and suggest that Obama succeeded in part because he accommodated, rather than challenged, existing racial hierarchies.