Before Rev. Wright's Sermon, Race Was Already A Major Issue Amongst Democrats

Race has been an issue long before the controversial “God Damn America” speech by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is the pastor of the congregation that Democratic frontrunner Senator Barack Obama is apart of.

According to a new analysis by CBS News Political Consultant Monika McDermott, race was already a long standing issue in the Democratic let alone US presidential race before Reverend Jeremiah Wright became notorious throughout the country after his “God Damn America” speech. However, the speech caused the issue of race to emerge from the water in full spotlight. The issue of race was somewhat brought up after the Super Tuesday contests on February 5. However, in the back of the minds of many with me included, the issue of race and gender had already been brought up. But, not many had openly talked about it back in 2007. Now, this is one issue that will highly likely not go away. There have been consistencies revealed in the various exit polls of all the Democratic contests. In the case of Hillary Clinton, the demographics of states either gave her a major victory or a major loss. Polls revealed that Hillary Clinton’s big base within the Democratic Party are white voters with either a high school education or less. These results have remained consistent. In the case of Barack Obama, he had appealed to blacks, whites with education above high school level, Independents, and in a sense the moderate Republicans. As a result, Democratic primary voters were asked about the importance of the candidate’s race. Regardless, the issue of race seems to barely play a role to most Democratic primary voters. At the same it has played a major role to some voters. However, it is not new according to polls that less educated white voters are hesitant to vote for a black or other ethnic minority candidate. This shows that the issue of race in the US presidential race is far from over.