John Zogby: A Change Election Like No Other

(An op-ed as it appears in the August, 2008 edition of Campaigns and Elections Politics Magazine)

Maybe it is because we have had so much time to get used to it. Or perhaps the candidates have become such permanent fixtures on our television and computer screens. Or I guess maybe we just matured as human beings.

But think about it, a young African-American (with roots in Kenya, Indonesia, Hawaii and Kansas, certainly not the path taken by Chester A. Arthur or Calvin Coolidge) defeated a woman senator (from New York, Arkansas, Illinois and Washington, D.C.) for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States.

And he is running against a 72-year-old former prisoner of war, who was tortured for five-and-a-half years.

Think about it. This is history. I have written before about the other historical aspects of the 2008 election-change like 1932 and 1980-but when the votes are finally tallied, records will be set, adding to records already established during the primary season.

So what does this tell us about ourselves? In short, Americans are ready for change, even if it means the oldest man ever elected to a first term or an African-American candidate. This election is very much the story of the maturing of a people. On July 4, 1776, most African-Americans were slaves, and the life expectancy for a man was somewhere around 48 years. For the impatient, the American story has been a slow, steady movement to universal "manhood" suffrage, the vote (then, in many cases the elimination of the vote) for Southern blacks, women's suffrage, the civil and voting rights acts. And lots of suffering, humiliation and death in-between.

That this election will make history no matter who wins raises the question: Why has this happened? Some believe that demographics is destiny, and while I don't always subscribe to that idea, in this case there is some truth to it. This is the generation in which we will have more than a million citizens age 100 and older. Many more people are living into their 80s and 90s and are doing well. So having a president who is 72 is all of a sudden no big deal.

In addition, the numbers of non-white Americans steadily rise. Not only is there a huge increase in Hispanic voters, but also Asian and biracial voters. And for many Americans, especially younger ones, there is no difference between Obama and the teacher, the college president, the television star, the secretary of state and the most admired athlete. Our polling bears this out. We did a survey in 1999 and repeated it in 2007 in which we asked about the most popular figures in several fields of endeavor, and every one of them was a person of color. That is simply the America we live in today.

And then there's Hillary Clinton. I am not a great believer that sexism played a part in her narrow loss to Obama, because she is a figure so much larger than gender. But that aside, she did so well because we have already had women as secretaries of state and as a vice presidential candidate. Her candidacy was simply the next logical step for a woman to take.

Today, more than 80 percent say that most Americans are ready for an African-American president. Still, nearly 20 percent say that their fellow Americans are not. Racism reared its ugly head in key primary states and will appear again during the general election campaign. We pollsters wonder if more voters than show on the surface are only proffering the socially acceptable response and if more bigotry lurks beneath.

But what is remarkable is that this race isn't just a black guy running against an old white guy. That these factors are not the dominant elements of this contest-they will be among the myriad issues that will decide this race-shows us just how much things have changed.

So, like everyone else, I don't know what will happen Nov. 4-but it will be momentous no matter which way it turns out. And there's another thing that's certain: An African-American will run for the presidency again. A woman will run again. A septuagenarian will run again. And it won't be nearly as big a deal as it has been this year.

This is America. Isn't it just great? (8/1/2008)