DeWayne Wickham, USA Today
- If you had seen the reception John McCain got Friday at the National Urban League convention, you wouldn’t think he has a race problem — but he does. And it might surprise you to know what it is.
The Republican presidential candidate received a standing ovation as he walked on stage to give a speech that was interrupted 12 times by applause from the overwhelmingly black audience. And when he walked off the stage, he got another standing ovation. Two weeks earlier, McCain received a similar reception when he spoke at the NAACP’s convention.
Even so, when voters go to the polls in November, McCain will almost certainly get a lot less than the 11% of the black vote that George W. Bush won in 2004. But as troubling as this must be for McCain, the lack of black support isn’t his race problem. It is his lack of runaway support among whites.
