OBAMARAMA

One particularly interesting and provocative moment from Sen. Obama’s This Week interview came when he was asked about affirmative action. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson describes his answer:

Obama waded into the central issue of the affirmative action debate: race vs. class.

…George Stephanopoulos asked Obama whether his daughters should be able to benefit from affirmative action when the time comes for them to go to college. The girls “should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged,” Obama said.

Stephanopoulos was driving at the question of whether race-based affirmative action programs are still needed. Another way to frame the issue is whether race or class is the more important factor in our society. Are minorities who are raised in middle-class or wealthy homes still held back by racism? Or should we now focus on socioeconomic status as the principal barrier keeping people from reaching their potential?

Obama’s answer, basically, was yes. To both questions.

Robinson went on to note that “Obama has repeatedly gone on record as a supporter of affirmative action,” but added that “He seemed to side with those who think class predominates when he said, ‘I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.’”

In other words, an acknowledgment that racial prejudice remains a major obstacle to educational ascendancy in this country, but an affirmation that it is increasingly the economic hurdles of college applicants that make the most sense for admissions officers to consider.

It is not something that is often discussed aloud, it is quite simply not every day that an African American politician suggests shifting affirmative action from a race-based to a class-based system. This is precisely the sort of chutzpah and commitment to ideas — as opposed to ideologies — that has propelled Sen. Obama to the front of this race.

We’ve done bluster and bravado. The 2008 campaign will be about pragmatism, reason and results. Sen. Obama understands this, perhaps better than anyone.