The 2008 presidential election made American history. Yet before
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, there were other "historic
firsts": Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president in 1972, and Jesse
Jackson, who ran in 1984 and 1988. While unsuccessful, these
campaigns were significant, as they rallied American voters across
various racial, ethnic, and gender groups. One can also argue that
they heightened the electoral prospects of future candidates. Can
"historic firsts" bring formerly politically inactive people (those
who previously saw no connection between campaigns and their own
lives) into the electoral process, making it both relevant and
meaningful? In Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes
Politics, Evelyn M. Simien makes the compelling argument that
voters from various racial, ethnic, and sex groups take pride in
and derive psychic benefit from such historic candidacies. They
make linkages between the candidates in question and their own
understanding of representation, and these linkages act to mobilize
citizens to vote and become actively involved in campaigns. Where
conventional approaches to the study of American political
elections tend to focus on socioeconomic factors, or to study race
or gender as isolated factors, Simien's approach is intersectional,
bringing together literature on both race and gender. In particular
she compares the campaigns of Jackson, Chisholm, Obama and Clinton,
and she draws upon archival material from campaign speeches,
advertising, and newspaper articles, to voter turnout reports, exit
polls, and national surveys to discover how race and gender
determined the electoral context for the campaigns. In the process,
she reveals the differences that exist within and between various
racial, ethnic and sex groups in the American political process at
the presidential level.
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