Blacks now believe one of them can be president

PHILADELPHIA — Patricia Thompson once thought a fellow African-American couldn’t be president.

Today, this silver-haired retiree is holding forth at her favorite restaurant with a different message. “White people will vote for a black man,” Thompson says. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

That’s no small thing to say at the Oak Lane Diner, a social institution in an important swing state — one that could play a big role in a Barack Obama victory.

It was a little outlandish even a year ago, when more than a few black voters thought Obama had zero chance of winning the Democratic nomination, let alone the White House.

But that pessimism is now passe in north Philly. Doubt is out of fashion at the diner, up and down Broad Street, in the shopping plaza Obama recently packed with 20,000 people for a rally.

Few own up to the skepticism that some African-Americans said at the time drove them to support white candidates during the Democratic primary.

Remember Robert Ford, the black South Carolina state senator who said last winter that Obama couldn’t win? That he’d drag down the whole Democratic ticket as the nominee?

“Barack’s campaign has redefined that conventional wisdom,” said Jesse Jackson Jr., the Illinois congressman and son of Jesse Jackson Sr., who sought the Democratic presidential nomination twice.

“Not only can Obama win, but he has coattails that are going to help other Democratic candidates,” Jackson said. “The fact that he’s doing well in the swing states suggests the American people are moving beyond race.”

If black people still think Obama can’t win, they’re less apt to bring it up since the candidate pulled ahead in national polls.

“It’s remarkable, when you think about the exodus they’ve gone through in terms of this campaign,” said David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Younger black voters have long supported Obama, he noted, but others only began a movement toward Obama after the Illinois senator won the Iowa caucuses.

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Doubts from a year ago seem to be gone, a remarkable turnaround in thought, says social scientist.

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