Uncomfortably clutching a box of donuts, Ali Shafei, CC’10, sat on a ledge in Lerner waiting in rapt anticipation that mirrored the suspenseful mood of Tuesday’s pivotal primary eve.

As president of the Arab student organization Turath, Shafei organized a forum for his peers to discuss the presidential election from the Arab-American perspective. But only one member joined him—Dueaa Elzin, BC ’11. Shafei surmised that, although Turath’s general meetings consistently erupt into vivid political debates, the disappointing turnout was likely due to the event being scheduled at the same time as One Tree Hill.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton (New York) and Barack Obama (Illinois) tore up the electoral battlefield in the fight for the party’s nomination—resulting in a split such that Texas and Vermont went for Obama as Ohio and Rhode Island favored Clinton. The results left many Democrats eager to finally latch onto a single candidate perplexed and unsatisfied.

Ardent Obama campaigner Ronald Kirk, former Mayor of Dallas who also served as Secretary of State in Texas, has been appearing alongside and on behalf of his candidate to gear up for Tuesday’s primary. Eager to make Texas’s voice heard in the presidential primary elections for the first time in about 25 years, Kirk said, “I’m working my tail off” to make Obama the Democratic nominee.

Although Kirk—whose daughter, Alex, is a Columbia College first-year—served as Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and has had close ties with the former president’s family, he was drawn to the “new brand of leadership” Obama offers. Kirk said he chose to endorse the Illinois Senator because “I met him.”

Kirk also lauded Obama’s distinct ability to reach out to all Americans across racial lines. Yet Shafei and Elzin don’t see it that way.

As the first African American presidential candidate with a viable outlook on the White House, Obama has taken an assertive stance that the 2008 election is not about race. But, said Shafei, “Race is what defines us. Race is what makes me an Arab American. So when he says stuff like that, we kind of take that with a huge grain of salt.”

Both Shafei and Elzin don’t feel as though any of the presidential candidates—Republican or Democrat—have made any sort of explicit effort out reach out to the Arab-American population. This is a particular national demographic that comes with a negative stigma, Shafei explained, saying that “It’s not worth the backlash” for candidates to genuinely connect with Arabs.

As some Bill Clinton fans hearken back to the days of his administration and support the New York Senator as a result, many of the same Arab-Americans fear that Obama will make a particularly concerted effort to distance himself from issues surrounding the Middle East. According to Shafei, Arabs fear that beliefs surrounding the misconception that Obama is Muslim will cause him to shy away from the issues that matter most to Arab-Americans.

Elzin, an enthusiastic Clinton supporter said, “There’s all this hype around Obama right now, and I just feel like it’s a fad.” Still, Elzin doesn’t think any of the candidates, including her personal pick, have done anything to adjust the media bias against Muslim Americans.

Shafei noted that “A lot of Arabs kind of sympathize with Obama in that he’s a minority, we’re a minority. There could be some level of unspoken sympathy between the two, you know, as opposed to the standard white candidate.”

As questions over racial issues persist on campus, so too, it seems, does the fate of the Democratic party in the November election.