The affirmative-action debate has been so divisive it often has been difficult to get those involved in it to even use the same terms.

In an article published this week in the San Jose Mercury News, columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. pointed to a recent exchange between Sen. John McCain and George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s “This Week,” as a classic example of how language clouds discussion of the issue. Mr. Stephanopoulos asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if he supports a proposed Arizona ballot measure that would “do away with affirmative action,” although in truth the measure would bar state and local agencies from using only one form of affirmative action—preferential treatment—and leave many other milder forms intact. In voicing support for the Arizona measure, Senator McCain said “I do not believe in quotas,” even though racial quotas were declared illegal by the Supreme Court way back in 1978.

In his column, Mr. Navarrette urged: “Let’s at least respect the complexity of the issue” which “isn’t quotas or affirmative action, but racial preferences.”

Barack Obama opposes the Arizona measure, as well as others like it proposed in Colorado and Nebraska. But some of his comments on affirmative action have been nuanced enough to win him compliments from an unlikely source: Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, who mounted and is coordinating the three state campaigns for preference bans. A New York Times article this week quoted Mr. Connerly as saying Sen. Obama has “advanced the debate” and “brought it to a new level.”

What has earned Senator Obama such praise from Mr. Connerly is his willingness to inject the issue of class into the discussion by suggesting that some black people from privileged backgrounds, such as his own daughters, probably should not get preferences in college admissions. Speaking last month at a conference of minority journalists, Mr. Obama said: “We have to think about affirmative action and craft it in such a way where some of our children who are advantaged aren’t getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who has struggled more.”

John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told the Times he disagrees with Mr. Obama’s position regarding his own daughters. But, like Mr. Connerly, he also said Mr. Obama’s comments are likely to lead to a more thoughtful affirmative-action discussion.

To be sure, Mr. Connerly’s goodwill toward Senator Obama has its limits. In a recent op-ed for the National Review, he took issue with Mr. Obama’s characterization of ballot measures such as the one in Arizona as “divisive.” He suggested that the term “divisive” is better applied to affirmative-action preferences themselves, and he accused Mr. Obama of being “divided against himself” on the issue by asserting he hopes to unite the American people even as he backs affirmative-action policies that he has acknowledged as engendering resentment. He made clear that an Obama stand in support of the Arizona measure would be his preference.—Peter Schmidt