Maybe someone can find some study somewhere that can back up or disprove my theory. It seems to me that there is a particular regional component to racism in this country’s politics. By this, I do not mean that only people in region A are racist. I mean that racism is a politically decisive (or at least potentially so) factor in certain regions, and not in others. There was no obvious racial polarization in Iowa and New Hampshire. In Virginia, things got more interesting. Even while Obama was carrying 65% of the state, white Democrats gave Clinton 56% of their vote. Yet, white independents went for Obama with 66% of their vote. And in the southwestern part of Virginia, Clinton won counties with anywhere from 66% to 81% of the vote. We saw similar racial polarization in parts of southeastern Ohio, and in Oklahoma and Tennessee, where white voters seemed to reject Obama at such a stunning rate that a racial component can hardly be ignored. And this was all long before the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright emerged in the campaign.
In Georgia, Obama won decisively among white voters under 45, and lost decisively among white voters over 45. But in other Deep Southern states, Obama lost the white vote by whopping margins. In the South and along a North-South swath that rougly resembles the settlement pattern of the Scots-Irish, it appears that there is white resistance to a black candidate even among the Democratic electorate. I do not mean to suggest that every white vote for Clinton is racially motivated, but I am talking about regions where Clinton vastly outperformed state and national polls. I am talking about places like Belmont Co. in Ohio, that gave Clinton 72% of the vote, or Hawkins Co. in Tennessee, that gave Clinton 74% of the vote. I suspect that Obama will do very poorly in those counties in the general election, even among white Democrats.
In some states, like South Carolina and Mississippi, the white resistance to a black candidate is more than made up for by the even greater enthusiasm for a black candidate from the African-American community. In other states, like Oklahoma, Tennessee (and quite likely, West Virginia and Kentucky) there are not enough African-Americans to overcome white resistance.
The further we get away from Appalachia and the Deep South, the less pronounced this racial divide appears to be. It doesn’t seem to show up at all in the Plains states or the Mountain West. And in the Southwest, the Latino vote adds in an added component that complicates matters.
My theory on this is that white resistance is strongest in areas where there is a legacy of Jim Crow, where there are large black populations mixed with massive job loss, and in cities like Philadelphia, where the Republican Party doesn’t compete, and politics is traditionally conducted along racial lines. Strangely, outside of some cities like Detroit (where there is no white side to the Democratic Party) the suburbs seem to have shaken off the legacy of white flight, busing, etc., and embraced Obama.
What this means for the general election is a good question. I think it means that Obama will have a very hard time winning in the Border States, where racial polarization is very strong, but the African-American community doesn’t have the numbers to offset white resistance. So, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee are probably lost causes. On the other hand, Obama will probably do better than the average Democrat in South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, because of enormous black turnout.
Following this logic, Obama should follow a Southwestern strategy, and try to pick up Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. He may find that he is competitive in Kansas and Montana, too. Another option would be to attack his regional weakness head-on by picking a vice-president with strong appeal in the exact demographic that seems most troublesome. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia is a perfect choice for this purpose. As the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, he knows and identifies with Appalachia more than any other sitting politician. And he could help staunch Obama’s bleeding in the southwestern corner of Virginia and hand over the state’s 13 electoral votes to the Democrats.
It’s unfortunate that racism still lingers on, but with the right strategy it is a factor that Obama can overcome.
I’m curious. Do the polls indicate a similar polarization in terms of gender for Clinton? If not, that seems to debunk the claim that “women will walk” no matter what if Obama wins the nomination.
Imho, we can ignore that Hillary has played all the cards, again today: the race card – Wright is David Duke; the gender card, drug card, fear card, national security card against Obama.
She has reason to worry: Look at the polls as Obama will only launch a heavy campaign schedule on Friday.
Publius over at Obsidian Wings has a nice post that dovetails nicely with your post Booman.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/03/getting-past-th.html
He deals with age and race. basically older people might not be overtly racist but due to their life experiences, feel that America as a whole is not ready for a black president. Until recently I’d put my parents in that category, but the slash and burn politics of Hillary has changed that.
I just read that and was also going to post a link.
my thoughts exactly. The younger voters (CW has it they do not show up to vote) will surprise. I’m bi-racial up here in rural VT and still blown away from last August when 6 young whites, twenty somethings, stopped me to ask if I was supporting Obama. Stunned, I asked, what do you know about him?
Count on this and thank Bush. Young voters are fired up, anxious to cast their vote. November can’t be too soon for them.
David Brooks, NYT: The Long Defeat
According to Brooks, Hillary is down to ‘a five percent chance’ to win this thing…”she possesses the audacity of hopelessness.”
(tip’o cap: Sullivan)
We’re on the same wavelength today. Or parallel universe.
I ((gulp)) agree with a David Brooks column. In full.
As Zandardad likes to tell me, “Even a broken grandfather clock is right twice a day.”
I see alot of us read that same post and were going to mention it. I couldn’t remember where I had read it but I’m glad you all do. It made the most sense of this that I’ve seen anywhere because I just wasn’t buying the argument that so many old people are just racist. My 67-year old dad isn’t racist. But he has been telling me all along that Obama can’t win because “America as a whole” is just not ready for a black president… until Obama’s speech on race. He teared-up a bit when he saw that and hasn’t mentioned the “can’t win” bit since. Now he’s watching Obama with alot more interest.
“My 67-year old dad isn’t racist. But he has been telling me all along that Obama can’t win because “America as a whole” is just not ready for a black president… until Obama’s speech on race.”
that speech has won Obama respect. if nothing else, Respect… as we say in Jah Ital . Hillary should really, really take note as today she continues to fan the Wright flap to detract from her NAFTA and Bosnia lies.
George Lakoff on Obama’s speech what makes a great speech.
More surprising here’s Doug Kmiec, a conservative,–Endorsing Obama
which leads to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal written by John Fund that notes a political apostasy
just so ya’ll know as I wrote “written by John Fund” !!!! I fell off my chair and I’m still on the floor. As soon as I get up, I’ll be shipping Mr. Fund a truckload of kleenex so he can have a good cry all the way to November.
The Clinton campaign is so mired in their splitter/triangulation thinking that they don’t understand which buttons they’re pushing. As Drew Westin said recently on Politics and Propaganda, asking people about their thinking (98% of which is subconscious according to Lakoff) “..is like asking them what’s happening in their spleen.”
Despite the apparent fallout from the Wright controversy, there are a number of frames being reinforced. For one, questions about Obama’s religion have been supplanted. Racial and religious prejudice against Muslims/Arabs, which was a bigger threat, has been superseded by questions about Obama’s type of Christian belief. Moreover, Obama’s sticking with his church and pastor, rather than necessarily showing poor judgment, shows deep conviction on Obama’s part.
Most analysts are too enamored of their surface level, rational-analytic point of view to understand attitudinal dynamics. And that’s why I often find the comments by the talking heads to be less than useless. Ronald Reagan was continuously underestimated by analysts on the left because they couldn’t understand how people could disagree with his policies and still vote for him. Voters are looking for reassurances of what makes Obama tick. It’s not about what he thinks, it’s about how they feel about him. Authenticity is more important than actual agreement on beliefs. Clinton’s confabulations and laundry lists of policies stigmatize her as inauthentic.
Booman’s thinking on the Scots-Irish (which is very good) in the border states illustrates how we can be misled by demographics. The best way to understand this demographic is through cultural issues (so to speak) rather than economics. Blue-collar demographic groups are risk-aversive and thus resistant to change. Besides the salience of feelings of uncertainty with this demographic, there is an exacerbated intergroup conflict effect during times of declining economics. For instance, what’s been mislabeled as Hispanic versus African American racial conflict is better understood as economic anxiety. Both groups see themselves in a precarious position, and they are most vulnerable to another minority group. The same effect exists for the Scots-Irish, as well as for many white males. Although the demographic attributes are based on race or economic status, communicating to these groups requires demonstrating an understanding of the alienation and anxiety present in each of these groups. Communicating with them is not the same thing as pandering on specific policies, but rather, communicating requires reassuring them that you understand their perspective, which allows them to develop a comfort level or positive “feeling” for your leadership. This is not a rational, self-interested decision based on economics or race, as the talking heads in the corporate media would have you believe; it’s a gut level emotional decision made at a level below conscious thought.
One more added thought — Wright’s sermon was titled “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” Apparently, equating the US with Jerusalem offends some people.
Colinski, you need to be working for Obama.
That was a brilliant post.
We could do a lot worse than an Obama/Webb ticket. Webb might put Oklahoma in play. He’s about the only VP prospect I’ve heard of so far who could. And if he could swing OK, he might swing Texas and Arkansas as well. Lots of Scots-Irish followed the wave of migration from Tennessee and Virginia to the Southern Plains states. Many of the anecdotes in his book could easily be about members of my family. He is perhaps the only person on the planet who could make the case for common cause between working class blacks and whites in a way that would resonate with the rednecks I grew up with.
While I’d hate, hate to lose Webb as a senator for my own political and personal reasons, that’s a ticket I’d like to see. Really.
I think you’re absolutely right. Leading by example.
There’s a reason why the leading Southwest VA Dems (Rep. Boucher, Min. Ldr. Del. Armstrong) backed Obama after Edwards left the race.
This way, you’d have a ticket that’s representative of and responsive to the needs of the party.
The DLC? Not so much.
Interesting analysis. The political demographics of racially-motivated voting have be severely challenged by the Obama campaign. Which is why the other candidates, with the complicity of the media, tried to use Rev. Wright to paint Obama as divisive. And will continue to.
Here is my take on the places where Obama might elicit racist voting patterns.
Areas that are economically depressed, traditionally have had few blacks (even have a history of 1920s “sundown towns” where the few blacks were told to leave by sundown, or face death). There are a lot of Southern Appalachian counties in AL, GA, TN, NC, VA that are like this. And the attitudes extend into other parts of Appalachia. Obama can start to deal with this if he takes campaigning in central, northwestern, and northeastern Pennsylvania seriously. And a “Caribbean vacation” doesn’t help any more than windsurfing helped John Kerry.
Areas in which ethnic politics dominates, such as the big cities of the northeast and midwest. Irish, Italian, Polish, other Eastern Europeans, Jews, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, other Hispanics all have organized candidacies from an ethnic base and use ethnic prejudices to shape coalitions. This is the environment that Geraldine Ferarro comes out of.
Racially homogeneous suburbs anywhere in the country. There will be one of two effects. Racist voting patterns against Obama just because, or racist voting patterns for his candidacy to show that their community is beyond that. Although much touted, the second effect is less likely than the first but it will exist, especially in suburbs that are university towns.
The suburban areas in which whites have supported Obama tend to be affluent and multiracial, and those exist all over the country–and even in minor cities and small towns.
The rural areas in which whites support Obama tend to be those that are majority black, where black political power has brought blacks to office for many years or so majority white (as in Kansas) that blacks have had not specifically different economic role. Both of these tend to have moved beyond racial voting patterns.
Any Democratic candidate will tend to do well in the Southwest because Republicans have burned their bridges to the Hispanic community with their hardnosed immigration proposals. McCain’s moderation probably is too little, too late. Race will matter less in this demographic than any other, outside of the voters in retirement communities in the Southwest.
For Obama, there is one sure start to the right strategy — win central Pennsylvania.
While I detest the fact that the man can’t even take a vacation without people psychoanalyzing it, you’re right. Hawaii would even have made more sense since that’s where he spent most of his formative years.
Thankfully, it’s March.
But the next time he takes a break, he should go for something less “exotic” and/or “high fallutin’.” Go visit Mt. Rushmore in SD or Vermont (cooler in the summer) or Williamsburg, Va.
The good news.
The Caribbean vacation is in the US Virgin Islands. These folks have delegates to the convention. A stopover in Puerto Rico would take the taint away.
He should go bowling, square dancing or ballroom dancing in a small town. With no press coverage. Just meeting people.
This seems like a very good analysis, BooMan.
Whereas Webb got it right on the Iraq War, I don’t see him as a progressive. Could someone comment on that?
He is a bit of an enigma, I will give you that. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I will say that he is my senator.
Is he a progressive or not? He says stuff like this:
I suppose he isn’t a traditional progressive, but the message is still a good one.
There’s my comment. I don’t even trust the guy and hate the way he votes most of the time. Still, people seem to like him for whatever reason.
He campaigned as a Progressive. And by Progressive, I mean the updated version of the left wing political philosophy that was prevalent in the early 1900s and started to making a comeback in the late 90s. Not progressive as a byword for liberal. Anyone who’s seen one of his full throated attacks on our corporate culture can’t argue with that.
Having said that, his actual voting record isn’t great so far. Webb as VP would be the great equalizer in many parts of the country, but at the same time he would have a heck of a lot of explaining to do on why Webb the campaigner and Webb the Senator seem like very different people.
Sounds like the vice-presidency is the perfect place for him.
Let him campaign like a Scots-Irish progressive who can talk-the-talk, and walk-the-walk.
He would be the perfect entre for Obama to introduce economic populism into the general election. I suspect that people who were enamored with Edwards would flip over Webb.
What could be a greater symbol of joining African-Americans and Scotch-Irish together for economic and cultural success than Obama and Webb clasping upraised hands at the convention?
Webb’s presence on the ticket would also deflect white, working-class concerns about Obama’s “Afro-centric liberation theology” church and the “reverse racism” perceived by whites.
BTW, what part of the state are you in?
Yours. Does this mean I have to change my user name? (I kid) It was a total coincidence, but having a Knoxville Progressive and a TN Progressive running around on the same internet forum could be confusing. I wouldn’t want you held accountable for my poor grammar and crackpot ideas.
Not to give too much info over the internet but I think we might actually know each other. I was pretty active in Knoxville before first an insane work schedule and then a small child have sidelined me for the past few years. I’ve been thinking about doing more than lurking on KnoxViews and will have a bit of time to devote to the elections this fall, so I may see you around town.
Email me & let’s do lunch! Why should only the big city posters have the fun of meeting in the real world?
green_planet_2000 (at) yahoo (dot) com
Webb is more populist than progressive. His writings in WSJ sound a lot like John Edwards at times. And though he is well known as a former Republican and Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, he is a democrat. More small d than large D. In a lot of ways he epitomized the so-called Reagan Democrats before that term was invented.
He came home from the Viet Nam war a wounded war hero, with a knee full of shrapnel and a chest full of decorations. Like many vets from that era, he was bitter about the way the vets were treated when they came home. And like many vets, he blamed the Democrats. In Webb’s case it took an intimate look at the workings of the Reagan Administration to understand who was really responsible. Even though he served in Reagan’s cabinet,he was never a good fit with the Republicans. Throughout his tenure, he acquired a reputation as an independent thinker who spoke his mind, often at odds with the party line. When he left there was no love lost on either side.
If you want a good sense of what Webb is really about, I highly recommend his book Born Fighting. It’s a pretty good read about the Scots-Irish. It’s also more than a little autobiographical, full of anecdotes of Webb and his family in the context of the Scots-Irish culture. I would also recommend The Nightingale’s Song by Robert Timberg. It’s a profile of five Naval Academy graduates. Among them are Jim Webb and John McCain. I found it fascinating how much of the broad arc of their careers and characters was already evident during their time as midshipmen.
What a loser
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html
Turns out that what Wright said actually wasn’t very contentious at all… In context. Sounds a lot like the “Obama idolizes Reagan” smear from a few months back, doesn’t it?
What makes the whole uproar completely stupid is how they were taken out of context. Does 40 seconds of speech sum up one person’s career? Nope. It can’t. In the whole sermons those little snippets make sense and he was even quoting someone else in one snippet. The whole thing was handled poorly by everyone. It felt like I was the only person who actually took the time to look at the entire thing.
Here’s what he said:
“..’Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism.’ A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.”
Wright is citing Edward Peck, the former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/21/the-full-story-behind-rev-jeremiah-wrights-911-sermon/
Considering that Wright’s message is a warning about the consequences of our foreign policy, the characterization of his sermon as racist is clearly a miss.
But nobody would ever believe that the motives for invading Iraq were racist, would they? Wright’s intermingling of the issues of race and war is highly inappropriate. Or is it?
“-Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a ‘war’ against the ‘false religion’ of Islam with the aim of destroying it.”
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html
Good analysis, and I feel it’s fairly accurate with a couple of exceptions.
My own state of Tennessee, which Hillary won handily, didn’t follow that trend exactly and I would imagine that the same trends would apply to the “Appalachian” regions you talked about. To break it down a bit; Obama won Memphis with it’s majority African-American population by an overwhelming margin. However, he also won the white suburban areas of Memphis. Nashville was similar with Obama winning the urban and white suburbs. Knoxville and Chattanooga have a mixed race population without noticeable suburban areas outside their counties. Obama won both. Hillary won the white rural areas of the state by overwhelming margins and this was how she won.
So, what happened here was essentially the opposite of what happened in the “deep South” or other regions where Hillary wins the white vote by large margins. Obama won the “white” areas of the state where people are close to and interact with African-Americans regularly. The further out from the cities you get, the more isolated the communities and the higher the vote was from Hillary.
Racism was certainly a factor, but it’s a different kind of racism than what is in the “deep South” or among Northern working class whites. It comes more from distrust of an “other” type of person that they might see on TV or playing on their favorite team, but never interact with face to face.
I’m not defending the racism obviously, but it’s important to understand what is going on with a certain segment of the electorate. The same types of voters are the ones in play in rural PA. They will also be a factor in eastern NC, but their effect will be minimal considering the population of the rest of the state.
Your analysis of TN is spot-on from what I see, except for a minor quibble – calling Knoxville “mixed race” is relative. Knox County is 8.9% black as of 2006 (but there are also a wide range of other minorities due to the university). That may be mixed compared to, say, Athens, TN, but not so much compared to the rest of the country. I haven’t got the data handy for Chattanooga, but I believe it’s similar to Knoxville in that regard. Historically, there are fewer blacks in the mountainous parts of the state because plantation slavery was not a workable proposition in such geography.
I actually was comparing Knoxville and Chattanooga to areas like Athens. When I said mixed race I meant that there actually are black people, and if you are white and live in either city you see and interact with African-Americans on a regular basis.
Just an informed guess, but I would say if the data were broken down even further Obama would have won the white vote within the city limits of Knoxville and Chattanooga by decent margins with Hillary getting more votes in the outskirts of Hamilton and Knox counties.
I saw a breakdown of the vote by precinct within Knox County but haven’t been able to find it again using Google. If I find it I’ll post it.
I would appreciate it if someone could explain why Mass. went for Clinton. Thanks.
Voter Fraud?
Really? I hadn’t read anything about that in MA.
With both Kennedy and Kerry coming out for Obama, I don’t understand why Clinton was so strong throughout the state except for two areas.
I really don’t have an answer. Women came out in droves (58-42 women to men) which nearly matches the results, but the exit polls indicate most people didn’t think the candidates’ gender was important (at least not consciously).
I did notice this, which doesn’t explain anything but I thought was really, really weird.
So basically, the better off you are financially, the more likely you went for Obama. That just seems really counter intuitive to me with Obama being the ‘candidate of hope’. I suppose the closer you are to the edge you get the more cynical you have to be, and the less you can afford to put your eggs in the ‘hope’ basket.
Everything is so intertwined that we can’t tell what other factors may have shaped that decision, but that really stuck out to me.
The better educated and informed you are, the more likely you will vote for Obama. That is why he won just about all caucus states. The better educated / better informed / more interested in politics are more likely to spend a couple hours at a caucus. Everyone else who pays little attention goes with name recognition and doesn’t really put much thought into it. They vote Clinton.
But in the case of MA, they will always give it to “the Democrat” in the general election, regardless of who is on the ballot.
Duh. Of course you’re right. Thanks.
Sometimes you get so close to the trees you can’t see the forest.
Thanks ejmw – I missed all the analysis when MA voted.
It seemed to me looking at CNN’s map that the two areas that went for Obama were Boston and the northwestern part of the state which I think includes the University of MA and a variety of colleges. Perhaps that might explain the “Getting Ahead.”
I am concerned that the covert racism of the rust belt is being severely underestimated.
(Hope you’re doing well.)
Heh, I missed it too when it happened…But thankfully CNN keeps their exit poll data online more or less permanently π
I’m not sure about the rust belt. As far as the primary goes, there is a lot of anger over NAFTA which I think helps Obama, but there is also a lot of nostalgia for the Clinton years too.
In the general, I don’t know.
For some anecdotal evidence on that count, my girlfriend was just telling me the other night that her mom (who lives in Indiana) and who usually votes Democratic was saying nice things about McCain. I tend to think this is just because McCain has been out of the media spotlight; when he’s in it, he doesn’t do well. But we’ll see. I don’t think Michigan is a gimme in November for the Democrats, especially due to the primary fiasco.
I am doing very well right now. I am very fortunate to be in a city and a job that have been relatively untouched by the Bush curse and Michigan’s failing economy, though reality is intruding a little bit lately.
I’m sending hugs and my best wishes to you π
Thanks for the anecdotals.
In my area there were Ron Paul signs in Dec. and Jan. and a few Edwards bumper stickers. Then I saw one Huckabee bumper sticker – which needed to be removed about a week later π
Now…nothing. But I am in a very Republican area, really anti-union and anti-government, oh, and a lot of “family values.” Kind of noteworthy that I’m not seeing McCain signs, yet I can’t imagine much cross over in the general election to either Clinton or Obama.
More importantly – thanks for the hugs and best wishes π and the same from me to you!
I believe that a higher power guides the events of our days, prince and pauper alike. America of the 20th century cannot be America of the 21st century, so she MUST change in order to take her place of destiny in the world of the future. The 21st century opened with a startling panoramic view of a exploding GLOBAL community. America cannot drag her favorite old phobia of racism into this new world and expect to survive as an didactic example to this brave new world.
The Obama candidacy has the Supra-Unique timing and provides:
(a) The right visionary for the job, who happens to be
(b) African-American (1st generation African-American) whose persona is needed to allow the vast majority of Americans to come
(c) face to face with their own racism and
(d) honestly AFFECT a lasting change in their hearts!!
A favorite quote often mentioned in the Black Church goes like this: “If the Lord be for us who can be against us?”