This Associated Press article attempts to tackle a pretty big topic. What is the difference, if there is any difference, between a white person voting for a political candidate because the candidate is white, and a black person voting for a candidate because they are black? Unfortunately, the article doesn’t do much more than collect a sample of black people saying that they support Obama because he is black. Here’s one example:
The actor Samuel L. Jackson said much the same thing: “I voted for Barack because he was black,” he told Ebony magazine. “Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people – because they look like them.”
I’m pretty sure that I could take the political positions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and present them to Samuel L. Jackson and he would say he prefers Obama’s policies. I am also pretty sure that he wouldn’t change his mind if it turned out that the race of the candidates were reversed. It’s true that Obama got 95% of the black vote in 2008, but Kerry got 88% in 2004 and Gore got 90% in 2000. Blacks prefer the Democratic Party in overwhelming numbers. Women preferred the Obama/Biden ticket to the McCain/Palin ticket by a wide margin. Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States, but he is the first president who wasn’t a white man. He was the first presidential nominee who wasn’t a white man. No one votes for a presidential candidate because he’s a white man. No one is going to vote for Mitt Romney because he’s white. But some people will vote for him because he’s a Mormon.
Sometimes, groups that have been discriminated against will rally around someone from their group who is breaking new ground even if they disagree with them on a lot of things. Italian-Americans were excited when Antonin Scalia was nominated to be on the Supreme Court. The then New York Governor Mario Cuomo threatened any Democratic senators against voting against him. He was confirmed 98-0. There is a small degree of that kind of behavior going on in the black community, but it is impossible to find an issue where Romney’s policies are preferred to Obama’s by a majority of blacks.
The problem with this Associated Press article is that it does a very poor job of explaining why blacks prefer the Democratic Party and it does an even worse job of explaining why some white folks are voting against Barack Obama simply because of his appearance.
When you ask a black person if they are voting for Barack Obama because he is black, you need to be careful to make sure you know what their answer means. Did they vote for John Kerry and Al Gore and Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis, and Walter Mondale, too? Because, if they did, I don’t think you have explained much by getting them to say that they support Obama because he is black.
When you ask a white person if they are voting for Mitt Romney because he is white, it matters quite a lot to know whether they supported every Democrat until Obama. If they considered themselves a Democrat for thirty years but won’t vote for Obama because of his race, then that is a whole different kettle of fish.
Because what you are really trying to discover here is whether there are people who are voting for or against a candidate solely because of race. And only racists do that. Find me a black person who would vote for Allen West for president over Hillary Clinton despite preferring Clinton’s policies on everything, and I’ll show you a racist black person. But there are not many black people like that in this country. And there a lot of white folks who are Democrats every day of the week until they have to choose a black candidate over a white one.
Racial or ethnic pride is a lot less problematic when it comes from historically marginalized groups than when it comes from the white majority that has always held power in this country, and that is because they are behaving in an affirmative way. They aren’t acting out of hate for the other. They are celebrating their own progress in obtaining equal treatment rather than resenting having to share a small degree of their power. But it doesn’t extend to tokenism. Many women were for Hillary Clinton for affirmative reasons, but they couldn’t transfer those feelings to Sarah Palin because she didn’t share their values and her policies would not have contributed to women’s equality.
This isn’t rocket science. Black people like the Democratic Party. They like Barack Obama, too. In combination, it’s a recipe for monolithic support. But almost no one is truly voting for Barack Obama solely because of his race.
Let’s see … can we get anyone to dispute that southern Jim Crow policies were based on anti-black racism? What about the election platforms of Strom Thurmond (1948), which quite literally was “pro-lynching”, and George Wallace (1968)? It was pretty obvious that the vast majority of southern whites were very anti-black. So, not surprisingly, because those southern whites owned the Democratic Party in the south, the vast majority of blacks were Republican.
In other words, Blacks were Republican because White Racists who hated blacks controlled the southern Democratic party. It was a reaction, pure and simple.
Now, of course, the racists migrated to the Republican party en masse and in total. You won’t often hear them in public being as blunt as people like Thurmond and Wallace were about their racial hatred, but you’ll find it in codes words from “strapping young buck” to “Cadillac driving welfare queens”. We’re still seeing comments from GOP state legislators that are close to what the racists said in the 60s.
So of COURSE blacks vote Democratic. It is because the GOP is the home to white racists. And of COURSE hispanics vote Democratic in large numbers – the GOP is passing laws that discriminate against them.
This is simple and obvious, but journalists a) don’t want to get all the organized hate mail from the right and b) have bosses who prefer the GOP on economic ground. So we’re left with shit like this article.
Aside from the party labels, there’s also a long historic relationship between blacks and the federal government (and I’m not talking about welfare). The Democrats are currently the party that supports a strong and active federal government, and blacks have every reason to prefer the federal government over the states.
I mean, it’s kind of true, as the neoconfederates claim, that the Civil War was about states’ rights, but nobody goes to war over an abstraction. The particular right in question was the right to enslave black people. And after that states’ rights meant segregation. Who wouldn’t pick a government that is willing to treat them as human beings and citizens over one that isn’t?
It is telling that the Constitution of the confederacy gave full rights to the states with one, and only one, exception. Slavery. Every state was required to stay a slave state and to return any slaves that escaped from other states.
Yeah, the civil war was about states rights. Sure it was. Read any editorial from the south at the time or any speech from the people who won national office and you’ll see very clearly what their #1 priority was.
It would be dangerous to assume the converse.
Remember the 2008 story about the white woman, asked by an Obama worker whom she supported; she asked her husband, who said “we’re voting for the n–” here’s an instance of a white racist for whom the dem policies were more important than race. whether or not the candidate “looks like me” or not is always a factor, hopefully with an informed electorate it’s not the deciding factor. re: Samuel L. Jackson, he’s speaking as a movie actor. In movies, whether or not a character “looks like me” is central to how the audience perceives the movie story, but that’s movies, not governance.
That was the first thing I thought of, too. Here’s one iteration of that story. It does complicate the picture a little bit.
The country was on its beam ends in ’08. It was O.K. to take a risk. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Now the economy’s not good, but it’s getting better — and it’s certainly not still falling down an elevator shaft.
So it’s safe to go back to electing old white men in blue suits, like we’re supposed to. Emergency’s over.
This is why Obama’s polling goes down, now that the economic news since mid-September has been decent…
Sitting Presidents get rewarded not for absolute economic indicators, but on the trend, all the modelers told us — but not this President.
I wonder why?
Another aspect of that, I think, is that on the left end of the spectrum we tend to require an out and out emergency to respond in a manner that approaches what the right wing are capable of cranking out reliably come rain or shine.
On the one hand, we get complacent more easily, and on the other, we (and I use the pronoun very loosely) fail to see the threat of right wing policies until we’re practically drowning in it. We don’t have fire-and-brimstone from the church pulpits urging us to vote Democratic every election, nor the massive mailing lists and various propaganda outlets that revolve around religious organizations. The Culture War drives social conservatives, but by and large leaves the rest of us cold absent an actual emergency.
Also it’s far easier to paint the right wing as a voting bloc than it is for the left. We’re far more likely to split tickets and vote for independents when we feel our candidate isn’t representing us adequately.
Put a simpler way: fear drives voting. The left tends to be less fearful than the right, although these days we have a lot more to be afraid of than they do.
Again, take “we” with a block of salt.
Representation is only part — I would maintain a small part — of the phenomenon Some fraction — o small fraction — of us does it because it’s virtuous, or because it’s fashionable.
that’s ‘no small fraction’…
I’m willing to err on the side of charity and assume the “fashionable” aspect isn’t all that weighty. Rather, I think it’s more to do with a failure to recognize that the sort of government we idealize has never ever even come close to existing on this planet, and is a long way off in the future no matter how well things go in the present.
“The perfect as enemy of the good, or better” doesn’t do justice to the position we find ourselves in. Perfect and good aren’t even on the menu right now, and never really have been. But we always have the choice between better and worse, or in truly bad times, worse and much worse.
In the real world, I would agree with you, but Lord, on the internet…
This is a magical world where people can’t seem to get it that a.) ‘No Logo’ is still a kind of logo and b.) is not a political party.
Hah! well, I can’t really argue your point there. This here internet really is a magical place, when you come right dow–sorry, I think I just saw a unicorn run by. Talk to you later.
Do you actually know ppl who vote for someone because it’s virtuous or fashionable? I’ve never spoken with such a person and I’ve done a fair amount of telephone, door to door, etc.
They are. They say it’s on the basis of policy, or support of certain positions, or what-not. But that’s not why they’re doing it. Tribe, party, region, religion, family history….that’s the lion’s share of it.
Not one vote in ten is cast on the basis of the hedonic calculus….
Actually, I think “fashionable” does a great deal to explain what motivates swing voters. As others have discussed here on various threads, there’s a strong element of apparent desire to not be seen voting for the loser, or conversely, to ensure that one votes for the winner. If that ain’t fashion, it comes from the same rung of Maslow’s ladder.
Yes, I do. And so do you. They won’t admit to it and most don’t even realize they’re doing it.
The Republicans know that a decent chunk of the population does this. So many of us refuse to accept that anyone would do this. We put substance over style when shopping for a politician. Many people confuse style with substance. They see their choice as a reflection of the image they want to project of themselves – like the clothes they wear or the car they drive.
The R’s actively develop and market their candidates – rather than the policies – because the policies are not something any smart shopper would buy. And these Republican marketing pro’s see Obama as the ultimate novelty candidate, an irresistible must-have fashion accessory. He’s the Articulate Black Guy action figure. White baby boomers and gen-x’rs with families would be making a statement about who they think they are – non-racist, inclusive, forward-thinking people. And they’d totally be a hit with the younger generation so it would totally be like a fountain of youth.
Dratz! How did those dastardly Democrats actually create a likeable minority doll? All of our market research and recruitment efforts for a black puppet to date have failed with our base consumers. But this one’s actually stealing some of our market share! Panic!
Remember the “celebrity” ads in 2008? They were trying to make the association in these image-conscious consumers heads that this Obama thing is a short-lived fad – like Paris Hilton. They knew that their Geriatric GI Joe doll just wasn’t as marketable so they had to do something. This time they think they have better puppets to market with the handsome white guys with nice hair. Why are they having such a hard time selling them? In 2000 they “won” with the phony cowboy model and updated him to a fighter pilot during wartime to win in 2004 but that may never work again after how that went. Their best product development folks are now trying to develop a Latino model to market test for a future run. Demographics are shifting, after all.
To the owner-class, politics is a marketing campaign for a product to keep the peasants entertained while they do their magic behind the curtain. And on their side (the R’s) most of the candidates are literally puppets that they are marketing to the swing voter’s sense of vanity. How else can you explain Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronald Reagan?
The Republican ads this time are pushing a theme: Things aren’t perfect, therefore things are really bad. Obama’s not the magical unicorn you were sold last time, so they’re hiring actors for the ads who look and sound like the people that you see yourself and your friends as to give you permission to dump that out-of-fashion Obama novelty toy and come home to the classic white model that they’re offering this time. And this one’s rich! You wanna be rich too, right? But this one’s defective – his personality chip is buggy. Uh oh.
Remember how Mitt joked in that 47% video that he’d be winning if he were only Latino (not merely the spawn of white Mexican immigrants) and his rich dinner companions laughed at the joke? From a Republican marketing perspective, he was probably right and they knew it.
And yes, it works. Many people don’t realize it but they are shopping a for a novelty product. Especially the late-deciding fence-sitters that both sides are desperately trying to win over now. So when you canvas or call, remember you’re not selling boring policy details so much as selling yourself as a satisfied customer giving a testimonial (word of mouth) to a prospective customer who is uneasy about the purchase.
Damn. While re-reading that comment I realize I forgot to mention their choice of Sarah Palin as veep. This should require no additional explanation though.
sorry, my reply to your post isn’t very clear. I should not post late at night (or early in the morning, as it were)
I agree that the Republicans market their candidates. I’ve observed here that recently Republicans often don’t run candidates they run interchangeable figureheads that can be manipulated. The Kochs ran a whole slew of teapots in 2010 that they’re pretty much telling what to do. but I’m thinking from the voter’s side. It was remarked above that people often vote the way their parents, spouse, friends, colleague, neighbors do. I’m a democrat because my parents told me to vote for democrats. (according to the reasoning above how am I different from all those racists, voting like their parents?). Many voters are uniformed, then all the more likely to be taken in by falso tv ads, whatever. voters may buy into the marketing – it depends on the intersection of a voter’s own situation and how the marketing is done. How many auto workers believe the Romney marketing that he’d have saved the auto industry? Not many b/c they have personal knowledge of the industry and “let Detroit go bankrupt”
I guess my reaction overall to this discussion is it behooves us to respect those whose votes we want to win for Obama
I really disagree with your comment. You are correct only if the majority of whites vote against their own economic interests – i.e. vote racism or however beltway pundits are trying to spin the Rep ticket. Certainly that was true in 2000. For 2012, the question is the economic impact of the Bush yrs a distant memory? Are ppl so content with the ACA that they don’t worry about preexisting conditions kicking in, or losing soc sec? or putting all our resources into a new war in the ME? I think the memory is still fresh, but I also think that’s what the spin war is about from the Rep side.
People don’t vote their economic self-interest in anything short of a full gale.
They vote party, tribe, region, religion, race, family history — and then economics, save for the worst of times.
There would be no Republican party as it presently positions itself on economics, none you could measure, if it weren’t the case.
Yet there it is. Poised to win again.
You are correct only if the majority of whites vote against their own economic interests – i.e. vote racism or however beltway pundits are trying to spin the Rep ticket.
I may be missing your point, but to my dim lights, if the majority of whites didn’t consistently vote against their own economic interests, the South would look a lot bluer on the voting maps.
Yes, of course it would. But Obama won in 2008 because so many whites voted their economic interests rather than emotions or whatever. I’m just saying that this isn’t the year 2000.
I’m not sure it was economic interest so much as Bush fatigue. The Republican brand was so toxic that even white GOP voters noticed. If McCain were Romney’s age and running against BHO this year (having not run and failed in ‘008), he might well be leading significantly. Even with Palin.
I doubt it, Palin was toxic. She was what turned NH for Obama. But “Bush fatigue” sounds like someone tired of scrambled eggs every day so they’re going to try pancakes for a while – it goes to my point of disrespecting the voters. What was Bush fatigue precisely? well for one it was the cost in human life and $ of the war in Iraq. Ppl were seriously affected negatively by Bush policies and that began to break through the white ppl voting against their own interests.
Yes, that was the incident. I like how that story refers to Barack Obama as “the first openly black presidential candidate”. Some 18th Century writers, trying to discredit Lincoln, traced Abraham Lincoln’s heritage to slaves on his mother’s side – successfully, imo. (haven’t read any really recent work on it)
This is less about race and more about socioeconomics at it’s core.
“Rich people have always stayed on top
by dividing white people from colored people/ but white people got
more in common with colored people then they do with rich people” (Bulworth 1998)
Not PC but true all the same.
The AP has been anti-President Obama as long as I can remember. So combine this story with Senator Lindsay Graham’s lament: “We aren’t going to be able to find enough angry white men in the future to be able to win elections.” What you get is a last ditch attempt to nationalize voter obstruction, discouragement and the rejection of ballots cast by minority voters.
The article is substanceless because it is not designed to inform. It is designed to arouse bigots to get to the polls. It is part and parcel with the Screw The Vote groups which have openly said that their intention is to intimidate potential voters, lengthen waiting times and otherwise encourage people to leave without casting a ballot.
It would be more accurate to say that Black people have enmity with the Republican Party – it’s less an affinity for the Democrats than a crystal clear understanding of who the Republicans are. I remember a conversation that I had with one of my Republican friends in 2002 who accused me of supporting the Democratic Congressional candidate because she was Black. I reminded him that my personal imperative was to oppose the Republicans – if the Democrat wasn’t viable and the Libertarian was then I would support the Libertarian.
Liking Democrats and hating Republicans create the same result – a vote for the Democrat – but they are substantively different, and that point should not be lost in the discussion.
Well, in your case, Oscar, you actually share some values with the Republican Party. On abortion rights, for example. But it’s less important to you that the GOP shares your values on that issue than that they are objectively anti-black. Right?
They pay lip service to the issue of abortion, but they’re much more interested in milking it for contributions and workers than actually doing anything to end abortions. They have no interest in supporting the mother or child after birth. The care nothing about the least of these – the 47% or the 99%. The fact that they are clearly anti-Black makes it a no-brainier, but the truth is that they’re anti-anyone who isn’t independently wealthy.
Look at their policies and proposals and ask one question: cui bono? Not me…
Someone at AP should talk to Herman Cain, Artur Davis, Alan Keyes, Alan West, Armstrong Williams and even Michael Steele if Black voters only vote for the Black candidate cause they’re Black.
Artur Davis being the major prime example of a candidate who didn’t campaign in his own Black district ’cause he just knew Black would vote for him I guess.
OT, but another thing to add to your collection of “cease and desist” letters to the Romney/Ryan camp
The father of the late Ambassador Chris Stevens pleads for his son’s death not to be exploited as part of the presidential campaign.
Also, say what you will about Barack Obama, but he comes to the people and actuals campaigns and give interviews to urban radio, urban television pundits, urban reports and urban media.
Barack Obama’s first “sit-down” interview after the debate was to the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Michelle Obama just the other day was on one of the HOt100 urban radio shows. And both are frequent guest on those shows. Barack and Michelle are on the cover of November’s Ebony magazine, and at least have been on 1/2 of the covers of the large Black magazine publications (Essence, Eboony, Jet, Black Enterprise,, etc). Michelle Obama was on the Steve Harvey Show about 2 weeks ago.
Barack Obama unlike GOP/Republican actually campaigns and targets African American voters. That also goes a long way towards endearing them to us.
Not to bring him up again, but it’s a lesson that Artur Davis learned the hardway, that you can’t assume you have the AA vote locked up and not campaign in those neighborhoods.
McCain won ~90% of the white vote in the deep South states.
While mostly agreeing with you, I can’t believe that race is not at least a tilt in black voting patterns.
I can understand that Barack Obama generated excitement with black voters because he was the first. Similarly, to turn him out, to turn out the first black President, is something few black persons are willing to do. I understand because I would have felt the same way about Mario Cuomo. Similarly, I agree with you because I would not feel the same way about Andrew Cuomo.
I must believe that the feelings of black people are much stronger on this issue than mine because black people in America have been discriminated against much longer and much more severely than Italian-Americans have been.
the most difficult part with Black voters is getting them to the polls. Once they get to the polls, they vote in their own best interest.
Black people DO NOT have a legacy of voting against their own economic self-interest.
If you want to lookup VOTING AGAINST THEIR OWN ECONOMIC SELF-INTEREST, the picture that you’ll get is a crowd of ‘ blue-collar White people’.