Alan I. Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira understate the stupidity and futility of the GOP doubling-down on the all-white electoral strategy. Why? Because, while they prove that the strategy won’t work, they neglect to point out that any effort to get more of the white vote will almost by definition cause the Republicans to get even less of the nonwhite vote.
Republicans are doing pretty well with white voters currently, but to do better they need to increase the percentage of whites who see their political interests in racial us-vs.-them terms. Even if the language they use is carefully constructed, the dog whistle can be heard just as well by people of color as it can be by whites. And there a lot of whites, particularly the younger generations, who are as hostile to racial messaging as blacks, Latinos, and Asians. You don’t just add white votes when you engage in this kind of politics; you lose some white votes, and you lose even more minority votes.
Hey if you’ve spent decades cultivating an identity – one that you’re damn proud of – ain’t no wise ass gonna convince you to change. The R’s can hang their hope on their next presidential candidate being able to obscure their motives, but, if the economy continues to pick up and Dems pick a half way appealing candidate, then time will be passing those relics by.
Wonder if it also brings out more of those non-voting whites of the “they’re all crooks” persuasion to vote Democratic against the racism that is harder and harder for them to ignore.
they neglect to point out that any effort to get more of the white vote will almost by definition cause the Republicans to get even less of the nonwhite vote.
Doesn’t matter if they can prevent large numbers of non-white votes from being cast and/or counted. Which of course is the plan.
They tried very hard to that in the last election and it backfired on them, leading to a higher percentage of blacks voting than whites.
Even the Voting Rights Act gambit is unlikely to help, since it only impacts areas that are already voting overwhelmingly for the GOP. At best, it might help them win Florida and hold on to Texas a little longer.
It’s dumb.
The national number are really skewed because of the south.
In Mississippi the gop got 89% of the white vote. In Iowa they only got 47% of the white vote.
The cultures are just different on the state level.
So if you increase the race baiting, you probably drive up white numbers in the rural areas, but at the same time you alienate white suburban soccer moms.
Why just today, PPP released a poll showing Aqua Buddha trailing Hillary by 11 pts in Iowa.
Keep vaginal-probing that chicken, GOP.
Yes, the cultures are different. But in Mississippi, the Democrats have written off seriously contesting Republicans with anything more than a “Me too” message. In Iowa, there are still Democrats who are willing to make the case (or at least there were–we will see the future there with the race to replace Harkin).
Cultures are different at the state level in all states; just look at the difference between Indiana and Illinois and Ohio.
What the Republicans want to do strip out some more working class whites from the Democratic rolls with an anti-union message. That’s where they think their additional white vote is coming from. And they are basing that on their success in state elections in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. That might be delusional, but that IMO is their logic.
You don’t even need to race-bait.
If my job sucks, yours has to to. If I lose my insurance, or don’t have a pension, or can’t join a union, so must you, so don’t you, so can’t you.
In Crab-bucket America, who’s to say they’re wrong?
The GOP does targeted race-baiting in those states. It was obvious in Michigan. Less so in Indiana and Ohio. Somewhere in between in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
I don’t think it’s delusional at all. I live in WI and local right wing radio blames everything under the sun on the unions and Milwaukee/Madison.
I’m not sure that rural areas in the rest of the USA are much different culturally than in the South. Obama did relatively well in rural WI in 2008 compared to Gore/Kerry but much less so in 2012.
Republicans would like to recreate in the rest of the country what they have accomplished in the South by restricting Democratic seats to minority enclaves.
The anti-union message will win out across the US in my opinion. There’s too much money behind it and, quite frankly, a lot of so-called Democrats.
But context is important here. In 2008, Obama was running against the disaster that was the Bush presidency. In 2012, he was an incumbent running in a depressed economy.
Precisely! Running up the vote in states that romney won skews the “whites for republicans” percentage without affecting the electoral college. And, as you point out, IA, OH, FL etc. are the types of state that the reps need to flip and more white voters there are turned away by republican race-baiting than are lured from their meth labs to the polls.
Yes, they’ve killed themselves at the Presidential level.
But a President is not going to help if Congress and a lot of state legislatures are in Republican hands.
And the vaginal-probing bills are going to have a backlash on legislators among certain white women voters who have never voted before. But not on the devout Christianist ones who would never ever think of having sex, much less and abortion. That is going to move more than white soccer moms.
Will it transform some rural area politics? That will be the question in 2014 in NC, VA, and WI.
“Keep vaginal-probing that chicken, GOP.”
Stealing this!
I agree. The point Republicans are missing is that there is no “White Vote”.
The reason that minorities vote overwhelmingly for Democrats is because the Republican party has declared war on them. Republicans openly support bigoted agendas and include racially charged language in their political speeches. White voters are free to vote according to their ideology and their economic needs. Increasing the white vote means getting poorer and younger voters to the polls. Outside of the South, that helps Democrats.
“Republicans are doing pretty well with white voters currently, but to do better they need to increase the percentage of whites who see their political interests in racial us-vs.-them terms.”
No, to do better with whites they need to do better with downscale voters in general.
And to do that they need to dial back the class and culture wars to the point where “moderate Republican” and even “liberal Republican” (remember Earl Warren?) are not oxymorons.
But they can’t do that.
The conservative coalition has a complete stranglehold on the party.
That’s the only answer to their problem of limited national appeal you will never hear from the right wing noise machine or read in their press.
People of color hear the dog whistle much better than whites, many of whom don’t hear it at all. That’s what the term implies. Hard core bigots hear it, because they believe it in their bones. And the targets of the attack hear it, because they’ve been subjected to it personally.
You beat me to it. The whites who respond to dogwhistles already vote Republican. How many marginal white votes can they possibly gain by dogwhistling louder? The potential Democratic vote is a sleeping giant, and they risk wakening it.