2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Stop 3/5ing the vote of the AA community. [View all]RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)in the caucus and primary processes, there's another political party that would likely welcome them with open arms.
I'm not sure the Democratic party deserves the level of support it receives from the African American community, but there should be zero tolerance - absolutely zero - for suggesting that any vote cast by an African American is in any way less valuable than anyone else's.
However, if what this is really about is the potential implications of a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the office of the Presidency having successes in party primaries in states that are 99.9% likely to vote for any Republican candidate in a general election, but having either minimal successes or losses in states that are 99.9% likely to vote for a Democratic candidate in the general election... That's got nothing to do with the ethnicity, religion, economic status, or any other characteristics of the deeply valued Democratic voters in the 'likely Republican' states.
Simple history and math leads to the reality that party primary/caucus voters in states such as Colorado, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina - their level of interest in possible Democratic nominees is more important than the preferences of those in Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana. A Republican party nominee candidate who won New York and California would rack up a lot of party delegates, but if that candidate lost Texas, Kentucky, Utah, and Mississippi, the candidate would be ahead in delegates but look very much like a likely loser in the general election.
Would such an analysis be inherently denigrating to Republicans in California and New York? What if they were mostly Jewish or Catholic? Would it mean the analysis is just plain antisemitic or anti-Catholic? Or would it be nuts and bolts evaluation of the prospects of the candidate's general election victory?
Bernie Sanders winning the Oklahoma is neat for him, but there is no reasonable possibility that he would win the state against a Republican candidate for the Presidency in any hypothetical matchup. Am I denigrating the Democratic voters of Oklahoma by saying so? Damn - they're probably better Democrats than I am in Minnesota. It's tough to be a Democrat in Oklahoma. But, tough as they are, they know that, tough as they are, and as hard as they might work, they're not going to be on the winning side in the general election. I was born and raised in North Dakota and lived and voted there about as much as I have in Minnesota. I damn well knew, every single time, that I wasn't going to be delighted to discover that North Dakota went for Dukakis, or Al Gore, or Barack Obama (I was in MN for Clinton and Obama 2). I heard that my vote didn't mean anything, but I still voted time and again, and didn't expect anyone to say 'wow, North Dakota was 35% Democratic this year - last year it was 33%!'