Matt Bai in NYT Magazine: "What’s the Real Racial Divide?"

[Skinner]

As much as I wish it weren't the case, I think it is becoming apparent that race is a factor in how people vote in this primary. I just read this article, and my initial reaction is that, sadly, the author's observations are true.

In case there is any question, my intention in posting this is not to support one candidate or the other. As I have said many times, I like both of our remaining candidates, and I would gladly vote for either (or both) of them. I am posting this because it makes some observations which I have not seen anywhere else, and provides a relatively succinct explanation for how things are going (and may continue to go) in the primary. I think it says a lot about our country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16wwln-lede-t.html

[MadBadger]

1. You must be new to DU...Posts on GD-P have to be laced with hate. You'll figure it out eventually.

I'll post my response to the article in a minute...trying to figure out what they are saying still.

[MADem]

5. You are being "amusing?" Skinner owns the joint.... NT

[Occam Bandage]

18. Yeah. That guy is a total DU noob.

I mean, he's only the founder and owner. What makes him think he'd know anything about how it works?

[cboy4]

In fairness to hnmnf, whom I disagree with about practically

everything involving Obama and the primary campaign, I'm pretty sure he's being sarcastic.

I read what he wrote, and it made me laugh.

And he/she is correct about the hate in GD-P

[MadBadger]

25. I'm a he btw...sometimes I feel that the sarcasm emoticon is not necessary

this was one of them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. As a child of the 60s it saddens me to see race STILL dividing this country

It's quite heartbreaking in fact.

[babylonsister]

4. It saddens me even more when it seems like it's being done

intentionally, by one of the Dem candidates no less. :grr:

[Oleladylib]

7. NO, that's not true and it's time to STOP!!!!

[saltpoint]

11. Actually a compelling case could be made, and has been made, that it is true.

I second babylonsister's assertion.

Olbermann's comment two nights ago rings pretty true.

And the woman whose remarks prompted that comment is no longer in her position with the Clinton campaign.

[Oleladylib]

20. Oh , Bradley, right...that figures..no further comment needed

[saltpoint]

22. None's needed if you want to just do the drive-by.

On points, babylonsister had it just right.

I hope you caught Olbermann's piece the other evening. It was excellent.

[proud2BlibKansan]

66. And I third it.

[shadowknows69]

12. Yeah, it's completely true

[Oleladylib]

21. keep living in the shadow...hangin' on to the issue..watchin the parade pass you by

[babylonsister]

15. IMO it started with Bill Clinton in SC. He's been widely

chastized for his remarks, his reputation is in the toilet, and his wife was forced to apologize for him. Tell me it's not true. :eyes:

Edit to add: no, maybe those muslim e-mail smears coming from the Clinton campaign started it. I'm not saying she was aware of them, but she did have to fire people over it.

Why are you ignoring the truth?

[Cha]

46. Yeah, too bad she

didn't think she could win on her own merits.

[donheld]

58. I'm sad too to think you're right, but

I know you are right.

[MADem]

3. K-R and fascinating conclusion, this--not too hopeful, but an interesting take

Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Who knew?

What this suggests, perhaps, is that living in close proximity to other races — sharing industries and schools and sports arenas — actually makes Americans less sanguine about racial harmony rather than more so. The growing counties an hour’s drive from Cleveland and St. Louis are filled with white voters whose parents fled the industrial cities of their youth before a wave of African-Americans and for whom social friction and economic competition, especially in an age of declining opportunity, are as much a part of daily life as traffic and mortgage payments. As Erica Goode wrote in these pages last year, Robert Putnam and other sociologists have, in fact, found that people living in more diverse areas evince less trust for others — no matter what their race. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us that while white Democrats in rural states are apparently willing to accept the notion of a racially transcendent candidate, those living in the shadow of postindustrial atrophy seem to have a harder time detaching from enduring stereotypes, and they may be less optimistic that the country as a whole would actually elect a black candidate.

For Obama, no matter what social currents may be at play, the issue is hardly academic. At two critical junctures in the past six weeks, he has been on the precipice of securing the nomination only to fall frustratingly short in primaries in the most populous states. For this reason, the contest next month in Pennsylvania, the last of the big battleground states to hold a primary (aside from possible do-overs in Florida and Michigan), may carry a significance beyond the delegates themselves. There is no question that Obama could lose to Clinton in that state and still go on to give the acceptance speech in Denver. But this may also be his last chance to reassure his supporters — and maybe even himself — that he can break through whatever barriers have limited an otherwise stellar and historic campaign. Obama holds himself out as the candidate whose own life and lineage embody the nation’s new racial complexities. The question is whether he can win the sprawling states that embody them too.

[HughMoran]

30. It is interesting. I would say "ignorance makes the heart fonder"

Ignorance in the purest sense as in having no direct interaction with other races versus those who have and have, for whatever reason, become somewhat jaded by their interactions. I am not jaded even though my apartment was burglarized by people that I knew who for whatever reason couldn't resist the urge to steal our stuff once having been invited into my apartment. I've also had guns pulled on me for no apparent reason, but I know that I can't judge people by the actions of a few - though I know many/most of my friends did :( I can totally relate to the article.

[NorthernSpy]

47. no, we're not "ignorant" of people of other races...

Living in Maine, I might see numerically fewer blacks and other nonwhites, but those I do see are neighbors, co-workers, local business owners, members of the same organizations that people in my own family belong to -- in short, I'd bet that we in the "ignorant" states are more likely to have normal social relations with people of other races. That's why we seem "fonder".

[HughMoran]

50. That's true

You are definitely not likely to have any issues with the few (what is the black population in ME - 1%?) people of different races you meet, so that also supports the point that the person who wrote the article was making. The issue that they seemed to be emphasizing was that when people live "side-by-side" in areas where people were competing for the same resources on a more equal footing, then it seems that people are more leary of each other. I live in NH and I see a black person once every few days here. When I lived in the city, we hung out on a daily basis and every other person was black - big difference IMO.

[MADem]

63. They're doing a "social experiment" of sorts in Maine--in Catholic, French/Irish Lewiston.

I posted some links downthread. Thousands of Somalis have moved in. It's not all Happy Families--and it's competition for resources and change that are the Usual Suspects. And the issue there isn't so much color as culture.

All you need to do is affect someone's income or "sense of ownership" and you have the potential for discord.

And it's not just race--when rich people or "neighborhood renovators" move into a town or area and yuppiefy it, there's resentment on the part of the people who used to live there affordably. We saw this in South Boston in MA, in DuPont Circle in DC, in neighborhoods all around the country.

If there's a water view where you live, especially, and you're poor, odds are, you're screwed!

[MADem]

62. Up in Northern Maine, certainly not. There's a huge population of

Maliseet and other native peoples up that way, straddling the border between ME and Canada.

It's an interesting thesis, the article, though. I've lived in homogenous societies and mixed ones with varying degrees of integration. And there IS an interesting social experiment going on in whiter-than-most Maine, in the town of Lewiston.

I have to say that I think there could well be an economic component to the 'degree of fondness.'

If you want to use ME as an example, the tension between Somali immigrants and Mainiacs (a fond reference, from a Masshole) in Lewiston ME, still hasn't abated, and they've been living together for several years now.

Of course, that's not simply a racial issue, it's culture, language, religion, manner of dress, customs--a whole slew of differences. I recall reading last year that some punk kid tossed a piece of Easter ham at a tableful of Somali (and of course, Muslim) kids at school--so it's not all Kumbayah up that way.

People are people. Some behave well, others, badly. Mainers included.

Background: http://harowo.com/2006/03/02/five-years-after-somalis-migrated-to-lewiston-maine/

This in-depth article is EXCELLENT:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/raininadryland/special_01.html

Lewiston, an old mill town on the Androscoggin River, is known to out-of-staters—if it is known at all—for having hosted, in 1965, in a converted high-school hockey rink, a heavyweight title fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. (The bout had the lowest attendance of any title fight ever.) With a population of thirty-six thousand, the town was until recently ninety-six per cent white and predominantly Catholic—French-Canadian and Irish—and was slowly losing its young people as local mills and factories closed. Unlike towns on the Maine coast, it didn't even see tourists. Then, practically overnight, the streets seemed to be full of black African Muslims. Today, there are about three thousand Somalis in Lewiston, and dozens more arrive every month. Before the Somalis arrived, the Lewiston school system employed one teacher of English as a second language. It now employs fifteen, for five hundred students, nearly all of them Somali. At parent-teacher-conference time, the schools hire extra interpreters. An improbable migration has turned into a large-scale social experiment.

The mayor, Laurier Raymond, tried to call the experiment off. In October, 2002, consulting no one, he wrote an open letter to the Somali community, asking people to stop bringing their families and friends to Lewiston. "Our city is maxed out financially, physically, and emotionally," he wrote. The Mayor was responding, in part, to the complaints of some constituents. Everyone had heard rumors: that the Somalis were getting free cars and vast sums of welfare money and preferment in public housing, and that they would soon bankrupt the town. The rumors were unfounded, but the fear and resentment they signified were real. It was not the best historical moment in which to be a Muslim immigrant in America, particularly not a Somali. There were the September 11th attacks, and then the release of the movie "Black Hawk Down." One of the American soldiers killed in the battle in Somalia which was depicted in the film had grown up near Lewiston, and images of his corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu had been broadcast worldwide.

The Mayor's letter became a national news story, especially after a white-supremacist organization, the World Church of the Creator, based in Illinois, announced a rally in Lewiston to repel "the Somali invasion." The Lewiston Somalis were baffled and scared. An anti-racist counter-demonstration was quickly arranged. In January, 2003, state officials, including the governor and the attorney general, addressed a passionate rally at Bates College, in Lewiston, that drew forty-five hundred people. Meanwhile, across town, the neo-Nazis drew a crowd generously estimated at thirty-two, most of them out-of-staters. The white supremacists have not been heard from since, at least not formally. Mayor Raymond retired, and Lewiston got on with its experiment. ......


.....Mainers are known, traditionally, for their self-reliance and insularity. Anyone whose grandparents weren't born in the state is an outsider, "from away." But migrant workers have been a pillar of Maine's economy for many years: Jamaicans and Haitians pick apples, Mexicans pick blueberries and keep the fish-processing factories in business; Guatemalans and Hondurans are loggers. Indeed, lobstering is practically the only traditional Maine occupation still performed exclusively by local whites. But the other racial and ethnic minorities mostly depart at the end of the season, leaving Maine the whitest state in the nation. The Somali refugees can't go home.

Nearly every Somali family in Lewiston has survived terrible things. Of an estimated prewar population of nine million, at least a million people are believed to have fled the country. More than a million are believed to have died in fighting and famines since 1991. A recent survey of Somali patients at Portland's Maine Medical Center concluded, "The prevalence of trauma in this population was 100 percent." The "trauma events" listed in the Portland study ranged from rape and torture to enduring sniper fire and witnessing killing. It found "considerable psychiatric symptomatology." Yet there was no interest in Western psychiatry: distraught Somalis traditionally take their troubles to the imam at their mosque, and they continue to do so in Maine.

....Forgetting the civil war got more complicated for many people in Lewiston after the Somali Bantus started showing up, two years ago. Somalia, for all its clan strife, has often been cited as an example of one of the few relatively homogeneous nation-states to emerge in Africa from the colonial period. Everybody spoke the same language, and shared the same ethnicity, culture, and religion. The Bantus were the principal exception. They were the descendants of slaves brought to southern Somalia from farther down the East African coast, and they are, on average, more "African-looking" than ethnic Somalis, who have thinner features and straighter hair. Emerging from chattel slavery in the early twentieth century, most Bantus became subsistence farmers in two river valleys in the south. (Seynab Ali and the other organic farmers are Bantus.) They speak a local language known as Af-Maay-Maay, and have developed their own exuberant form of Islam. Second-class citizens in every sense, they were not provided with schools, health care, or other services, and remained largely preliterate.

When civil war broke out, the Bantus had no weapons, no mobility, and no protection—but they did have food. They were robbed, raped, and murdered en masse. Those who fled languished in refugee camps for a decade or more. In 2003, the United States began to admit twelve thousand Somali Bantus as refugees. Most were resettled in major cities and some started searching for a place that seemed more hospitable. For many Bantu families, that turned out to be Lewiston — there are roughly five hundred Bantus in town now — even though the Somalis already there were, at least by extension, the very agents of the catastrophe they were fleeing.

[Oleladylib]

6. Very good article...and on all of our thoughts

"Obama holds himself out as the candidate whose own life and lineage embody the nation’s new racial complexities. The question is whether he can win the sprawling states that embody them too." Everyone would most likely agree that race or gender shouldn't be significant..but in this society, even in the 21st century it is...So, we have to delve into the issues and that is what we are all wanting to do...Look at NYS...we are EXCITED...we have a new governor under less than auspicious circumstances..but, to hear him..it is evident in 24 short hours..he is ready, willing and capable...We should be saying this without gender specific or race specific qualifications about the coming GE...We aren't there yet.

[izzybeans]

8. It shouldn't be a surprise. The question is how many Clinton and Obama supporters will

not abandon the party based on race. If Clinton wins i fear her campaign will have alienated the black community so much that they will force many voters to stay home. This whole Pastor Wright stuff is really showing how far out-of-touch they are with black America. I invite them to go to the south side of Chicago where these sermons were made and try to criticize the content of those sermons. Belittling common grievances is not the way to go. It might get you a handful of white votes but that's about it.

Obama I think will have an easier time convincing white democrats to come out and vote, maybe not the older ones, but most of them. The question is how many.

Either way our chances in the general are much greater than our recent presidential elections.

[saltpoint]

9. A provocative piece and genuinely pertinent but the conclusions are drawn

from a limited demographic.

The votes have been Democratic voters plus open-state independents and cross-overs, partly suggestive of but not definitional to a general election turn-out. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "If you limit your choices, you lower your odds." Dean's 50-state strategy argues for the ideas defining our party across a wider spectrum. The civil rights movement had to be fought in Selma and not just in demographically friendly cities.

The sociologists cited are not unaware that more minorities represent culturally diverse states than represent rural U.S. districts. At what level does acceptance of diversity in public officials mean that urbanized voters are or are not more accepting than rural voters in non-urbanized districts, per the instance of diverse representation? Parts of Massachusetts, arguably the most blue of states, is also traditionally contentious regarding racial issues, but Barney Frank is a Congressman from that state. He's a minority rep but not indicative of a racial divide. Frank would not be electable in Warren County, Ohio or as mayor of most Oklahoma cities, no matter his ethnic identity. Barbara Boxer wins state-wide ballots in California (sometimes narrowly, other times not) but might not do well in a Senate race in Alabama.

Agree that the piece says a lot about our country, but it's a surface take and not a closer look. Mario Cuomo grew up in the streets of New York. I feel certain that ethnic diversity from then deeply shaped his vision for the country now.

A lot of rural, "non-urbanized" young folks, when they move out of their homes into their grown-up lives, head for the larger cities in part to assert their more cosmopolitan worldview over the antiquated social and political attitudes of their small home towns. Larry McMurtry, from red Texas, writes that small towns don't shape one's character, but rather they limit character. One way to do that politically is to vote for Republicans who manipulate race as a wedge issue. People who vote against their own interests are also voting against the interests of other Americans generally and against ethnic minority representation especially.

And beyond demographic appeal, there remains the matter of how each of the remaining two Democratic frontrunners are behaving themselves in the national eye. As your site clearly evidences, "the internets" have begun to significantly change that traditional electoral map.

[JerseygirlCT]

32. Well said, OC. As usual. nt

[BeyondGeography]

10. Put Obama with a white running mate and a united party behind him and he'll win the overwhelming

majority of the white registered Democrat votes that Hillary is getting right now.

This is just a synopsis, but Bai is obviously buying into the Clinton frame that if Obama can't win big states where Hillary has the Democratic Party machine behind her, he won't be able to win the same states from McCain. In fact, the polling suggests that he does equal or better than Hillary in those same states in the general.

There is more racial tension in more integrated states, but this is probably reason #4 that Barack is struggling with white voters there right now.

First, he's up against an established, much better known white candidate who has basically the same policies and is from the same party. This won't be a problem in the general.

Second, she has typically enjoyed the lion's share of support from elected officials and their party machinery in these states.

Third, he has often had little to no time to campaign, especially the Feb. 5 states like NJ and MA, and they are often just getting to know him by the time the election takes place (in California, due to early voting, a third of the votes were already off the table before his campaign kicked into gear). This makes him highly susceptible to surprises and/or negative advertising, like the NAFTA story in Ohio and the red phone ad in Texas.

And fourth, he is black, and older people who lived through the race wars are not going to give him the benefit of the doubt in a same-party contest.

I call bullshit.

[Blue_Roses]

28. well said

and I agree:applause:

[JerseygirlCT]

33. Yes. There is a huge difference between the primaries and

the GE. I don't understand really why that's not readily apparent to so many.

[BeyondGeography]

38. As Dan Quayle said, it's a terrible thing to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind

When I see articles like this, it reminds me of the great man himself.

[Spazito]

13. What I find particularly sad in this article is the willingness to

accept the racial divide instead of railing against it. In doing that, imo, it only enables those who would use the racial divide, which currently exists in the United States, for political expediency. The author does not address that aspect and that's unfortunate. The author could have used his influence to encourage the public to rise above that which has been the past history and work toward reducing the racial divide rather than meekly accepting it.

[tishaLA]

19. It's just that it's descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I think we need the facts, and we need to understand the facts, before we can successfully come up with a strategy to begin the healing, at least electorally.

[Spazito]

24. Interesting point....

I would disagree, to some extent, that it was descriptive without being prescriptive due to the inclusion of subjective commentary such as this:

Last week, Democrats woke up to find that the unthinkable may be upon them. There might still be an unforeseen turn in the titanic clash between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, but the way it looks now, the outcome will probably rest with the party’s nearly 800 superdelegates, many of whom will no doubt expect to be bribed and beseeched by both campaigns."

to be followed by this:

"If that’s the case, there is about as much chance of settling the issue before the convention as there is of, say, Obama waking up one morning and deciding that “hope” is kind of a dumb slogan after all."

I found it interesting the author chose to end his summary by, imo, subjectively injecting the Obama message of hope in the manner he did.

I fully agree the facts need to be known in order to come up with a strategy to begin the healing but, I would argue, the facts surrounding the racial divide have been known well before this election and, yet, this author and others merely repeat them as if they cannot be changed instead of advocating for the citizens of the US work toward changing them. The candidate cannot do this alone, whether we are talking about the racial divide or the gender divide and yet it seems to me the author is saying it must be the candidate.

[HughMoran]

31. Good point

I think that many people, including myself, did not even see this pattern until I read the article.

Knowledge is power - Obama can better appeal to the "once bitten, twice shy" crowd if he understands why these feelings exist.

[TomClash]

14. It says a lot about how race divides the middle and working classes

. . . to their detriment.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. I've heard this argument made before.

It's the same argument Trevor Phillips made in his recent editorial. The one in which he claimed an Obama victory would be a setback for race relations in America. Read the article, and make of it what you will:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10043

[KoKo]

26. This American Prospect article is interesting on many levels...

Thanks for posting it.

[Coexist]

17. What about Virginia?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/primaries/va/

I don't see how the results in Virginia bear out the author's hypothesis.

I often get emotional and think, "I will NEVER vote for that candidate" and honestly, I thought (and sometimes still think) that about Clinton. When it was really bad one night, after her campaign had done something, I said to myself, "fine let her win without me, she can count me out."

Then I watched John McCain's victory speech - and the intense dislike was immediately placed where it belonged - with the Republicans. When Democrats see our candidate debate theirs, a fair majority will come home.

Democrats are now showing which candidate they would prefer be our nominee, not which candidate they will ONLY vote for.

If its Obama, there is a percentage of AA and youth that will stay home, if its Clinton, there is a percentage of older white women will stay home, but I still think we can win either way.

[NashVegas]

23. Grew Up in the Great White North, Black Relatives, Now Living In Tennessee: Some Observations

White people living in towns where there are no minorities or so very few minorities to make an indent in the population % rarely, if ever, have their prejudices or racial attitudes challenged. There's practically no racial tension at all. They never have to have a conversation about race with black people. They never even have discussions on race, accept to say how they're "not like that."

When I lived in Albany, NY, there was a larger black population, like 15%(?), and while there were never any incidents of attitudes boiling over reported, the mistrust between black & white was very easy to pick up on. There was very little discussion on race at all.

When I moved to Tennessee, it was a world of difference. People here who are bigots are much more comfortable with their bigotry. You'll know within 5 minutes if you're talking to someone with a chip on their shoulder and frankly, I like it better this way. How can you fight racism if you can't face it?

Now here's another factor: people in rural areas get their local / regional news from the large cities; what color faces do we see in crime reports?

[AX10]

57. You should make this into it's own thread.

:thumbsup:

[dionysus]

27. locking

please read DU rules about inflammatory posts

:)

[donheld]

59. You are such a bad boy!

:D

[HughMoran]

29. A much more flushed-out thought process in that article

Thanks for posting that here - I have been wondering about the disparities that have caused seemingly unpredictable results in some of the recent primaries. I hadn't thought about the differences between those who have moved from the city to the suburbs (people like me for instance) versus those who have had no interaction with other groups and are therefore perhaps a little more idealistic in their viewpoint.

[totodeinhere]

34. This article answers a question I have had for some time.

I live in an overwhelmingly white area of rural Nevada. And Obama is extremely popular here. He took better than 75% in the caucuses we held in this county. So that made me wonder why he is so popular among whites here yet much less so in other regions of the country.

Now I have the theory stated in this article to explain that disparity that I was wondering about.

[madfloridian]

35. Matt Bai appears to be pushing the "big state only" strategy.

You know the old 18 state strategy to which we will be going back when Dean leaves?

[AtomicKitten]

36. More importantly ClintonCo is pushing the divisive strategy that includes race.

I never thought in a million years that would come from a Democrat and more reason why the Hammer of Reality must be brought down on Ms. Flick right quick and in a hurry before the Democratic Party divides in a way that most certainly will mean defeat in November.

[Major Hogwash]

54. And she's losing because of it.

I was stunned that the Clintons would do this. But, it won't matter to me now because her and McCain are too much alike to make any difference in how I will vote.

[Strawman]

37. The "contact hypothesis"

It makes a great deal of sense based on my observation of Detroit and the suburbs, but I need to read up on it.

[Maribelle]

39. If we look back to the now-infamous January 29th primary in Florida ..

for all intents and purposes, the days and weeks in the run-up to the election were in fact campaign-free of any racial issues. Can we agree on this much? If one takes an analytical look at the areas where Obama resoundingly won, it maps almost identically into the areas that have a high African-American population.

Florida Congressional District 3
The latest census available for this district indicates the Black or African American population is 50.8% of the total population.

This district represents typical features of the areas where Obama won:
» Hillary received 31% of the votes
» Obama received 58.1% of the votes

In one area within Congressional District 3, a portion of Duval County:
» Hillary received 9,025 votes
» Obama received 22,439 votes

My belief is that the divide which occurred in Florida was a natural one, not encumbered by bigotry or problems, not caused by any one campaign.

[NorthernSpy]

40. The whitest states are the least segregated -- blacks and whites live together...

... instead of peering suspiciously at each other across the eight-lane highway separating their Kosovo-style enclaves.


Therefore, a person living in an extremely white state -- such as mine -- may well have a better chance of forming social connections with persons of other races, and this fact will probably influence their ability to accept the prospect of a black president.

[Catherine Vincent]

41. It's Obama's fault. He brought race into this campaign. nt

[NorthernSpy]

45. Yes, his blackness is a super-power. It FORCED Bill Clinton to open his big mouth...

:eyes:

[Catherine Vincent]

56. Eyes backatcha!

:eyes:

[BootinUp]

42. There is another factor besides race that should be considered

The States where Obama has done well are typically where more right wing bashing of the Clintons has been in the air or on the air for years. Thats just a quick unscientific observation.

edited slightly for indicating effect of bashing over the years.

[rucky]

43. I disagree with his assumption that racism exists in the suburbs

because of the close proximitiy of the races.

The suburbs grew as a result of "white flight" from the cities, so the racial tensions that existed in the inner-cities before the suburban explosion of the 80's just moved outwards a bit, and left a donut hole.

[TahitiNut]

52. That's a factor I see ... see my post below.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5073130&mesg_id=5077296

I "benefit" from having lived in Michigan, New York, Alabama, California, and Washington. It's what I've seen

[foo_bar]

44. I'm not sure how Connecticut and Virginia fit into this theory

in light of their heterogenous populations, notoriety for "flight" from a surrounding metropolis, and status as "urbanized states"; the notion also does little to explain New Hampshire and Vermont having virtually opposite outcomes. There's probably a grain of truth to the idea, but one can't really make the case by citing Clinton's almost-home-state of New Jersey and playing down VA, MD, CT, TX, MO, etc.

[woolldog]

48. This article proves that Ferraro is wrong.

If Obama were a white man he would've wrapped up this race already.

Just look at the margins he's beating her by in all white states. If, as the article suggests, the reason he fares poorly in mixed states is due to his race, then when you eliminate the race factor, which is what happens in all white state (according to the author), he wins handily.

That said, I'm not sure that I buy the article entirely. I think Obama's message doesn't really play well to downscale, blue-collar whites. Didn't Jesse Jackson do well in Ohio and Michigan? among the same demographic that Obama is losing now? So I think there's more going on than just race.

[Warren Stupidity]

49. IBTL

[TahitiNut]

51. It's a fallacious argument and fails to address reactionary racial politics.

First, let me address what I mean by "fallacious." The tacit implication that a state in which Clinton (or Obama) prevails would NOT vote Democrat in the general election should Obama (or Clinton) prevail and win the nomination is fallacious. It seems to rely upon the notion that folks are voting AGAINST a candidate instead of FOR a candidate and that they would continue to vote AGAINST that candidate, irrespective of party (and opponent) in the general election. I see nothing that persuades me that this is the prevalent case. Do folks REALLY believe Obama would fail to carry New York? Massachusetts? If so, the very notion of "party" is far more meaningless than partisans would have us believe.

Assuming that the campaign actually believes this, then that campaign seems to me to be practicing extortionist politics and effectively representing a constituency that's THREATENING to abandon party preference and continue to vote their opposition. Isn't this what those SAME people have CONDEMNED and excoriated 'leftists' for doing? The stance is ethically bankrupt and should not be tolerated, imho.

Now let me address the limitations in the analysis of WHERE the "white vote" tilts toward Clinton instead of Obama. The prevalent common characteristic I see is not size - it's the degree to which that state contains zones wherein (reactionary) "white flight" has been and still is evidenced. Oakland and Macomb and Livingston Counties in Michigan is such a region. Indeed, the degree to which there's an embedded reactionary conservatism in the state seems to coincide with the existence of this social phenomenon in that same state. That's the case in Ohio. That's the case in Pennsylvania. That's the case in Texas, too. Not surprisingly, these are ALSO areas where the "Reagan Democrat" resides.

The only question then is whether it has a material impact on "electability" in a political context where the Democrats have a 10::7 generic advantage. If it does, it's POLITICAL EXTORTION on the part of people for whom any flavor of corporatism s OK and for whom social divisions are mere tools for exploiting divides in the quest for plutocratic primacy. Surrendering to that framing would mean we're FUCKED. It would mean THERE IS NO HOPE ... and Nader is right.

Follow me?

:shrug: That's how I see it.

[leftstreet]

55. Very interesting

This says it all:

The only question then is whether it has a material impact on "electability" in a political context where the Democrats have a 10-7 generic advantage. If it does, it's POLITICAL EXTORTION on the part of people for whom any flavor of corporatism s OK and for whom social divisions are mere tools for exploiting divides in the quest for plutocratic primacy. Surrendering to that framing would mean we're FUCKED. It would mean THERE IS NO HOPE ... and Nader is right.

:thumbsup:

[Major Hogwash]

53. Somebody from the Hillary campaign is going to have to explain to me why they did it.

And I'm not kidding.

[EFerrari]

60. How can "race" not be a factor in America?

Even if we manage to forget our shared history, the GOP has been using race baiting to prop themselves up for nearly fifty years.

I don't feel the same sadness, Skinner. To my mind, even if we do it badly or clumsily, this is an important conversation to try to have.

If you think about it, we can only get better at it. The over arching nationalism that the GOP sells (and, to a certain extent, the Democrats, too) just isn't the lives of a lot of real people.

We may all be Americans. But, oddly, the honest hardworking glue of our society is how we manage our diversity. Let's not be afraid of or regret that this or that community stands tall and proud of itself via one of our candidates.

There could be no more American gesture.

[elixir]

61. I'm not certain that the NYT can present a balanced view but

giving you that there are several problems with their analysis.

[beachmom]

64. In Georgia, yes, GEORGIA, Obama won 43% of the white vote.

I heard it had to do with education levels: better educated whites voted for Obama in higher percentages. But the history down here is downright ugly. Maybe it's that most of the racists are Republicans now. But clearly, GA did not follow the trend highlighted in the article.

And really, the thing no one seems to talk about is that this isn't the general population; rather, this is DEMOCRATS. Clearly, our party is not united if people go to their prospective corners. Our party needs to be about ideas, not interest and identity groups. That is what I am learning about this. Women vs. Blacks is a very uncool and embarrassing biproduct of this race. How about voting for the best candidate?

[Scurrilous]

65. K & R

:thumbsup: