Pride in the name of love: Bill Clinton spoke the truth even if the Obama camp can't handle it

jackson_dem

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Tue Apr-22-08 02:01 PM
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Pride in the name of love: Bill Clinton spoke the truth even if the Obama camp can't handle it

Edited on Tue Apr-22-08 02:04 PM by jackson_dem

Jesse Jackson himself agrees with what Bill said when Bill Clinton compared Obama's SC win to Jackson's. When Clinton called Jackson to ask him whether he was offended here was his response:
Jackson: (laughs) "We both know what is going on"

Clinton was talking about SC political history in a conversation that included 2 black members of Congress. Name a candidate not named Jackson or Obama who won the SC Dem primary on racial voting--80% from one racial half of the Dems in the state and 20% from the other. Clinton? Edwards? Carter? Gore? They all won across racial lines. Which two didn't?

A. Mike Gravel and Chris Dodd
B. Dennis Kucinich and Tom Harkin
C. Paul Simon and Dick Gephardt
D. Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama

In 2004 there was a consistency in voting in SC that cut across race. Edwards was first with both groups, Kerry second with both. Everybody did the same with both group. The only exception was Al Sharpton getting 17% of the black vote (third) and 1% of the white vote. Aside from that it was the same.

Whites: Edwards>Kerry>Clark>Dean/Lieberman>Kucinich/Sharpton
Blacks: Edwards>Kerry>Sharpton>Clark>Dean>Lieberman>Sharpton

Compare that to 2008.

Whites: Edwards 40%, Hillary 36%, Obama 24%
Blacks: Obama 78%, Hillary 19%, Edwards 1%

Notice Clinton is second with both groups. What explains Obama losing one group badly yet winning the other nearly unanimously? How about the Edwards disparity? He got 40% from one but 1% from another.

Clinton raised two other interesting points about this that have been overlooked. The first is there class factor. Jackson and Obama both won SC with the same level of black support and a modicum of white support. The difference between the two, though, is that Jackson's white support came from working folks ("Budweiser Democrats") while Obama's comes from upscale "Starbucks Democrats". Apparently to some in the Obama camp, as Clinton noted, believed Obama's white support was superior to Jackson's and they were insulted by being compared to a candidate whose coalition they looked down upon. This would have no credence if it weren't for Obamanation's reaction to bittergate. His affluent supporters are elitists so perhaps they do look down upon Jackson's run.

The other point Bill got at in the interview is the Obama campaign tries to hide the fact it receives overwhelming black support. Isn't that real racism? There is nothing to be ashamed of. Did Romney try to hide his Mormon support (ps: he won utah with 91%. That wasn't a coincidence in case you didn't realize that. :eyes: )? Some day there will be another Mormon candidate and his run will be compared to Romney's, just as JFK's was compared to Catholic Al Smith's. Will you be crying bigotry then? What will you say if Harry Reid runs for president and wins Utah with 91%?

Jackson vs. Obama in the South

Here are the southern states Jesse Jackson won in 1988: Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas
Here are the southern states Barack Obama win in 2008: Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana

Bill Clinton is not an idiot. This is no coincidence. Let's look at the states they won outside the South.

Jackson won: Alaska, Michigan, Delaware, and Vermont
Obama won: Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Hawaii, Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine

Hmmm...their southern results are identical (Obama narrowly lost Texas while Jackson won it) yet there non-southern results are very different.

Romney and Mormons. A connection between demographics and voting?

Let's look at Romney again, a good analogue to Obama since they ran in the same year. Here are the states with the largest Mormon populations: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana. The first two are the best examples because winning over 90% of the Mormon vote, like Romney did (hmmm...where have I seen that 90% number before for a candidate trying to become the "first" of something?), is enough to win. Utah is 71% Mormon and over 90% of the Utah Republican primary electorate is Mormon. You don't need anyone else to win Utah if you can get 95% of the Mormon vote like Romney did. In Idaho Mormons are 26% so that probably comes out to about 35% of the GOP electorate. If you can get 90% of the Mormon vote and a small amount of Mormon support (30-35%) that would be enough to win (remember these numbers--90%, 35%, and 30% in North Carolina...). This is a huge luxury. This meant Romney started out with about 30% overall before lifting a finger in the state. In Wyoming Mormons are 11% of the population, 7% in Nevada. That would come out to be something like 15% and 10% of Republican voters respectively in each state. Now the margin of error is smaller. Let's take Wyoming. 90% of 15% is 13.5%. That is still a significant advantage. That meant in a hypothetical two-way race he would need only 42-43% of the non-Mormon to vote. (Oh 90%, 15%, and 43%? Keep these numbers in mind tonight as well...) We have established the advantage he got from his strong Mormon base. Now let's look at the results.

Romney won: Utah 91%, Idaho (67%), Nevada (51%), and Montana 38%
Romney lost: Arizona (35% to McSame's 47% in his home state). However he did win 88% of the Mormon vote to McSame's 8%.

Aside from the home state exception for McSame in Arizona Romney won all the states with significant Mormon populations that he competed in. Even in Arizona where they are 5% of the population and probably 7-8% of Republicans Romney was able to boost turnout enough to increase the Mormon vote to 11%. That amends what I said above. There are no exit polls for the caucuses listed above except for Nevada. However, in Nevada where Mormons are 7% of the population they made up 26% of the caucus. That is a difference of over 400%. If this held in Idaho, another caucus, they were likely the majority of the Idaho caucus as well as a large chunk of the Wyoming (as in 40%) and Montana caucuses (as in 15%).

I noticed a trend: as the Mormon population in the state fell so did Romney's margins. He went from 91% to 67% to 51, 38, and 35%. Does this hold for Obama? The states with the largest percentage of blacks are Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Alabama.

First here is a recap: Romney went 4-1 in the states with the largest Mormon populations and the one state he lost was McSame's home state and even there he won 88% of the Mormon vote. Obama went 6-0 in the states with the largest black populations, just like Jackson did.

I will put Romney's number in the analogous state in parentheses. Utah is the analogue to Mississippi, Idaho to Louisiana and so on.

MS: Obama 61% (91%)
LA: 57% (61%)
SC: 55% (51%)
GA: 67% (38%)
MD: 60% (35%)
AL: 56%

There are three important differences. All of these states were primaries. Romney was able to run up high numbers that were even more disproportionate to the population because most of the top Mormon states were caucuses. Even if they were 7% of the population since caucuses have such low turnout (as in 1.9%-5%) they were able to account for a quarter of the electorate. Had Mississippi been a caucus Obama would have done even better. The second difference is numerically. Utah is over 70% Mormon while MS is 37% black. MD is 29% black while Arizona, the state with the fifth highest Mormon population, is 5% Mormon.

Most importantly Romney was able to win across religious lines in these states, with the exception of McSame's home state. In Nevada he won 95% of the Mormon vote but also carried Protestants (43-18), Catholics (35-22), "other Christians" (30-23 with the 23 actually being Paul). The only group he lost was people with no religion and even there he placed best among the serious candidates (he lost that group to Paul 24-42. McSame was third with 15). Obama was not able to do this. He won 21% of the white vote in MS, 30% in LA, 24% in SC, 43% in GA, 42% in MD, and 25% in Alabama.

JFK

JFK won 49.7% of the popular vote. The Democratic nominee in 1956 won 42%. Did Kennedy bring something extra in Catholic states? The states with the highest percentage of Catholics are Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. In 1956 the Dem nominee, Adlai Stevenson, won 42%, 40%, 36%, 34%, and 39% in these states. Kennedy won 64% (+22), 60% (+20), 54% (+17), 50% (+16), 53% (+14). This speaks for itself given his national increase of 7%. The fact he was from Massachusetts matters little since the trend was across the board. The reason the increase steadily declines is because the Catholic population declines in these states. We saw the same thing with Romney and Mormons.

Al Smith

Let's go back to 1928 and do the same thing with the first Catholic candidate for president. The Democratic nominee in 1924 won 36%, 25%, 27%, 27%, and 29% in the same five states. How did Smith do? 50% (+14), 50% (+25), 46% (+19), 40% (+13), 47% (+18).

Conclusion

Just as no one hear would seriously say it is bigoted to point out that Romney won the states with the largest Mormon populations it is not bigoted to say the same with respect to Obama and the African-American vote, a replica of Jesse Jackson's southern performance. All three candidates--like John F. Kennedy and Al Smith before them--benefited from bloc voting from their respective ethnic or religious groups. This is understandable, especially in primaries when there are few substantive differences between candidates. People with a long history of persecution like these three groups--are proud that one of their own has gotten so close to shattering the ultimate glass ceiling. JFK actually broke through and Obama may do so, and perhaps even Romney could in 2012 ( :scared: at that last prospect!). History teaches us the same thing will happen with the first serious Latino candidate (Richardson doesn't count. He is to Latinos what Al Sharpton was to blacks and Orrin Hatch to Mormons in terms of electability), the first GLBT candidate, the first Muslim candidate, the first serious Jewish candidate (Lieberman doesn't count but even he did far better with Jews than everyone else, kind of like Sharpton did much better with blacks but still lost the black vote) and so on. Are we to impose a gag rule on discussion of it? If the first serious Latino candidate wins Nevada with a Latino bloc vote is the entire nation supposed to overlook the obvious? This is part of the process of becoming fully integrated into society. Notice how being Catholic was a non-issue for candidates this time as far as electability goes? Kerry, only the third Catholic nominee ever, actually lost the Catholic vote because Catholics had been so successfully integrated into society by 2004 that having a Catholic in the White House was not even a factor. Contrast that to the questions over Romney's religion, and at a more localized level Keith Ellison's religion.

I would be remiss if I did not note the exception to this: women. While women have voted for Clinton they are not bloc voting. Obama gets 80-91% black support everywhere, Romney had the same level of Mormon support, JFK won about 80% of the Catholic vote. Clinton is under 60% nationally.