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| Home Front: Politix |
| Revenge of the white men |
| 2010-03-23 |
| Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the election in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994. For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38% -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting but also pulled in 41% of white male voters. Suddenly, there were millions more white men voting the Democratic ticket. Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but rather because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38% ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll. It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation. Pollsters regularly ask voters whether they would rather see a Democrat or Republican win their district. By February, support for Democrats among white people (male and female) was three points lower than in February 1994, the year of the last Republican landslide. Today, among whites, only 35% of men and 43% of women say they will back Democrats in the fall election. Women's preferences have remained steady since July 2009. But over that same period, white men's support for a Democratic Congress has fallen eight points, according to Gallup. White men have moved away from Obama as well. The same proportion of white women approve of him -- 46%, according to Gallup -- as voted for him in 2008. But only 38% of white men approve of the president, which means that millions of white men who voted for Obama have now lost faith in him. The migration of white men from the Democratic Party was evident in the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts. His opponent won 52% of white women. But white men favored Brown by a 60%-to-38% margin, according to Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates polling. Once again, Democrats could not win enough other votes to compensate for the white male gap. It's no accident that the flight of white males from the Democratic Party has come as the government has assumed a bigger role, including in banking and healthcare. Among whites, 71% of men and 56% of women favor a smaller government with fewer services over a larger government with more services, according to ABC/Washington Post polling. Obama's brand of liberalism is exactly the sort likely to drive such voters away. More like LBJ's than FDR's, Obama-style liberalism favors benefits over relief, a safety net over direct job programs, healthcare and environmental reform over financial reform and a stimulus package that has focused more on social service jobs -- healthcare work, teaching and the like -- rather than the areas where a majority of job losses occurred: construction, manufacturing and related sectors. This recession remains disproportionately a "he-cession." Men account for at least 7 of 10 workers who lost jobs, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Blue-collar men have suffered 57% of the job losses. And blue-collar white men, who make up only 11% of the workforce, constitute 36% of those who have lost jobs. In total, nearly half of the recession's casualties are white men, having held 46% of all jobs lost. In 1994, liberals tried to explain their thinning ranks by casting aspersions on the white men who were fleeing, and the media took up the cry. The term "angry white male" or "angry white men" was mentioned 37 times in English-language news media contained in the Nexis database between 1980 and the 1994 election. In the following year, the phrases appear 2,306 times. Tarnishing their opponents as merely "angry" was poor politics for the Democrats. Liberals know what it's like to have their views -- most recently on the war in Iraq or George W. Bush -- caricatured as merely irrational anger. Most voters vote their interests. And many white men by the 1980s had decided the Democrats were no longer interested in them. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 ..for those interested in 0bama's background. http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaFamily.htm |
| Posted by: Mike Hunt 2010-03-23 16:59 |
| #6 (sp) heritage |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-03-23 08:51 |
| #5 #4 Barak Obama is a maladjusted only child born and raised by a America-hating Jezebel and a succession of step fathers. He is no different than the millions of man-children coming up these days, white and black. Badanov All true, unless you're speaking globally, you've left the lamb out of the lamb stew. That being Barry's rather unique Kenyan-Islamo heritige. Apples, they never fall too far you know. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-03-23 08:48 |
| #4 Barak Obama is a maladjusted only child born and raised by a America-hating Jezebel and a succession of step fathers. He is no different than the millions of man-children coming up these days, white and black. But for the complicity of our American media with a political party in ignoring the obvious shortcomings of this man and the collective insanity of its talking heads, Obama would be turned out before his third term, fat and happy off his US senatorial retirement. |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-03-23 06:45 |
| #3 Best movie of the 1990's - "Falling Down". It's rare, but every now and then Hollywood gets it right. The 'mancession' is real. Let's just hope that this time around white guys aren't content to simply get representation back, that they also have the sense to exact maximum retribution. It's not enough to say you won. We need to finish off the beast. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2010-03-23 06:12 |
| #2 Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party Lads, before you "walk away." Having now gained something of an awareness of the true nature of the entitlement culture, please pull up your trousers, fix your belt, straighten your baseball cap, and lose the rap ipod and gang hand gestures. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-03-23 05:35 |
| #1 I could only hope that more of the ladies were even half as astute and bright as our excellent Rantburg Ladies. As for the guys that voted for wonder boy - what did you expect this empty sack was gonna do? You didn't even read his back story and you voted for him. Now you're all shocked that this guy didn't deliver for you. McCain sucked but Obama was a disaster in the making, didn't take some PHD to see this one coming from a mile away. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2010-03-23 01:00 |