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Home Front: Politix
Face it, Democrats: Barack Obama's got a growing problem with whites
2008-05-12
... Nearly half of the voters in North Carolina and Indiana said Wright was an important issue for them.
That's because Wright hates them. The question in their minds is whether B.O. does, too, but isn't saying so.
Then there is an April poll by The Associated Press that found "about 8% of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for President."
There's always an 8-10 percent bottom to any bell curve, isn't there?
According to a May Newsweek poll, 12% of voters said they thought most Americans would "have reservations about voting for a black candidate that they are not willing to express"; 41% said they thought some Americans would have such reservations. To some, any reference to such numbers is desperate at best - and race-baiting at worst.
Sounds more like the facts of life, unpleasant though that may be. It's also the background noise of politix.
"I have much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton told USA Today this week, making clear that she consistently does better among white, working-class voters. "There is a pattern emerging here."

That prompted The New York Times editorial page to write: "Yes, there is a pattern - a familiar and unpleasant one," making reference to charges that during the primary campaign the Clinton camp has used veiled racial attacks against Obama.

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is living in similar denial. If the GOP brings up Wright during the fall campaign, Dean said recently, it will amount to "race-baiting...just like Willie Horton was race-baiting so many years ago."
"God damn America" isn't race baiting. I feel approximately the same way toward Rev. Wright as I do toward Bill Ayers tromping the flag, which is to say not particularly well-disposed.
Obama has run a brilliant campaign. He has won over many white voters by making them proud to vote for a supremely educated and capable man who, at his best, makes race a secondary concern. It is not inconsistent, unfair or unsavory to point out, at the same time, that Obama has been growing weaker over the months in his ability to win all but black voters. Nor am I necessarily suggesting that white voters are drifting from him because of his race - as opposed to judgments about the content of his character or candidacy.
He's an airhead of no particular accomplishment, a Chicago ward-heeler made good. I don't like his wife because she comes across as a snotty, condescending kind of person. If he was white, he'd still be an airhead of no particular accomplishment, similar to lots of other politicians I don't like. His race is the least of the factors I don't like about him.
This is about facing facts. And history will reflect poorly on Democrats if they believe it is virtuous to ignore race in the name of nominating the first black candidate for the White House - even if it means giving the Republicans a better chance to once again walk away with the big prize of the presidency.
Posted by:Fred

#21  If Obama was the son of a sharecropper, I could see the parallel with Romney & the Mormons or Guiliani & the Italians, although I can pretty well guarantee you that Guiliani would never have gotten anything approaching 95% of the Italian vote.

But Obama isn't the son of a sharecropper. He's the son of some radical tourist of a haole and a perfumed afro-socialist bigamist.

You know what? If it wasn't for his skin color, you could call Obama a whigger. A wannabe. Like any one of about a million pathetic hip-hoppy white boys think they'd be cooler if they were black. He's C. Thomas Howell.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2008-05-12 17:16  

#20  The truth is that if Obama were white, he would have been dropped after the first 11 primaries; he is just the black John Edwards.
Posted by: Shieldwolf   2008-05-12 16:21  

#19  He's not black enough, he's not white enough, he's not conservative enough, he's not liberal enough!
Posted by: Crolusing tse Tung2778   2008-05-12 15:02  

#18  The first time One Of Us makes good, he/she gets our votes. That's human nature, not racism. Then most people get it out of their systems, and vote for the candidate with the program most likely to benefit them. The remainder can be perhaps thought of as anti-everyone-else bigots, or pro-people-like-us bigots, or possibly just not very smart. Remember, most black churches are not in the Black Liberation Theology fold, but as God and Good oriented as most of the rest of the churches in the U.S.
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-05-12 13:54  

#17  Steve: I'm not angry at black voters for voting for Obama

Why not? They are also voting for Truther history, chickens coming home to roost and AIDS as a government plot to kill black people. Voting for Obama because he is black is not only racist, it is mentally and morally retarded. I would say the same thing about Italians voting for Giuliani or Mormons voting for Romney if either man was associated with comparable evil.
Posted by: Excalibur   2008-05-12 13:10  

#16  His view of foreign relations is that the UN is a good thing and America should be subordinate to them. Strike one !
His view of the domestic social situation is that blacks have been delt a bad hand and require federal dollars to compensate. Strike two !
His domestic economic view is that his wife got a $2000,000 raise the day after he became senator and ha said nothing. His pal Rev. Wright is building a $1,600,000 home from the collection plate, and he says nothing. His economic view is elitist. YEERRRR OUT !
Posted by: wxjames   2008-05-12 12:27  

#15  Because only whitey can be Racist.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2008-05-12 12:20  

#14  Steve,

Why is it that when blacks break 95-5 for Obama that's not racist while if whites break 65-35 for Clinton, that IS racist? Serious double standard there.

I can't see voting for Obama under any circumstances, but I suspect if he gets elected his first two years would be trying to run hard left like BJ with a LOT of "jobs for the (black) boys" thrown in. That would probably get him the same response it got BJ--a raging Republican majority again in both House and Senate.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707   2008-05-12 11:49  

#13  well said, Steve.
Posted by: Sninert Black9312   2008-05-12 11:23  

#12  ... Clinton told USA Today this week, making clear that she consistently does better among white, working-class voters.

Can you imagine the explosion we'd see if Johnny Mac told the media that he planned to do better among white, working-class voters? I guess it's different when a Democrat says it.
Posted by: Steve White   2008-05-12 11:18  

#11  Compared to the 89% of black voters who swore an oath never to vote for a honky.

In 2004 they voted for Kerry (white).

In 2000 they voted for Gore (white).

In 1996 they voted for Clinton (white).

etc.

You get the idea. Let's keep clear heads here; otherwise we're in danger of sounding like the Daily Kos. Black voters will go for Obama just like most Italian voters would have gone for Guiliani, and most Mormons would have gone for Romney. There is ethnic, racial and religious identification in politics, particularly the first time one of your own makes good. That's just the way it is.

I'm not angry at black voters for voting for Obama, though I wish they'd see that many of the man's positions don't help black American in the long term.
Posted by: Steve White   2008-05-12 11:15  

#10  My dream ticket has always been Fred Thompson and Condoleeza Rice, in either order. Guess that makes me bitter.
Posted by: RWV   2008-05-12 11:05  

#9  Obama is a typical, snobbish elitist that I feel is racist on top of it all with no real world experience leading anything except a victim parade to a new socialist paradise.

That is why I will never vote for him.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-05-12 10:59  

#8  Then there is an April poll by The Associated Press that found "about 8% of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for President."

Compared to the 89% of black voters who swore an oath never to vote for a honky.
Posted by: Black Bart Snaiting7183   2008-05-12 09:53  

#7  Obama did well in the beginning because he was a fresh face who offered an alternative to the jerks we have in office now. That he didn't look like them was an advantage. Then we got to find out who he really is. And the bloom was off the dahlia.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-05-12 07:16  

#6  The question isn't whether people are willing to vote for the Generic Black Guy (or the Generic Woman, Generic Mormon, Generic Catholic, Generic [insert identity here])--"Generic" is never on the ballot. The question is, do people want to vote for this particular candidate.

I'd be happy to vote for J.C. Watts, or Michael Steele, or Ken Blackwell . . . Barak Obama, not so much.
Posted by: Mike   2008-05-12 06:45  

#5  Or, according to Tim Blair, here If Clinton and Obama were both male and white, they'd be judged unremarkable, inexperienced and blunder-prone. Identity politics - a leftist speciality by which a candidate is elevated via racial or gender characteristics - have launched this pair to a level they'd otherwise not have reached.

Which I think pretty well sums it up.
Posted by: Bobby   2008-05-12 06:27  

#4  So as long as McCain mentions Wright and Ayers together, it'll be O.K. with us progressives.

Soon, you'll abbreviate "Wright and Ayers" as "Waa". With a silent "h"
Posted by: Progressive Bobby   2008-05-12 06:19  

#3  He lost it at "bitter and clingy". Analyze all you want, but that's where he went wrong. Nothing - not Rev. Wright, not Michelle Obama, not even his silly and unworkable policies, damaged him as much as those few sentences in San Francisco.
Posted by: no mo uro   2008-05-12 05:37  

#2  sounds like the african american and egg-head argument. I would maintain that BO will become the nominee simply because Hillary Clinton is a mad psycho-bitch whom sane people simply can't vote for. If Obama loses the general election it will not be because he couldn't pull working class whites due to the fact that they are white, but because they can see that Obama previously hung with dangerous anti-american bedfellows and they find that unbecoming of a presidential candidate.
Posted by: Sninert Black9312   2008-05-12 03:57  

#1  Axelrod, BO's minder, has already stated that the white working-class vote has gone Rep since before Clinton. He's written them off. I wonder how many whites from all economic segments will get that clear message--of being written off--before November. I suspect it's going to be a large number. BO's going to get 98% of the largest black vote ever. My prediction is that he'll get a great turnout from them and from white academics/libs--and that's it. The remainder of the population will go for Johnny Mac and BO will get a 40+ state butt-kicking. Maybe there will be a black president someday, but I don't think BO is it. If there is to be a black president, he'll have to be a Republican.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707   2008-05-12 03:46  

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