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Why Wright Has Less Traction With Red/Purple State Dems
In discussing Harold Ickes' odious pushing of Jeremiah Wright at superdelegates in his most recent post, Josh Marshall asks why the issue seems to have more traction with superdelegates from blue states. The answer is simple:
Voting patterns in the first 40 or so contests show a sharp distinction between states in which what I will call racially "oppositional" voting prevail, and states in which it does not. Obama wins the states without it, almost as a rule. These are red and purple states. Its SD's are more prone to favoring him.
Obama has won decisively in two kinds of states: those with essentially no black voters, and those with lots. He gets into more trouble in the middle. Without taking the time to trot out each statistic, let's look at states where Obama wins where there is a large black population.
They are often 'New South' states like Georgia and Virginia -- he won 44% of whites in Georgia, and 51% in Virginia. North Carolina is another of these. In each of these three states, blacks are a very large number, and the states are either integrated enough, over their racial history enough, or have enough affluent or technophilic white liberals (which is the same difference) so that whites as a bloc aren't voting against blacks, and vice versa.
There are a few where there are just so many blacks, that they swamp the oppositional voting whites -- Mississippi, Alabama. South Carolina might belong here, but it was three way, so the numbers aren't comparable. Obama was reasonably close to a third of whites there, but 24% is low in an absolute sense.
Obama does great in lily white states. Not only did he win North Dakota, but in a Survey USA trial heat in early March, he beat McCain, in a state Dems haven't won since 1964. He polls well in evolution-hating Kansas, though he loses. He wins Colorado where Hillary loses, and wins Nevada, which is just not very black. And he won everything north of Arizona in the west so far.
Where does he have a harder time? Blue states, precisely because they have moderate black populations. Wisconsin and Minnesota are too Hubert Humphrey/progressively liberal for oppositional voting, but Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island are not. In those states there are some blacks, but not enough to lead or define the party -- in these states, blacks have helped and fallen in behind white leaders, often with intrawhite ethnic appeals. Though those states are blue, thanks in no small part to the historical choice of blacks to support statewide white Dems, they are blue because of the racial detente that places blacks in the subordinate position.
Put another way, without 90% black support, Pennsylvania and Michigan simply aren't presidentially blue. Period.
So to answer Josh's rhetorical question -- why Wright bounces off of SD's in red/purple America more readily than he does off of blue state SD's. It's simple, and found in the presence or absence not of whites, but the presence or absence of oppositional voting. White Dems in blue state America haven't worked out their racial history as well as those in Va, Ga, and NC, and America west of the Mississippi frankly doesn't have the same demons to exorcise as the blue northeast. It makes perfect sense, and is also why Obama may lose Pennsylvania or Ohio, but may care more How the West Was Won.
Comments (17)
Analytically, I totally agree. But I think there's also a personal component. The "Wright will destroy Obama in the red states" theme is coming mostly from people who are either embedded in deep blue states or imprisoned inside the beltway. People like, say, Harold Ickes. The problem for them is that it is posited on a caricature of red state voters as slack jawed, sheet wearing inbreeds who can't put two ideas together into a logical thought.
I suspect most politicians from these states tend to find the premise degrading, insulting and confirmatory of their own stereotypes about, well, people like Ickes who talk like they know everything about the red states and actually know nothing.
April 2, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
But have you looked at the recent Survey USA poll in Indiana? The black vote for Obama is only 58% - a huge drop cf recent primaries.
I'm wondering if the Wright issue isn't going to be more complex than people think among blacks.
ie What is going to be the impact of Obama seeming to dump Wright on The View? (Where he said that had Wright not retired, he would have left the church.)
Maybe his efforts to mollify continuing criticism have alienated quite a few, if not many, blacks.
April 2, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but that fact is wrong. The SurveyUSA poll IN says Obama leads among blacks by 58%, not with a total of 58%. I think it's 75-17. The white split is 58-37 Clinton.
As you've surely seen in checking in on other state polls, 75 is about what Obama polls in advance before all of these primaries in which he really pulls 85-92 of the black vote. In other words, it shows no drop and in fact foretells a typical bludgeoning of HRC in that demo. So the poll overstates her lead.
If you adjust the black vote up 12% for him, it looks less like 52-43, and more like 50-45.
April 2, 2008 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting post. I think there's something to your hypothesis.
April 2, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great analysis. I never thought about Blue States this way. It makes sense now that you say it.
Maybe this isn't the best comparison, or maybe it is, I don't know. But her goes... in the big blue states Obama has been having a harder time with hardcore Democrats, I've often wondered if the racial stuff isn't more prominent within our own party than we realize.
And when I saw how quickly Bill Clinton insinuated racial shit in North Carolina, along with Hillary's other surrogates making subtle references along the way, I was really blown away that it was coming from our side.
I expected it in the GE from Rethugs, but from our side? I was shocked.
I don't know how that really relates, but that's what popped into my head reading your post.
It's more insidious in the DLC mindset within the party and thus in the bluest of blue states.
April 2, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Insightful post. I think you may be on to something here.
People like, say, Harold Ickes. The problem for them is that it is posited on a caricature of red state voters as slack jawed, sheet wearing inbreeds who can't put two ideas together into a logical thought.
NCSteve, also a good point. The irony of Ickes and the rest of the DLC types trying to intuit what redstaters will do after he and the DLC have written them off for so long is laughable.
I think litmus tests are questionable but anyone who's against the 50 state strategy, I can't help but doubt their judgement about how to get Democrats elected in the 21st century.
April 2, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post.
This feeds right back into the David Sirota article about the "Race Chasm".
April 2, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This issue is finally being discussed here.
There are a few other blogs where other discussing the "Clinton Firewall" strategy and what it really means in unvarnished terms.
Yes Virginia, the Clintons are employing a re-branded "Southern Strategy." Since February, it has been much more difficult to deny it. Ferraro's fumble cause them to be much more careful, but, as things get more desperate in the coming months, it will be impossible for anyone with a working conscience and calculator to miss the the less-than-subtle race-baiting.
April 2, 2008 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your read is not implausible, but I have a different explanation about why Wright doesn't give Clinton traction in with superdelegates in purple/red states.
First, she ignored and dismissed them in the primaries -- what downticket benefits can they anticipate in November?
Second, church participation rates are higher in red/purple states. Devout churchgoers, I suspect, routinely hear their priests or ministers say things they disagree with, and even things that offend them. In general, they neither stand up in church to reject and denounce their pastors, nor do they quit going to church. They know that that's just not what religious people do. They know it's unreasonable to judge people based on the wackiest of their preachers' beliefs.
April 3, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is absolutely my experience from living in NC. The Obama coalition here is extremely diverse, consisting of African-Americans, academics, tech workers, white women, military personnel, and "children of mill workers." Pretty much every demographic in the state, in fact, however the polls might be parsing it right now.
I recall the description of the racial dynamics here given by one of my professors (a noted cultural studies scholar who studied with Stuart Hall in Birmingham and taught at Urbana-Champaign before moving to North Carolina). As someone who had never lived in the South, he described his initial surprise upon arriving in a place where many people seemed very comfortable openly expressing sometimes blatantly racist sentiments. After all, people "shouldn't say those things."
But as he got over the shock, he realized that there was a certain comfort in addressing race that had developed because people in the South had been forced to address race and their histories of racism in a way that people in other parts of the country had not. He came to see that people here were no more (and in fact, may even be less) "racist" than in places where people "don't say those things" - which seems obvious, on one level, but on another is precisely the dynamic that Obama addressed in his speech. There is something about the need to confront the painful legacy of racism that has made the racial dynamics here different than in other places.
This is not exactly what the original post is about, I realize, but it is an additional complicating factor that makes the Wright flap less salient for NC voters than it might be for PA or OH voters. For many here, white and black, what Wright says comes as no great surprise. It's just not as controversial because, well, people here have lived it and are continuing to have that dialog.
At the same time, I definitely think that class issues come into play in the "confrontational voters" that you are describing in the blue state voting scenarios. I think you are dead on, and I think that those states - and the red states that have/will go for Clinton (AK, KY, WV, etc.) are ones in which race continues to be used as a lever to cover a world of class-based inequity. My basis for this assertion is primarily anecdotal, having grown up in KY before (like most of my friends) leaving as soon as my education provided me the opportunity to do so.
It's a sad truth, but race-baiting is still a sharp tool in the hands of a savvy politician amongst the poorest, least educated Americans. Hearing my own relatives discuss this campaign confirms the power of ignorance: one of my Kentucky uncles told my mother recently that he would like to vote for Obama, but "once a muslim, always a muslim."
April 3, 2008 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fascinating diary, well-written, well-thought. Thanks for it.
Just a little sidebar from Pew Research, national Presidential results, FWIW:
1992: Bill Clinton won 39% of the white vote
1996: Bill Clinton won 43% of the white vote
2000: Al Gore won 42$ of the white vote
2004: John Kerry won 41% of the white vote
Obama is currently polling at about 43% of white vote nationally, so on par with a Democrat who won in 1996, and better than the two who lost in 2000 & 2004. (1992 is skewed because of Perot)
April 3, 2008 4:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, should have said:
Gore lost...
Kerry lost...
ah, wishful thinking...
April 3, 2008 4:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
One more time, and then I am going to bed...
Gore won 42% of the white vote but lost election
Kerry won 41% of the white vote but lost election
I am clearly too old to stay up this late and write coherently. Apologies.
April 3, 2008 4:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
One more time, and then I am going to bed...
Gore won 42% of the white vote but lost election
Kerry won 41% of the white vote but lost election
Thank you x 1million.
I've said that so many times now. All the hell we do is lose when we try to rely on the old coalition. Lose lose lose lose lose lose
We need a new way of doing things or the Democratic party is going to die of stasis. We need to bring new voters in - and the people who are prone to vote Democratic but usually don't vote are the very ones who are coming out in droves for Obama.
What this means to me as a Texan is that Texas is in play this time and if they put Hillary on the ballot - there goes the Southern Strategy all over again. How we break that goddamn Chinese Wall is we nominate Obama and we invigorate literally millions of new Democratic voters.
April 3, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is one of my biggest reasons for arguing for "Obama's map" and against what I see as specious arguments about Clinton's "electoral college electability." With Clinton, the same states come into play as have been in play since Reagan, but with Obama as our nominee we finally have a chance to shake up the regional definitions of "red" and "blue" states. I think this is a necessary ingredient for any long-term winning strategy for a new Democratic party.
If Obama wins the nomination, not only does Texas come into play, but the Southern Atlantic states move from the solidly red column to at least "in play" if not blue. Current projections show SC and VA open to Obama in an Obama v. McCain matchup, and NC moves from "solid Repub" to "leans Repub." This latter shift reflects polling that predates North Carolina's primary. I predict that post-primary, NC will also be in the "toss up" category like its northern and southern neighbors.
All of which to say that the "Southern Strategy" could finally meet defeat with Obama at the top of the ticket this fall. Faultlines are showing in the "solid" South, but it will take the proper leverage to pry them open.
April 3, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm wondering if the Wright issue isn't going to be more complex than people think among blacks."
There is no complexity in issue among Blacks. We live in a society where we play by the rules not make them. We know what has to be done to get ahead and you have to prove that you are not some scary angry militant Black person. It's totally absurd that we are all placed with that burden, but it's something that we are very aware of, thus would never fault Obama for. Obama's experience in running in this election is not very different from the experiences Blacks have to deal with when trying to get ahead in life.
If anything, the entire Wright situation is just another example in a long string of them of extra hurdles thrown in front of us regardless of our qualifications and merits. No I'm not bellyaching about it, just stating the pure facts.
I would be surprised if Clinton gets more than 5% of the Black vote from here on out with the her (and her husband's) race baiting and trying to characterize the church has a hateful institution even though she should know more than the average politician or even white person what the Black church tradition is like with all the pandering she has done over the years.
April 3, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no complexity in issue among Blacks. We live in a society where we play by the rules not make them. We know what has to be done to get ahead and you have to prove that you are not some scary angry militant Black person. It's totally absurd that we are all placed with that burden, but it's something that we are very aware of, thus would never fault Obama for. Obama's experience in running in this election is not very different from the experiences Blacks have to deal with when trying to get ahead in life.
WORD
to all of this.
I have written before that the reason the first group of Black folk that immediately bonded with Obama were the Black middle and professional classes was because they saw themselves in Barack Obama, and their struggles in Corporate America. We've understood from the getgo that he's running 2 campaigns, and nobody is even acknowledging it, but we see it. We know it. And, we respect his success.
And, I still ask...what is it about Black folk that makes people believe that they should even BE ASKED to vote for Hillary if she STEALS this from Obama, using Dogwhistle Racial Politics?
How delusional is that?
April 4, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
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