"The chart." Lies, damned lies and statistics...

Really, I haven’t seen too many reporters talking about Obama’s loss of “white voters” as a group (i.e. white people just won't vote for him whereas black people overwhelmingly will). I have seen reports of white working class voters in PA and OH along with, say, Hispanics in TX and CA and older women voting for Clinton. Do you think that they are strictly voting race? People will vote for any and all sorts of crazy reasons and that is their right. But it is their duty to vote civically, in the interest of all (all-for-one and one-for-all), rich-poor, black-white, uneducated-ignorant, as a nation and as human beings.

Identity politics, in this sense limited to voting only because black or female, is a problem morally because it is, by definition, biased and practically because it takes broad coalitions to get a majority to win office. It isn’t single issue voting so much as every issue being filtered through that identity. And it is wrong to effectively demonize one candidate to bolster another because you identify with race or gender regardless of their qualifications, policies, character, etc. (I know, I know, everyone’s candidate is the best in every aspect aside from the fact that they identify tribally with them).

Yes, it is true that voting for someone who will better understand and pursue the interests of one’s identity group is less “narrow-minded” than voting only because of race or gender, but only by degree and only if there are overwhelmingly substantial differences between the candidates on that issue. Obama has campaigned on a post-racial transcending-the-divisions strategy of unity. The fact is, he has not been a leading light on specific AA issues anymore than Clinton has been a promoter of feminist special interests as opposed to, say, family issues. So, his support is not mainly about his understanding and policy prescriptions for minorities as much as it is about his being a minority for those identity voters.

To be sure, he has not campaigned as a “black candidate” except in the black community, and even there, he has been kept a distance. But there was a campaign of pure identity politics early on with barber-beautyshop-black church-Oprah “we are the ones/he is the one,” and later, the Speech, appeals. I keep repeating this refrain only because it is responsible for the precipitous drop off in AA support for Clinton. It was a strategy and it worked. And while Clinton has broadly appealed to women in general, also as a “first,” she has only occasionally appealed to the feminist identity (Steinhem and Ferraro, maybe).

Truth is, African Americans, in general, and liberal “post-racial” whites gravitated to Obama in direct proportion to the identification of the Clinton campaign as race-baiting liars and good-for-nothings. It was not so much a new identification with a black politician as a rupture with an old ally who was demonized, and it worked.

The fact that 90% of the black vote has swung to the black candidate speaks for itself. Whites support Obama and whites have supported mayors, senators, representatives, school board members, you name it; there is not a clear racial divide, except in this race.

How many rock concert tickets did Obama give those 2700 as a bribe to attend the rally?

Kingsnake! I'll be knocking on doors at Greenwood Manor Tuesday. If you are not already committed, see if the campaign needs some help in the projects.

That voter ID law is going to be a killer. A birth certificate is necessary to get a picture ID. Oddly, or not, it is NOT required for a driver's license. The numbers who won't vote or are turned away could go six figures in the state, by my guess.

"the uneducated are still hanging onto racism."
your question contains your answer...

“With all this talk about low income white voters, you'd think some people in the media would ask questions about why in the 21st- century, the uneducated are still hanging onto racism.”

In the first place, racism is largely perpetuated through class oppression, but what about black voters who won’t vote for HRC just because she is white? Is that just the “uneducated”?

Mis-typing on my part. I should have put quotes around "divisive" and "racist." My point is that Wright is presented as being "racist," while Obama is faulted for not connecting with "white" voters whose sense of race is not examined, not explored. "White" is always presumed to be the default, as if it were not a racial construction itself. I'm not sure how to read the sarcasm. Though perhaps clumsy, I'm sincere in trying to sift through these concerns.

Ah it's late in the day for this since no one is around, but

I do know the answer. I do.

It's not racism - that's impossible in the society that was built by white folks, where all the laws were written by white folks for white folks and we are still in numbers the majority and we are in charge and have been for over 200 years.

So discrimination on the basis of race - which is what racism is - against white folks looks pretty silly in that context.

But the problem is a deeply rooted one and it's not pretty, but it will have to be contended with:

Rev Wright isn't grateful enough. There is an spoken agreement among some older white folks, especially, that African Americans are fine as long as they act "civilized" which translates to "know their place." And one way they show that they know they place is by being grateful to us for some unknown goddamn reason only those people can fathom.

That's how I see it - that's because I've heard it my whole life. I grew up in Texas which has a multiple personality disorder -it's kinda Louisiana, it's kinda New Mexico, it's kinda Oklahoma - it's way too big. ;) But the south was and still is a big part of it here and I remember segregation.

SHAME ON YOU, HILLARY CLINTON! SHAME ON YOU!

dumbilical, I bet you haven't watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvnMK1d9xE0

Ban this clown.

Absolutely. A vote to maintain the status quo is different than one to break it. Same goes for women who are voting for Clinton.

You simply cannot made the assumption that women are voting for Clinton because they think men are inferior, or that blacks are voting for Obama because they think other races are inferior - you have no possible way of knowing the intent of each and every one of the voters.

obama is surrounded by parties frantically slinging everything they have at him in the hopes that something will stick. nothing is; hence teflon.

as for Obama screwing up, well i think the proof is in the pudding isn't it? his voice and his message appear to resonate deeply with a nation clearly nonplussed with the status quo. in the face of his maintenance of solid figures in terms of delegates and polling, despite all the muck slinging directed towards him, how can you say he has screwed up his campaign?