Michele Bachmann’s political analysis is moronic — and the Republican Party knows it

No, white guilt didn't elect Obama -- it was the non-white vote. That's why the GOP's trying to quash it

MATT BRUENIG

Last week, Michele Bachmann told a reporter that white guilt had helped elect Barack Obama, guilt that won’t be a factor if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016. For this reason, Bachmann says she has high hopes for Republican success in 2016.

Bachmann is of course wrong. From exit polling, we know who voted for Barack Obama, and it wasn’t a wave of guilt-induced white people. In 2008, Obama won 43 percent of the white vote. In 2012, he won 39 percent of it. These are roughly the same percentages of white votes that Al Gore got in 2000 (42 percent) and that John Kerry got in 2004 (41 percent). As they typically do for Democratic presidential candidates, whites voted against Barack Obama by a landslide.

Obama rode to victory, not on the wings of white guilt, but on a swell of support from people of color. In 2004, 70 percent of people of color voted for John Kerry. In the 2008 and 2012 elections, that figure rocketed to 80 percent. This increased margin of support combined with an increased level of non-white turnout to deliver Obama decisive electoral majorities.

Although Bachmann may be confused on this point, the strategic leaders of the Republican party certainly aren’t. The darkening of the American electorate — and the decline in Republican power it entails — has been met head on with coordinated efforts to disenfranchise non-white voters and Democratic voters more generally.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/02/24/michele_bachmanns_political_analysis_is_moronic_and_the_republican_party_knows_it/