What Will We Do Without the White Vote?

Since the media and some very worried DUers have been expressing their "concern" over Obama's weakness in claiming the white vote, I thought I'd do a little checking on some of our past presidential elections to see how our other nominees did in claiming this all important demographic.

Oddly, it seems John Kerry had his own problems in getting the whites out to vote:

Kerry 41%
Bush 58%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004#Voter_Demographics

But that's just an anomaly, right? I mean Kerry lost the popular vote. So let's check on the last Democratic popular vote winner, Albert Gore.

What? It looks like Al couldn't quite do it either:

Gore 42%
Bush 55%
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_00.html

Amazing! But then it was "close enough to steal" I suppose. But At least good old boy Bill Clinton knew how to talk to the white voters. His wife keeps telling us about it. So I'm sure he got a majority in 1992.

Clinton 39%
Bush 40%
Perot 20%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996#Voter_demographics

WHAT?! He didn't win a majority of white voters? Only 39%, less than anyone else? It must be due to Perot taking away all the white voters he would have gotten so let's check 1996.

Clinton 43%
Dole 46%
Perot 9%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996#Voter_demographics

Huh! Well I'll be jiggered. It looks like Democrats haven't won the white vote in at least four elections even though we won the popular vote in at least three of them.

I wonder why the media and our own "concerned" DUers haven't mentioned that? :shrug:

Stop posting this crap.

You'd notice that I'm pointing out that all these claims that Obama can't win the white vote are silly since NO Democrat in the last 4 elections has won that demographic. We have a strong nominee and we need to realize that.

Just getting really weary of all the racism/sexism talk around here. Sorry about that. :hi:

I just figured I'd try to stop the "Obama can't win white votes" meme while it was still in its infancy here.

We'll see how much good it does.

;)

It's all cool. :hi:

Apology accepted, but you must first reject and denounce yourself, since that's the going rate for apologies these days. :rofl:

If John got one, I want one!!! :D

from time to time. As a white male, I suggest we stop trying to pander to white males and demonstrate our convictions courageously. That is how to gain the respect of the classic white male working class voter, and that is how you eventually earn that trust and that vote. Howard Dean said it best: "It is a sign of respect to ask someone for their vote." That was part of his rationale for the 50 state strategy that has been so crucial in shaping the opportunity for a Democratic majority.

Thrilling to me, really. Either way this goes down, we will be asking these guys to vote for a woman or a black guy. And a lot of them are going to say "yes". And if we are standing with them on the issues that matter most ... well, you might be surprised how many will in the end vote for either of them.

Supers havent which is the main thing..

"mainstream", sort of, LOL ! Thanks for the links !

and then people want to pretend it isn't a race issue.

Anything deeper will require someone who doesn't fall asleep while tying his shoes. :)

We white guys just hate civil rights.

I. Freedom of speech and religion? Fuck that. I want my taxes going to the Church of England.

II. The right to keep and bear arms? Okay. I guess we do like that one.

III. If the military wants my farm, then this good ol' American patriot says let 'em have it. Free of charge.

IV. Warrants? Once you commit a crime, you give up your rights.

V. Self incrimination? Once you commit a crime, you give up your rights.

VI. Speedy and public trial? Once you commit a crime, you give up your rights.

VII. Trial by jury? Once you commit a crime, you give up your rights.

VIII. Excessive punishment? Once you commit a crime, you give up your rights.

IX. Other rights? You don't have any "rights" not explicitly granted to you in the Constitution.

X. States and Individual rights? I'd rather put my trust in Big Brother.

/:sarcasm:

Fully half of the Bill of Rights concerns rights for people suspected of, accused of or convicted of a crime. Yet the rightwingers routinely toss out, "once you commit a crime, you give up your rights."

Another favorite saying, "you don't have any rights not explicitly granted to you in the Constitution," stands in direct opposition to the 9th Amendment.

And they can't get past the last comma in the 10th Amendment to the part that says, "or to the people."

You need to post that for everyone to read. :)

If Gore and Kerry approximated that the pestilence known as Bush* would have never swept the land...

And if a Dem lost the white vote 46-43% in a three man race he would be a lead pipe cinch...

Clinton won a large majority of Hispanic voters but so did Gore and Kerry. Obama is likely to do that as well.

Also, are you suggesting that the only way a Democrat can win is if we have a third party pulling away white voters? That seems a bit defeatist.

I think I understand political research rather well...


Kerry beat Bush* 53%-44 among Latinos...That's not enough to compensate for the loss among white voters and since LBJ was the last pres to win the white vote I am not sanguine about carrying it this time...

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html


In 2000, Gore beat Bush* 62%-35% among Latinos... That's why he won...


http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.president.html


on edit- my 76% figure for Bill Clinton might be a tad bit high...It might have been 72%...

It was 72% according to the link I provided. Anyway, past statistics bode well for Obama if he can bring out decent numbers in the GE. Based on what he's done so far, I think that's a good possibility.

:hi:

I have seen memos from the Obama camp that that need to get in the high sixties...

Unless it's a landslide I will be shocked if any Dem can get more than 43% or so of the white vote...

I think Obama will gain more of the Hispanic vote since the repubs are actively chasing ALL minorities away with profiling and building fences. I can't see the repubs doing well at all in those categories.

Get 42 or 43%% or so of the white vote, 90% or so of the African American vote, and 65% or so of the Latino vote... The African American vote is tapped out at 90%...They are not a monolith... If he falls much below 42% among whites he needs to raise his share of the Latino vote to unprecedented levels...

I can't get a handle on this election...Every metric favors the Democrats but McCain seems to be hanging around in most of the published polls...

I want to see what happens when he becomes the official nominee...


PEACE
DSB

The media has presented an incredibly positive picture of him. Right now, I'm willing to bet that at least a solid minority doesn't even realize he's a republican, let alone knows what his policy positions are.

It looks like Obama is taking the fight to him as of last night, so we'll see if there are any changes in the polls soon.

Oh! The humanity!!

They just can't post the truth about the numbers they come up with.

Bob Barr is not Ross Perot...

He doesn't have his dough...

When all is said and done

He will be between one and zero...

A little move can mean a lot. :)

On the other hand, Gore won the popular vote and I think Obama has a very good chance to pull this off.

The racist vote has gone to the repubs for years now so those people were never going to vote Dem anyway.

What people don't get about WV and KY is that they are an entity unto themselves with a majority of both states either being encompassed by the Appalachians or in their shadow. This meant that large farms couldn't be sown and the area was left mostly to poor hardscrabble farmers living in subsistence. As they couldn't afford, and had no need for, slaves when the Civil war came it was easier for them to side with the north than the south as their interests lie mainly with the north at that time. However, after the war, WV and KY were placed in an unusual position as being not truly a part of the north and having cast off it's claim to being part of the south, a feeling that the people I know there still feel today.

This is why those two states were late in joining the south in the republican revolution in the 90's, but only by a few years. Yes they voted for Clinton then, but it is very unlikely he would win there today. There has been a conversion that will take more than a name to change.

Much the same as Kentucky. My hometown was full of Liberal, Roman Catholic Democrats who spoke with a midwestern accent and told Kentucky jokes when I was a kid.

It's now full of Conservative, Baptist (almost half my family has converted in the past three decades) Republics who speak with a hillbilly accent and tell jokes about liberals and blacks. The change has been horrifying.

It freaks me out to realize family and friends must have been hiding all this hatred until Rush Limbaugh went on the air, and they learned that their neighbors had been hiding the same feelings. All those years, and I had no inkling how they felt.

Rural and blue collar voters vote against the "professors" - an intellectual, erudite, nuanced, cautious, academic personality style. We nominate professor Gore, professor Kerry and now professor Obama. Brilliant and talented men, all, but with a certain style. We cannot really complain when the voters reject them over superficial matters of style, since I am convinced that we select them for exactly the same reasons. We can relate to them, we find them attractive and charismatic, they fit our ideal of personality type and background. Millions of everyday voters, however, cannot relate to that style, cannot identify with these men - in fact their style and manner of speaking sets their teeth on edge. We can't imagine that everyone would not fall in love with our heroes, or we think that there must be something wrong with those who do not fall in love with them, so we keep repeating the same mistake over and over again.

LBJ and Truman had rugged "everyman" styles and appeal. The Kennedys and FDR, while born to wealth and highly educated, did not project an image of superiority or entitlement. They could speak to the common man, as it were, as equals. You can see the difference in posture and body language, in hand gestures, in tone of voice and in phrasing. Gore, Kerry, and Obama talk and act like they are in the lecture hall up in front of the undergrads. LBJ, Truman and the Kennedy brothers talked and acted like they were in a noisy, rowdy union hall, rubbing shoulders with the riff raff, as they fired up the troops for an impending strike.

I am not saying this is fair, nor the way things should be. I don't fault Kerry, Gore and Obama for their personality styles and do not mean to diminish their skills and accomplishments. Their style is a handicap in national political elections, however.

I'm sure there were some, but that certainly didn't win him the nomination over Edwards, Dean and Clark. And I'm afraid I have to disagree with some of your other points as well.

First, FDR and JFK DID project the elitism their wealth provided. They were the personifications of the caricatures for the wealthy in their eras. That didn't stop them from winning elections.

Second, LBJ and Truman did have more "everyman" personae, however, neither was elected to office until after running the country first which gave them the incumbent's edge. Even with that edge, Truman was nearly defeated.

And third, Obama's speaking style is vastly different than Kerry's or Gore's. The problem that most people found with the latter two was their aloof, wonkish policy speeches from the stump which is the exact opposite of what people are saying when they complain about Obama's "policy-lite" speeches. Also, Obama's speeches tend to warm people up in a way that Gore and Kerry never could. One of the few compliments Obama critics give him is on the nature of "Sure he can make a nice speech, but there's nothing in them".

I supported Edwards this election cycle, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the skills of Obama.

You aren't seeing what I am, which is fine.

I sure remember a lot of "I'd have his baby" posts about Kerry.

Watch the body language, listen to the voices. FDR had a "command" presence. Watch the hand gestures and listen to the tone of voice. LBJ, FDR and the Kennedys stabbed the air, leaned forward, and spoke in declarative and forceful sentences. The backward leaning, the sweeping gesture, and open hands, the rhythm and pauses that I see Gore, Kerry and Obama use are all in a nuanced professorial style rather than a command style. It surprises me that more people who are close to politics can't see this, or aren't aware of what it is they are seeing. Everyday non-political people pick up on it immediately and talk it about it frequently. Kerry, Gore and Obama have no strong command presence, and that causes people to tune them out and be skeptical about them right from the start.

There is a big difference in style, and I am convinced that style influences voters perceptions dramatically. Just look at it and listen to it, don't analyze it.

Well, DU and other Democratic blogs, at least. That's a regular occurrence that happens when people divest too much of themselves into the personality of a candidate. We're seeing it now with both Obama and Clinton.

And we'll have to disagree on Obama's presence, but he does seem to do extremely well according to even her staunchest critics.

Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, that both of them lose the "white" vote to McCain by 7%. So his problem isn't "his" problem. It is the "problem" of the Democratic party.

Other than Kerry, who likely lost the popular vote while really winning Ohio, We've won at least a plurality of the electorate for the last 16 years. We can do so again, in 2008.

this election are going to help do just that. It will be a matter of a good GOTV ground game.

There have been a few exceptions, but I'm willing to bet he's learned from those.

The Democrats haven't won the white working class (known as WWC here) vote since the early sixties.

Although Obama got flamed for saying it, it's fairly true that the WWC voter has long since given up getting any economic help from Washington and so votes on social issues instead. The Rethuglicans will usually win that since they don't mind just shouting the other guy down when the facts aren't with them.

By the middle of this century whites will be a minority in America. Obama's election will be just the first sign of an inevitable future.

We lost the white racist vote a long time ago. The Pubs have been pretty effective at pushing their "meme' of the Democrats being the party of "uppity non-white-male folks."

Obama not getting those voters represents NO CHANGE from at least the last two election cycles. The difference between then and now is that he's bringing in an energized (or re-energized) cadres of young voters, African American voters, and more affluent, previously apathetic or cynical progressives to replace them, and Gore and Kerry didn't. I think that'll put him over the top.

I heard some repub say this was a common saying in Appalachia just before he claimed that race wasn't an issue there. lol

He brings up a good point, though. These are people who have been left behind. They're rarely talked about in the media and when they are, the pundits dance around the real issues they face to talk about god, gays and guns. Those things are symptomatic of the problem, not the root cause.

Of course I have to admit, if I had a choice between two parties and one was feeding my prejudices while the other was just ignoring me, I'd go with the one who at least looked at me.