The "problem" with this analysis is -- what's the point? Analysis of the GOP's relative strengths and weaknesses comes down to geographic assessment. Schneider doesn't devote a segment to "What would the Senate look like if white Southerners didn vote for Republicans (which in some states they do to upwards of 70 or 80 percent)?" But blacks voting for Democrats is staged as some sort of "exception" that should implicitly invalidate the reality of the current political situation.I'd go even further. The best kept secret amongst people like Obama is this--the black vote is the best bargain in politics.
The Democrats monopoly on the black vote is almost wholly based on the perception of the Republican party as racist, and the brand Kennedy built, but LBJ really enacted, in the 60s.
Now, because of the black community's demography, it's likely that Democrats would still get a majority of black votes, even if this weren't the case.
But the GOP could probably peel off a 20-30 percent or so, and here is why they should be trying: Unlike evangelicals, black voters of this era, don't have a list of polarizing demands. Obama doesn't have to fear a Terri Schiavo incident, for instance.
Which is not to say that black voters don't have issues, but in the last election, I'm hard pressed to think of one that would crack the top three (health care, the war, the economy) that differ from those you'd find among white people that voted for Obama. All they ask is that you not have people at your rallies who feel comfortable (on camera!!) saying that they don't want a black president.
What was Obama's great strategy for securing the black vote? First, winning Iowa. Second, as Marc has reported, going on Tom Joyner. Repeatedly. I'm a black guy that would like to see torture investigated--but that's not because people in Harlem are out in the streets. It's because of what I believe individually.
People need to understand that this isn't 1988. Welfare was reformed, and Bill Clinton didn't lose a black supporter for it. The Crime Bill was passed, and they still called Clinton the "First Black president." You can't do Willie Horton today. You can't run a presidential campaign on Affirmative Action. There simply isn't a national issue that black voters are pushing for that white voters hate. The South Side isn't organizing around reparations. Maybe they should be. But they aren't.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Obama in his presser made a connection between race and class that signifies his appeal. Working class folks--that is lower middle class, the working poor--all have issues that coincide with Obama's program. Given that blacks (and latinos) are disproportionately among this economic class of people, it is not surprising in the least that along with all the other historical reasons, not the least of which being the tin earred Republican response to long standing and justified complaints from the black community, Obama is popular among African Americans.
What is telling is that given the previous President's having two African American Secretaries of State, Bush and his administration still lost ground among American blacks.
The interesting thing is that Republicans should want Obama to succeed in raising the incomes and opportunities for all the working poor and lower middle class. The more successful this segment of the population becomes, the more parallel their political interests with those of the Republican party will be.
Actually, I think that is incorrect. IIRC, Bush improved his share of the black vote in 2004 and in Ohio, he got about 12%.
Ken Mehlman tried to reach out to black voters to his credit and was rebuffed by the Rush Limbaugh wing of the party which was a shame as we as blacks need more options than the dems and the party that thinks we are a bunch of lazy negroes on welfare.
You can't underestimate the damage the Katrina response did to Republicans among black voters as well. The little that Mehlman accomplished was gone after that.
Agreed. Although Kanye is a tool, I think he summed up how a lot of Black people felt in the aftermath of that storm. All those people out there living on a bridge in their underwear, sitting their roofs in the sweltering heat, and Bush is at Camp David, chillin. Then when he finally shows up it's all smiles and grins and great jobs all around.
Although I always thought "George Bush doesn't care about black people" should have been more like "George Bush doesn't care about anybody outside of his little circle," although I guess that doesn't have the same ring to it...
I agree the numbers were up in 2004, but first of all that preceded Katrina, and secondly by the end of his administration the numbers were way, way down from 2000. Bush's sinking ship sunk all boats, in part because he appeared to champion elements of our society that historically have been anathemic to blacks, in part because his administration was a national disaster, not the least of which being in the area of the economy, which as President Obama has pointed out has disproportionately hit black communities.
In addition, Bush's share of the Black vote in 2000 was already low by historical standards, even for a GOP presidential candidate. He actually got a lower share than Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Dole, and his father; only Goldwater had a lower share, and Goldwater had actually opposed the Civil Rights Acts that LBJ eventually passed in 1964 and 1965.
Gay marriage carried the day for Bush amongst black voters in southern Ohio during the 2004 election. That, and Ken Blackwell.
Yeah, but in 2006 Ken Blackwell got his hat handed to him by the black electorate. And just about everyone else, to be quite frank.
There simply isn't a national issue that black voters are pushing for that white voters hate.
Maybe this explains the current state of the Republican Party. Perhaps Republicans simply don't understand living in a racially multi-polar as opposed to racially bi-polar world.
*the brand Kennedy built, but LBJ really enacted*
I think this kind of thinking gives way too much credit to JFK. He may have paid lip service to civil rights, but he was extremely timid in his actions, not wanting to damage the southern coalition which LBJ eventually shattered in order to make our country a democracy.
I agree entirely--LBJ was the one who really put his political neck out for civil rights, and frankly I've never really understood the love JFK gets from liberals. It probably has more to do with his being killed in his prime, and the list of "what coulda been done" had he lived longer.
I respect LBJ for knowingly limiting himself to one term and doing the most he could out of that term, but its a shame that he felt obligated to pursue the Vietnam War...I watched a documentary on PBS about him (followed by great comments by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who worked in his administration and was close to him) that strongly suggested his political sponsors, Kellogg Brown Root (later known as Halliburton) basically made him take us to war.
While LBJ was 10 times the politician George Bush was, its one of many interesting comparisons between the two men.
LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam on his own. See the Fog of War and listen to the tapes of conversations between Mac Namara and Johnson. By the time he left office, he was widely despised as a result. All his good works in the area of civil rights and poverty were undercut by that.
As a Senator, he was an old fashioned party politician who could twist arms to get what he wnted done. He was liberal by and large and did good things, not the least of which was to bring electricity to a wide swath of poor and rural Texas, but he always took more than his fair share off the top. He represented the best and worst of old fashioned Democratic politics. Nonetheless, on Viet Nam, he was a scoundrel and a nincompoop.
Citizen E, I watched Fog of War, great doc.
However, how does his conversations with MacNamara refute the argument that Kellogg Brown Root, which if I remember was said on PBS to have funded his rise to power out of Texas, pushed him to escalate the War in Vietnam for KBR's own defense contractor benefit?
I know Im treading into conspiracy theory grounds but indulge me.
I really like that you're taking on this issue, TNC. As a white, straight, small business owning, gun toting, red state living male I am PISSED that there are idiots out there still trying to analyze "the black vote" as though it's some joker in the deck that cna upset the whole poker game. As you and others have stated, the white evangelical vote is much more tenuous to hold onto and yet nothing has ever been reported about how that "shouldn't actually count" in the grand scheme.
You wrote: "The Democrats monopoly on the black vote is almost wholly based on the perception of the Republican party as racist..."
And in my mind that is the game, set, match to the whole fucking deal. Republicans shoot themselves in the foot continuously (at least monthly if not weekly) with some stupid comment that people across the country see through as subliminally if not overtly racist.
MEMO TO THE REPUBLICN PARTY: If you stop talking and acting like racist assholes, people might stop thinking you are.
Which is exactly why they won't stop. You think they wanna lose their base?
All they ask is that you not have people at your rallies who feel comfortable (on camera!!) saying that they don't want a black president.
EXACTLY! There are plenty of black folks who agree with conservatives on social issues and a few policy issues. But tea bagging events, Sarah Palin campaign rallies, etc. look too much like kkk rallies to successfully attract black voters.
Keep in mind that the crazies at those rallies do not just scare off black voters who might otherwise be inclined to vote Republican, they also scare off white (Asian, Latino) voters who are fiscally conservative but socially moderate and who can not get their mind around being in the same party as the Sarah Palin fans.
This is true.
Yes, this is true.
My mother is a fairly progressive white southerner. She's not overtly racist, but she's a daughter of her times. She voted for Clinton in the primary and might have considered voting for McCain. But after Palin's debut, she threatened to disown me if I didn't vote for Obama. Palin and Palin's supporters frighten everyone who isn't a wingnut.
Coates, I dont fully agree that
Coates, I dont fully agree that
Other major reasons predating that:
1. The Hayes-Tilden Betrayal errr Compromise, where the Dems agreed to accept the razor-thin GOP electoral victory in exchange for the GOP ending Reconstruction policies.
2. The Depression policies of FDR, which included the priceless gift of sending WPA writers to document the oral histories of the last living former slaves in the Black community.
3. Harry Truman desegregating the US military in the mid-1940s, to which I directly owe my existence and my family's ability to climb out of the ghettoes of Tampa, Florida.
To all of that you can add the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s.
My apologies for the double posting.
This is all true. I don't have any objection. To incorporate a lot of what you said, the loyalty is based on investments made by previous Democratic administrations.
Exactly. The point Im driving at which you have helped clarify, is that even the "old" Democrat party, the party of Robert Byrd, made at least one memorable authentic gesture to the Black voter every generation for three generations prior to JFK/LBJ--FDR reached out during the Depression and in WWII, Truman reached out following WWII, and JFK and LBJ capped off their work. They did this even as the Republican relationship to Black voters began fraying going into the 20th century, Calvin Coolidge's efforts to speak out against lynching being a fine exception.
IOW, the switch didnt happen through empty gestures, and didnt happen overnight, and I dont think the GOP and their voters get that.
How right you are Juba. The Democrats, haven't very good answers to the question "what have you done for me lately," but almost every generation in the late 19th into the 20th century the party made non-superficial policy advances that sought to mitigate the structure menstral al disadvantage that black folks suffer in this country. Meanwhile, the other guys routinely, even to this day with the minstrel show that is Michael Steel, play on racial fears and animosity and continually highlight their party-wide deep, deep misunderstanding about the significance of race in America.
The "problem" with this analysis is -- what's the point? Analysis of the GOP's relative strengths and weaknesses comes down to geographic assessment. Schneider doesn't devote a segment to "What would the Senate look like if white Southerners didn vote for Republicans (which in some states they do to upwards of 70 or 80 percent)?" But blacks voting for Democrats is staged as some sort of "exception" that should implicitly invalidate the reality of the current political situation.
Amen.
Tired of folks making us out to still be 3/5ths.
We are not.
I'll get in trouble again:
You want American Exceptionalism; look no further than the Black Community and America.
Not that anyone is really defending York, but he claims that it's all a semantic attack by the PC police, and he's just talkin' about demographics.
Take it out of politics and see how stupid it sounds:
"The Washington Redskins' sky-high number of touchdowns make some of their winning scores appear a bit higher overall than they actually are."
It's nonsensical. Points are points, whether on the football field or in an opinion poll. Unless you think Black voters are going to flee Obama, there's only one real assumption that could underlie the statement.
"What was Obama's great strategy for securing the black vote? First, winning Iowa."
I'm going to speak to this because, well, I'm an Iowan and was a precinct captain for the Obama campaign for the caucuses and the general.
Yes, Obama won the caucuses here but it was sooooo much more than *just* winning. Both John Edwards and HRC had big name recognition, not to mention JE was a candidate before and "knew" how Iowa worked. Keep in mind that HRC was polling up to 25 points higher in late summer 07 so her winning was just inevitable... Iowans have always known about the caucuses but not until Obama's campaign did people really want to be talked to about it and be engaged in the process! This is where the ground game simply kicked ass. When the last poll came about just days before the caucus on January 3rd, Obama was UP, in a span of 4 months the gap didn't just close but the lead reversed.
What I'm trying to say here is that yes, Obama won here for the caucuses but what also happened is that Iowans got to thumb their noses at the MSM and the Clinton's given both were basically telling us that HRC was inevitable.
So guess what follow's Obama' caucus win? Iowa goes blue on November 4th (ahem, my precinct went 75% for Obama, thank you...) and just this past Monday, the county recorder's offices statewide began issuing same-sex marriage licenses!!!
See, we're not all that bad here among the corn fields...
The issues that blacks care about and that white do not are just not discussed during elections these days. In the last week, the Obama Administration was in front of the Supreme Court arguing that the government should be able to treat blacks and whites differently.
Whites are just not allowed to discuss things such as 8a minority set aside contracting, affirmative action, quotas, and race based social engineering. Last year, the Seattle School system was in front of the supreme court arguing that race based social engineering is not only legal but good public policy. The Democrats form Michigan was in front a Supreme Cort in this decade arguing that separate and unequal college admission policies were legal.
Any party that is against separate and unequal treatment will be called racist by blacks and will not get their votes. It is impossible for the more conservative party to ever appeal to blacks when the Democrats are soo good at pandering to blacks.