Black voter support was key for Obama in key primary contests. But is too much support pushing working-class white voters back to Camp Hillary?
Can you believe I just typed that sentence? Neither can I.
Am I too idealistic? I just don't buy a lot of these early voter bloc rundowns that claim to point to the effect of black candidate + black supporters on the national contest. A guest on the Colbert Report the other night correctly point out that we don't have a white candidate and a black candidate. We have a white candidate and a mixed candidate who's been forced (or at least left with little choice) but to the The Black Candidate. He's just as white as he is black, but we don't let people be both really, do we? At least not when it comes to a black/white mix.
Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist who tracks racial trends and is writing a book on Obama, thinks Obama's strong support from blacks made it easier for some whites in Ohio and Texas to vote for Clinton.
"There's some of that," Walters said in an interview. He pointed to exit polls from Ohio, where 62 percent of all whites lack college degrees and many are anxious about their jobs in a weak economy.
"This is a racially sensitive group," he said, referring specifically to whites who earn less than $50,000 a year and did not attend college.
"They are the quintessential Reagan Democrats," he said. "They feel they've been left" and their resentment can have social and racial overtones.
Right, well, first off, isn't a bit soon to be writing a book on Obama? We're still writing history. Anyway - and why would lower-educated, job-losing whites take out their fear on a black candidate? I thought it was the browns taking their jobs?
Clearly I don't think that's a good reason to bloc-vote against any non-white candidate. There is no good reason, of course. But it just seems (like Michigan and Florida screwing themselves by screwing with the primary calendar) that we're trying too hard to make this election fit an outdated playbook. We get so damn uncomfortable without our prediction-enabling patterns.
This notion that "Obama's black support is driving some working-class whites into Clinton's corner" just floors me. Perhaps it's that "Clinton's strong support within the Ohio Democratic establishment, starting with the governor" is what is drawing people over to her. Does that create a secondary question of whether the establishment in some states is limited to whites? Ugh - you can't get away from it, can you?
Meanwhile, Clinton continues to draw about 10 percent to 20 percent of black voters, who sometimes have to defend their choice.
"She has the most experience," said Elexis Griffin, a black worker at a law office who attended a Clinton fundraiser in Canton, Ohio. "Obama has only been in the Senate three years. I'm not anti-Barack. I'm just pro-Hillary."
Griffin, who is 25 and considering law school, said, "I sit here almost every single day and hear debating: Hillary or Obama? My closest friends, I have very much influenced their vote for Hillary. They accuse me of being against the social movement. And I accuse them of voting with their emotions and not looking at the facts."
Having to defend ones vote is terrible. Celebrating ones vote is far more fun and engaging. Can anyone case a vote in this election that cannot also be said to be an ID vote? Maybe we need two white men back to ease our troubled choices here. No, no that's not the way to go. Do women get a pass in this race by being able to cite experience while still letting their ovaries guide them? Or is it valide to vote by ovary just as much as it is to vote by race if you finally get a chance to elect someone who looks like you to the White House?
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