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Last evening, less than a week after Hillary Clinton touted her strong support among “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” she absolutely trounced Barack Obama in West Virginia. Her inelegant phrasing had been roundly criticized in the press far and wide–by Rolling Stone (”Clinton: I’m the Cracker Candidate”), conservative columnist Peggy Noonan (”Damsel in Distress”), in Salon.com (”Was Hillary Channeling George Wallace”), as well as just about every other column, columnist, pundit, and blogger.
Despite the offensiveness with which her remarks can rightly be taken (as a white American who didn’t vote for her, I assumed that I was simply not hard working–a fact that may be true), Hillary was on to something. The promise of Barack Obama’s campaign was that he brought a new kind of post-racial politics to America. Indeed, his support initially was heavier among whites than African Americans, and perhaps we remember the plethora of stories as to whether Obama was “black enough” (see for example, Time from February 2007). As the primary has worn on, Obama has shown an amazing appeal to some whites, particularly younger whites, but his support among whites has dropped, in near congruence with the growth of support among African Americans.
In West Virginia, perhaps a sad sign of the times, the racial numbers were quite scary, and I encourage anyone to see for themselves by checking out the exit polls (CNN has a full posting of the exit polls for Campaign 2008). Pay attention, in particular, to the numbers on race.
- 8% of voters said that race was the most important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary.
Let me say that again, 8% of voters in the DEMOCRATIC primary said that race was the MOST important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary (for perspective, that’s 18% higher than her overall percentage).
- 14% of voters said that race was one of several important factors, and 79% of these voters cast a ballot for Hillary
- overall, 22% of voters identified race as an important (or the most important factor), and Hillary garnered 81% from this group
- 50% of voters believed that Obama shared the views of Rev. Wright, even after distancing himself strongly from his former pastor
The racial gap was particularly pronounced among older demographic groups–whereas Hillary won 59% of the white vote among 17-29 year olds, she captured 70% among whites aged 60 and older.
What does all this mean? It could mean quite a lot in the general election, since Barack Obama will certainly need to win the support of the vast majority of Hillary’s supporters, though 54% of Hillary’s voters said they would be unsatisfied with an Obama nomination–particularly troubling for Obama given that almost anyone with access to news knows that he is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination–and only 51% of Democratic voters said they would vote for Obama against McCain (29% would vote for McCain, and 18% said they would not vote).
But, the election is still nearly 6 months away, and the silver lining for Obama is that despite it all, he won more votes than John McCain yesterday. Granted, the Republican race has been over for months and not generating much enthusiasm. BUT, as people become accustomed to voting for Obama, they’ll probably be back in the fall. Given the overwhelming tide against Republicans this year, Obama still has a decent shot at winning states such as West Virginia in the fall, after the Democratic establishment (including Hillary) rallies around his candidacy. But, the map that we’ve been used to for the past 16 years is likely to be turned on its head, with Obama competitive in some states in the west/southwest and McCain potentially eating into the blue states of the midwest and east.
Obama certainly knows he has a problem. Yesterday, he was in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (the hometown of Rush Limbaugh and where I formerly lived for five years), yesterday talking with the types of people that Hillary Clinton was referring to in her speech last week. I called a former colleague to ask him about the Obama event and was informed that initially that it was supposed to be a larger rally, likely to be held on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, but instead it was moved into a small establishment, allowing Obama to speak directly to a group of a couple hundred largely white working-class voters rather than his base of college students.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:21 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
May 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
“Rolling Stone (”Clinton: I’m the Cracker Candidate”)…”
That’s today’s U.S. for you — anti-white slurs now an accepted part of the journalistic lexicon.
News bulletin: no white riots have been planned in response.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I would not count on too much rallying to Obama. He is fairly well known now to the Democratic primary electorate and about half said that they would not vote for him, and this is before the Republicans have exposed his record as being as extremely liberal as it is and his position on Iraq as being as unrealistic and irresponsible as it is. Many of the disgruntled Hillary voters will come back to Obama, but many won’t.
Obama has a decent shot at the election, but this should have been pretty much of a sure thing for the Democrats. With the divisions and the extremism of their candidate, McCain has a good chance of taking the election.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Everyone expected Clinton to win big in West Virginia, so what !
Much more interesting is that Mississipi turfed out a Republican and elected a Democrat governor after decades of deep conservatism.
The South is much more important electorally than one tiny state where Obama ran dead because he knew the result was a foregone conclusion.
Who is surprised that that old white conservatives in one tiny state prefer an old white conservative woman.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:07 am
That 90+% of blacks vote for Obama is what?
Let me say that again, 8% of voters in the DEMOCRATIC primary said that race was the MOST important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary (for perspective, that’s 18% higher than her overall percentage).
May 15th, 2008 at 8:08 am
That 90+% of black voter vote for Obama because of race means what? Or is it only whites who are “racist”?
Let me say that again, 8% of voters in the DEMOCRATIC primary said that race was the MOST important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary (for perspective, that’s 18% higher than her overall percentage).
May 15th, 2008 at 8:21 am
mark ronberg wrote:
“The South is much more important electorally than one tiny state….”
True, but Obama’s demographics in the South are quite weak. He won the NC primary by 14 pts. with only 36% of the white vote. Not a good indicator for him to take into November.
“Who is surprised that that old white conservatives in one tiny state prefer an old white conservative woman.”
I’ll take an old white conservative over a young deluded white liberal any day. Or an aggrieved black, for that matter.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:43 am
NYC:
It sounds like your more interested in voting based on color rather than issues, agendas, and ideas. Perhaps many Americans feel and react this way. Perhaps many Americans need to ask themselves where this will lead them.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am
James T:
It will lead them to four more years of the same. Hopefully, most voters are smarter than that.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Gary:
Hopefully. Time will tell. The trouble is, change is needed and people are naturally uncomfortable with change. Time will tell.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
“Aggrieved”?
May 18th, 2008 at 6:13 am
It’s interesting that in their top 2 candidates the Democrats nationally appear to have moved beyond race and gender as excluding candidacy as Obama and Clintom both have made a strong competitive showing. (of course there are pockets of conservatism where race eg W. Virginia, and gender are still issues)
The Republicans apparently can’t even move beyond senility with their overwhelming choice of the (very) old, conservative white, male WASP McCain.
The electorate is much more diverse than the republican candidate Mc Cain’s narrow background. How dumb is it to entirely alienate the black, female and youth vote in one hit? In anyone’s language these are an overwhelming majority in EVERY state of the electorate.
The wipeout is coming for the republicans and they are too dumb to notice or care. The Democrats will win under either Obama or Clinton or both in whatever combination.
Ask yourself if the republicans would even consider choosing a young black female as VP running mate to McCain to balance their ticket? Not even if their life depended on it. It is simply not in their nature.
(as for Condi Rice the “good ol’ boys” in the GOP see her as good enough to work in the kitchen but not in the oval office)
May 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Don’t be overconfident. The average voter has shown a remarkable capacity to overlook the obvious. Otherwise, there is no way GWB gets a second term.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:31 am
What the Republicans want is a 3rd term for Bush or a Bush like candidate. They know that even they can not trick or scare the American people into voting that unwisely…again. Unfortunately I believe McCain has a solid chance, and he can be manipulated to be the next GWB come year 2. Believe me, there would be no change in the current energy crises, war in Iraq, war on terror in general, immigration practices, or government growth. Basically no change. It is clear that now, more than ever before, change is needed in a big way. It’s time for America to be a leader again, liked again and respected again. Not just feared.