In Dem Primaries, Race a Factor in Voting

mykevermin

mykevermin

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Not that it's very surprising - the idea of voting for the first legitimate (c'mon, Jesse Jackson stood less of a chance than Ron Paul did) black candidate must be very enticing, of course.

Wait. What? Oh, I see. Forgive the clamor and the ticker-tape parades set up to celebrate what a racially-undivided country we've become. It's actually the case that in several states, between 12 and 19 percent of all Democratic primary voters said that race was an important factor (and 4 saying the important factor) in selecting a candidate.

The majority of those folks who said race was important cast their votes for Hillary Clinton.

Taken from an editorial that appeared in Sunday's Philadelphia Enquirer:

Editorial: Voting Patterns
Race still matters

Gov. Rendell may have been right all along when he said some white voters in Pennsylvania aren't ready to vote for a black presidential candidate.

In the Democratic primary, 19 percent of all voters said race was an important factor in their decision. And 4 percent of voters said it was the most important factor. Among this group that acknowledged taking race into consideration, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama, 59 percent to 41 percent.

And the exit polls suggest a similar motivation among some black voters. Four percent of Pennsylvania voters were African Americans who said race was an important factor in their decision.

For decades, blacks have given strong support to white Democratic candidates. But on Tuesday, given a choice, 90 percent of African American voters chose Obama. It's not quite the same as Rendell's canon that some white voters cannot bring themselves to support a black candidate. But it shows that at least many black voters based their choice on race. Thirty-seven percent of white voters supported Obama.

Does all of this mean Pennsylvania is an intolerant cauldron of racial division? No. If anything, the results show that Pennsylvanians are very similar to voters in other states when taking race into account.

But the results here and nationally do show that there is more work to be done on accepting candidates on their positions on the issues, rather than on race.

Considering that Pennsylvania was the first primary held after the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's inflammatory racial rhetoric, the exit polls indicate that voters here didn't allow it to influence them. The breakdown of voters along racial lines followed closely the results in earlier primaries, before Wright's comments became an issue.

In Texas, 19 percent of voters said race was an important factor (7 percent said it was the most important). Of this group, Clinton won 52 percent. In Ohio, 17 percent said race was important; Clinton won 60 percent of them. Obama won 88 percent of the black vote in Ohio.

New Jersey, which held its primary on Feb. 5, has a more diverse electorate than Pennsylvania. Just as in Pennsylvania, 19 percent of New Jersey voters said race was an important factor. But Obama won in that group with 49 percent, to Clinton's 47 percent. (John Edwards received 4 percent.)

When one-fifth of Democratic primary voters admit taking race into account in the ballot booth, it shows the nation still has social hurdles to overcome. If a candidate's race is as important to some voters as his or her views on the economy, or the cost of health care, then something is being lost in the debate over how to move the country forward.
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http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080427_Editorial__Voting_Patterns.html

Pack up the self-congratulatory parade and put it back in dry-storage, folks. It's a stupid or naive gesture to vote for a candidate you support because they happen to be a preferred racial category (or 50% of one, at any rate). But voting against someone because of their racial category is a whole other matter. Both are indeed racism, to be sure.
 
Enough with your liberal facts and statistics. I personally have never seen this happen ... so it hasn't.

/snark
 
It's also been statistically proven (as I'm sure you are aware, so I won't waste time with links - if you want proof, look at a line-up of presidents yourself) that only "good looking" candidates ever get to primary's or get elected. You can even predict, with a really decent accuracy, electoral wins based on certain looks.

Now I am not at all saying that Hillary is hot. I am saying that considering attributes such as hair quality and symmetry, that are studied by scientists that specialize in what makes humans "attractive" to other humans, play large factors in who is voted for.

In summary, beyond race, how a person looks in general has a great deal to do with their successes in an election.

So myke, I have two questions for you:

1 - If it's provable that how a person looks, even beyond race, affects elections, will you become an "anti-ugly" discrimination activist?

2 - Let's pretend for a minute you had the power to enforce this hypothetical fantasy scenario: For reasons of fairness, AA, reparations, or whatever other long list of issues you feel as far as racial injustice go - if you could force just one presidential election where only blacks could run, would you?
 
Let's see, when did the Wright controversy start...

Here's a better question, if Hilary's pastor showed up on youtube and started spouting off a white version of what Wright said, how do you think the polls would have skewed?

I want to make it clear I feel bad for Obama that all this happened and his getting tarred with the same brush is not fair, but unfortunately that's how politics goes sometimes.
 
I worry more about the Bradley Effect than racism especially in a general election, at least you know what you get with outright racist


though stories like this should get more play, but sadly it wont
 
[quote name='VanillaGorilla']Not surprised, all Democrats are racist.[/QUOTE]

Oh I dunno about that. ;)

It might be more accurate to say that most democratic agenda depends heavily on the existence of racism and bigotry though.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']
It might be more accurate to say that most democratic agenda responds heavily to the existence of racism and bigotry though.[/quote]

Fixed. ;)
 
[quote name='pittpizza']Fixed. ;)[/QUOTE]

Ok, fine. That's still my point.

Without a war to fight, neither party has a platform. The war democrats need is racism, bigotry, and unfairness. Without those things, they have no war, and little reason to exist. So it can be argued that they depend on those things to exist.

And yes, you can make the same arguments for Republicans, but I don't need to, since they are your favorite talking points.

It's just important to realize, sometimes, that many fights and many wars provide so much power to many organizations, they will make sure they are never won. And that goes for just about any conflict, take your pick.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Ok, fine. That's still my point.

Without a war to fight, neither party has a platform. The war democrats need is racism, bigotry, and unfairness. Without those things, they have no war, and little reason to exist. So it can be argued that they depend on those things to exist.

And yes, you can make the same arguments for Republicans, but I don't need to, since they are your favorite talking points.

It's just important to realize, sometimes, that many fights and many wars provide so much power to many organizations, they will make sure they are never won. And that goes for just about any conflict, take your pick.[/quote]

Using that logic we should still be living in the days of Prohibition. Plenty of political hay was made out of the temperence movement on both sides, yet today there is little debate that alcohol is an accepted part of American culture.

Not every politican operates like Karl Rove, just look at what Lyndon Johnson did for the civil rights movement, for instance.
 
I agree with Camoor. Your point, though probably true about Rovian politics and the Idiot Son of an Asshole's administration, doesn't really hold water.

There are some "issues" (you call them wars) that get targeted by each party, but that doesn't mean the party's members don't really want to effectuate change.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']It's just important to realize, sometimes, that many fights and many wars provide so much power to many organizations, they will make sure they are never won. And that goes for just about any conflict, take your pick.[/QUOTE]

The global war on terror?

Abortion?

Hmm. Perhaps you're onto something.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']The global war on terror?

Abortion?

Hmm. Perhaps you're onto something.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely.

Right along side with racism, bigotry, sexism, cultural tension, and any other social tension you can name.

Typically the Repubs focus on the conflict outside the country to stir the shit and try to sell solutions. While the Dems do the same with social issues.
 
There is undoubtedly a need to, well, "create a need" for certain political perspectives.

And, for the record, I've always held that I'll vote as Republican (well, Libertarian, I reckon, since I'm not at all hip to GOP social stances) as fuck once inequality is minimized in American society. Not the "some people make $15K a year and some people make 500K a year" inequality, but the sorts of inequality inherent in the opportunities people have developmentally (poor neighborhoods and schools) and in terms of bias (reduced opportunities due to racism/sexism/homophobia/religious intolerance/etc.).

Once you can show me that people are being hired, fired, promoted, and sanctioned without any indication that some characteristic unrelated to their achievement or work ethic is being brought into the equation (either directly or indirectly), then I'm all for a meritocracy. But I'm not in favor of a meritocracy where people have built in advantages and disadvantages, and then being told by others that the only thing people need to do to succeed in the US is "work hard." That's a lie.

But, by arguing that the Dems "need" racism, you're making an incorrect side argument that the Dems "create" racism and point out racism where it is not in order to make themselves relevant. Which ultimately serves the goal, to you at any rate, of acting as if racism is not a big deal in modern American society - but if it is, it's because the Democrats need it to be and thus foster it.

Which is, of course, a political parlor trick, and not one I'm falling for.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']
And, for the record, I've always held that I'll vote as Republican (well, Libertarian, I reckon, since I'm not at all hip to GOP social stances) as fuck once inequality is minimized in American society. Not the "some people make $15K a year and some people make 500K a year" inequality, but the sorts of inequality inherent in the opportunities people have developmentally (poor neighborhoods and schools) and in terms of bias (reduced opportunities due to racism/sexism/homophobia/religious intolerance/etc.).

Once you can show me that people are being hired, fired, promoted, and sanctioned without any indication that some characteristic unrelated to their achievement or work ethic is being brought into the equation (either directly or indirectly), then I'm all for a meritocracy. But I'm not in favor of a meritocracy where people have built in advantages and disadvantages, and then being told by others that the only thing people need to do to succeed in the US is "work hard." That's a lie.[/quote]

That's all noble and stuff. But I doubt I could ever show you one way or the other when those things happen. I would really like to hear you describe the methods in which you intend to use to accurately take unbiased measurements of all that stuff.

People are going to be assholes and discriminate against you being ugly, sick too often, poor hygiene , having long hair, being a poor dresser.... the list goes on. So how are you going to stop all that? Better yet, how are you planning to accurately detect when it's stopped?

For the record, I think having minimum education requirements that can't be made up for with experience, for most jobs (other than maybe doctor), is discrimination too. I can't count how many people I've worked with at how many jobs that got hired simply because they had certain degrees, yet knew so little and performed so poorly compared to those that didn't (while making more $)

So while your on your crusade, please address that.

But, by arguing that the Dems "need" racism, you're making an incorrect side argument that the Dems "create" racism and point out racism where it is not in order to make themselves relevant. Which ultimately serves the goal, to you at any rate, of acting as if racism is not a big deal in modern American society - but if it is, it's because the Democrats need it to be and thus foster it.

Which is, of course, a political parlor trick, and not one I'm falling for.
Click to expand...

I am not saying racism is not a big deal. I simply don't know how big of a deal it is. And I am even suggesting at the possibility of there being so many biased fingers in the pie, maybe nobody really does know how big of a deal it is.

Let's use our imaginations for a minute and pretend racism was magically abolished tomorrow by a magic tomato. Suddenly nobody judged by race. How would you know? How long would it take for you to believe it was? Do you honestly believe people would suddenly stop complaining about discrimination? Do you honestly believe your hiring statistics would suddenly "even out"? Would you yourself even be capable of believing it was gone?

What I do know, however, is that there are MANY professions, entire government departments, politicians, and political parties who's livelihood, jobs, funding, and power depend on certain social ills persisting. I think that's common sense. So if you want to believe it's absurd to believe they don't each have some degree of a vested interest in harboring and perpetuating divisive social mechanisms, so be it, since I don't have any accredited studies to link to prove it.

But I do find it very ironic that so many people believe Republicans are always picking fights because they sell themselves as the only party that can fix them to stay in power, if those same people can't believe the above.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Not the "some people make $15K a year and some people make 500K a year" inequality, but the sorts of inequality inherent in the opportunities people have developmentally (poor neighborhoods and schools) and in terms of bias (reduced opportunities due to racism/sexism/homophobia/religious intolerance/etc.).[/QUOTE]

What is absolutely fascinating to me is that I would say one of the primary goals of society is to achieve these things as well, but I have a VERY different opinion of how we do so. For example, instead of doing whatever the teachers' unions say, I'd privatize all schools and go to a pure voucher system; and I'd eliminate "affirmative action" in favor of not trying to make two wrongs make a right. But even if these things were to succeed I would hardly suggest you vote Republican (or Democrat for that matter).

As for your OP, I would point out that race was not a big factor in the primary until the Clintons made it a factor. Early on more than half of blacks were voting for Clinton, and sometime shortly before South Carolina a disgusting attempt by Bill and Hillary Clinton to bring race to the forefront in hopes it would favor them politically was plain for all to see.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']
Typically the Repubs focus on the conflict outside the country to stir the shit and try to sell solutions. While the Dems do the same with social issues.[/quote]

And where would you say our representative's time is better spent: On issues within our country, or on issues outside the country?

Hmmm.....Hmmm....

What do to......what to do....

Should we help OUR people, or OTHER people? Hmm..

Boy that's a tough one!
 
[quote name='pittpizza']And where would you say our representative's time is better spent: On issues within our country, or on issues outside the country?

Hmmm.....Hmmm....

What do to......what to do....

Should we help OUR people, or OTHER people? Hmm..

Boy that's a tough one![/QUOTE]

Two different philosophies about that. Many people feel looking at the big picture, what happens in other countries affects us down the road. They also feel that focusing too much on problems at home is short-sighted in that regard.

And then there is another philosophy that only cares about world affairs as far as keeping our popularity up.

I'm not saying that's how I think, mind you. But I do think Ron Paul would probably have more support if he wasn't totally anti-foreign affairs.
 
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