Last month, I took some heat, and praise, for suggesting that there might be something to the idea that Obama was upset in New Hampshire partly due to his race. It seemed suspicious that the exit polls, in such a small state, were so far off, lending some support to the theory that people will sometimes fail to pull the lever for a African-American candidate but then tell pollsters that they did. (Obama had just swept the Iowa caucuses where voters have to take a very public stand.) Actually, I did not fully endorse the notion that this had happened in New Hampshire -- I merely took exception to all the pundits who were claiming that surely racism was dead among all those good Democrats of New Hampshire.Anyway: The results of Super Tuesday make me revisit this, again very tentatively. Without going into all the results: Obama inspired unexpected landslides in nearly all of the caucus states while barely eaking out wins (or getting trounced) in nearly all of the voting booth states. He did win Georgia easily, but like in South Carolina, he had a huge black base there, and of course he rumbled in home state Illinois. Again, there is the haunting evidence that most exit polls yesterday suggested very tight fights, or even Obama wins, in California, New Jersey and several other places -- where he ended up losing badly. How did that happen?
Exit polls showed that he got about 43% of the white vote around the U.S. -- but does this even come close to lining up to the likely votes cast? If someone could crunch those numbers it would be interesting to know if there is any way he could have performed so middling in nearly all of the non-caucus states, unless white voters were not being straight with pollsters. Just wondering here.
UPDATE Here are the margins of Obama's wins in caucus states only: Iowa 38-29, Minnesota 67-32, Colorado 67-32, Kansas 74-26, Idaho 81-17, North Dakota 61-37, Alaska 72-27, leads New Mexico 49-48, lost Nevada 51-45 but won the most delegates.
3 comments:
No need to be so tentative. Identity politics is alive and well.
Though the Obama camp is bragging of his gains among Latinos, this boast should be taken with a grain of salt: in Arizona and California, the two primary states with large Latino populations, Clinton won easily. Obama won Colorado and New Mexico, which were caucus states--with unrecorded Latino participation in those caucuses.
In fact, as you are one of the lonely voices to note, it's fair to say that except for Illinois (his home state) and Georgia and Alabama (states with large African-American populations), Obama won by serious margins =only= in caucus states.
His two primary state victories were squeakers--Connecticut by 3.5 per cent, Missouri by 1 percent. In the other primary states, Clinton beat him handily.
Obviously caucus states have the same weight as primary states in the delegate count--that's why the count is so close. But what yesterday indicated was that as of today Obama--momentum or not, cash advantage or not--can win a primary in a high-population state only with the near-total support of African-American voters. Missouri was a victory for him, but a victory with a sting in its tail.
I don't get it, surely Latinos have put it together that Bill Clinton sold their brothers in Mexico to the slave industries through NAFTA, and yet still they vote for billary.
Damn shame.
My only issue is whether there more prejudice against race or gender. My personal experience in TX is that people are more accepting of minority males (and are quicker to promote them, vote for them, etc) than of white females.
I have no doubt that people will vote differently in private than how they will vote in public. The question is which prejudice is stronger.
The bottom line is we have 2 candidates that are saddled with a burden of prejudice. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that we are trying to push through barriers and bad in that it may cost us the election.
My gut tells me that race and gender will affect which states are swing states and which are lost causes and that the calculation this year will be different than in prior years.
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