The article says the democrats can’t keep groups happy in a bad economy.
They just have to keep them angry. Blacks are doing terribly under democrat rule, yet they vote almost 100% dem. It’s racial politics.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/ ~ although this is an Annenberg thing, and therefore produced by extreme far leftwing fanatics, the numbers are darned close to all the other sources on the question of when black voters became democrats and what percentage off them vote for democrats. it runs up to 2004 ~ which leaves us two subsequent obama ‘lections to consider. First ‘bama ‘lection gave him 98% of the black vote ~ according to this source. The Second ‘bama ‘lection fell off by several million votes. Actually, it fell of quite a bit ~ possibly as much as back to Nixon days which is why it’s not much discussed. What you will see is this business of EXIT POLLING, which is not terribly well grounded statistically speaking, being trotted out where its result support somebody’s narrow analysis. We should move boldly into ratcheting up the black Republican vote through the expedient of getting 30% of current black voters reregistered as Republicans.
That’s the best summation of why the author doesn’t get it. The economy is irrelevant in an era of identity politics. Anger at the “oppressor” (as the GOP has been successfully labeled) overrides any other consideration and drives voting behavior.