Posted on 09/16/2007 9:33:49 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Those who have been closely following the politics of the Democratic primaries may have noticed that someone is missing -- and I'm not referring to Bob Shrum, the Rev. Al Sharpton or an as-yet-undiscovered "Gravel Girl."
I'm talking about the white male voter, or at least a certain long-coveted variety thereof. He is variously known as "NASCAR dad" -- that shirt-sleeved, straight-talkin', these-colors-don't-run fella who votes his cultural values above all else -- or "Bubba," as Steve Jarding and Dave "Mudcat" Saunders affectionately call him in their book, "Foxes in the Henhouse." Start looking on milk cartons for Bubba because he has vanished, and not a moment too soon: The Democratic obsession with the down-home, blue-collar, white male voter, that heartbreaker who crossed the aisle to the Republicans many decades ago, may finally be coming to a merciful end.
The simplest explanation for Bubba's absence to date is that none of the 2008 Democratic presidential contenders provides an obvious home for his vote. Despite accusations that Hillary Clinton is prone to dropping her "g's" when talking to rural or Southern audiences, it's difficult to imagine the former first lady making overt appeals to a group that regards her with something verging on rabid disgust. Barack Obama? The former Chicago street activist is not easily mistaken for a good ole boy. Ditto for Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson.
But the underlying reason may be demographics. In 1952, according to calculations performed by Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz for Salon, white males were nearly half the American electorate. Thanks to the recent growth in the Latino population, however, the white male share is now dropping about a percentage point a year, accelerating a decline that began with the increased enfranchisement of African-Americans in the civil rights era. In next year's election, white males may account for fewer than one out of three voters. Bubba is no longer a kingmaker.
In the current primary season, only Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has bothered to make so much as a feint toward the Bubba vote, with an absurd analogy between his home state and the South. In January, when pressed by "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace on how a "Northeastern liberal like Joe Biden" hoped to compete in South Carolina, the senator responded: "You don't know my state. My state was a slave state ... My state is anything [but] a Northeast liberal state." Biden's comment left Southern politics expert Merle Black scratching his head. "That's just really quite bizarre," the Emory professor told the Wilmington News Journal. "That's not how you appeal to Southern voters."
But the candidacy that most testifies to Bubba's declining stock is that of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
At first blush, Edwards, the Southern populist nonpareil, seems ideally situated to corner the market on working-class, white male voters. But aside from his homegrown accent, Edwards displays none of the affectations or semiotics that might once have signaled his intent to woo them. There are no Lamar Alexander-style flannel shirts; there is no sponsorship, à la Florida Sen. Bob Graham four years ago, of a NASCAR racing team. Instead, Edwards -- whose father worked in a textile mill -- hammers the issue of economic justice largely, if not completely, without overt cultural appeals. If he were a character from Southern literature, the former trial lawyer would be Atticus Finch of "To Kill a Mockingbird," not Henry Drummond of "Inherit the Wind."
Tens of millions of white men still vote Democratic, of course, and not just Prius drivers, eggheads, grunge-band leaders or Warren Beatty's Hollywood buddies. Most notably, working-class white men who are current or retired union members cast their votes for Democrats, in the stubborn belief that only Democrats will protect and promote their economic interests. "The 2004 CNN exit poll data shows that [John] Kerry lost white males by 31 points if they weren't in a union, but won them by seven points if they were -- a 38-point difference," says Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director of the AFL-CIO. "It's no accident -- union members understand that their votes make a difference, for their wages, their healthcare and their pensions. If, as they say, 'there's something the matter with Kansas,' there's nothing the matter with union members."
In 2004, according to New York Times exit polls, Democrat Kerry won 38 percent of the total white male vote, confirming a familiar pattern. Kerry's share was basically the same that every Democratic presidential candidate has received since Michael Dukakis. In the four elections between 1988 and 2000, in fact, using New York Times exit poll results, the Democratic nominee won 36 percent, 37 percent, 38 percent and 36 percent, respectively, of votes cast by white men. Because white men cast between 33 and 36 percent of all votes in 2004, that means a mere 12 to 13 percentage points of Kerry's 48 percent nationally came from white men -- about one vote in four. Nevertheless, and despite running against an incumbent in the first post-Sept. 11 presidential election, Kerry still came within one state of winning the Electoral College. Four years earlier, Al Gore also came within one state of reaching the magical 270 electors, and actually won the popular vote nationally -- while, like Kerry, receiving only about one-fourth of his support from white men.
What about Super-Bubba himself, Bill Clinton? By siphoning off 22 percent of the white male vote in 1992, Ross Perot would appear to have prevented Clinton from breaking the Democrats' pattern. But more revealing is the fact that when in 1996 Perot's support among white men fell by half, to 11 percent, Clinton's support improved by a meager 1 percent. The truth is that Clinton was no more dependent on white male votes for his two wins than Gore and Kerry were penalized for garnering the same level of support from these voters in their two defeats.
Yet centrist Democrats continue to urge the party to find new ways to lure white male voters back into the fold. Bill Galston, former domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton and one of Washington's sharpest analysts, is a proponent of a Democratic reinvestment in white male voters. "Today, white males form about 39 percent of the electorate," Galston wrote in Blueprint, the monthly magazine of the Democratic Leadership Council, in the summer following the 2000 election. "The Republican margin of 20 to 25 percentage points among white males thus translates into an edge of between 8 percent and 10 percent of the entire electorate. By comparison, African-Americans form 10 percent of the electorate, and the Democrats' 80-point margin in this group translates into an eight-percent edge in the electorate as a whole. Republican strength among white men more than offsets Democrats' dominance of the African-American vote."
That's one way to look at it. But Galston's own math reveals an obvious alternative view, namely, that Democrats are able to neutralize their white male voter problem with votes from African-Americans -- even though the latter group is only about one-third the size of the former. While Galston was right in 2000 about the "more than offsets" effect of white male votes relative to black votes, by 2004 the share of all votes cast by white men had shrunk by 3 percent while the share cast by African-American voters has increased by 2 percent; today, the black vote fully compensates for the Democrats' deficit among white men.
The real story, however, is that the white male share of the electorate continues to decline. In 1976, Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford while garnering what by today's standards would be an eye-popping 47 percent of the white male vote. But in 1976, according to Abramowitz's math, white non-Hispanic males were 39 percent of the American electorate. (Abramowitz's figures, based on numbers from American National Election Studies, are slightly lower than those produced by exit polling, which may oversample white males.) The white male share of the electorate, which had fallen seven percentage points between 1952 and 1976, then stayed roughly constant for 20 years, but after 1996 began dropping again. It fell to 36 percent in 2000 and 33.1 percent in 2004, and it is still falling.
The remainder of the electorate, meanwhile, is composed of white women, among whom Democrats are competitive, and other minority groups that lean Democratic. Kerry won Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Native Americans by margins of at least 20 points in 2004, and all are growing as a share of the total electorate.
So should Democrats really be all that worried about Bubba? After snubbing him during primary season, should they revert to form during the general election, and begin their familiar, unrequited quest for his affections? Republican pollster Whit Ayres has a clear preference. "I would dearly love for the Democrats to spend millions of dollars trying to persuade NASCAR fans to vote for the Democrats," Ayres chirped last summer. "They tend to be disproportionately southern, disproportionately white and disproportionately male, which pretty well defines the core of the Republican Party." In other words, it's a waste of time and resources for the Democrats to pursue them -- a classic sucker's bet.
Meanwhile, as Biden's blunder proves, there are risks to trying to make phony cultural connections with working-class white men, most notably perpetuating the perception of Democrats as a party that is uncomfortable in its skin. With few if any votes to be gained -- and plenty of votes to be lost for being inauthentic -- Democrats finally seem to realize that cultural contortionism in the pursuit of Bubba produces little more than smiles on the faces of Republican consultants like Ayres.
You nailed it.
It may be racist thinking, but the reality is that blacks vote 90% Dem in presidential elections and Hispanics vote over 65% Dem. There are no black Reps in Congress and very few Hispanics, mainly Cuban-Americans. So who exactly is being racist?
Because there are still pockets in Congressional districts where these people can make a difference in the election outcome, but overall, the Democrats need them less and less as they import more Democrat voters with the immigration policies they put in place back in the '60's.
Manly men will always vote Pub. If Schrum wants the Dems to give up on the South, the Mt.West, and the border state whites, I am sure the Pubs will take as many of those voters as they can garner. After all, the Dems take all the felon, dead, and illegal votes they can get.
In next year's election, white males may account for fewer than one out of three voters. Bubba is no longer a kingmaker.
Yet blacks, who with both genders number fewer than that, are considered to be kingmakers...figure that...
"The 2004 CNN exit poll data shows that [John] Kerry lost white males by 31 points if they weren't in a union, but won them by seven points if they were -- a 38-point difference," says Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director of the AFL-CIO. "It's no accident -- union members understand that their votes make a difference, for their wages, their healthcare and their pensions.
If this were true, union members would have gone RAT by a larger margin than 53.5%-46.5%...this statistic underlies the fact that RATS lose white males by a 69%-31% margin, using his own numbers.
Lots of blue collar types STILL vote Democrat in New York and New Jersey. If you look at the counties that voted for Gore and Kerry, you will see that the counties with large numbers of suburban blue collar whites (Gloucester, Camden, Middlesex, Union) voted heavilty Democratic.
AKA the Church Ladies. They are the ones you always see marching in "Anti-Gun" rallies in Newark and Camden too.
Slate?
I’d take anything I’d found in Slate with a generous dose of salt; how’s it said, “lies, damn lies and statistics”? You can find a statistic to back up darned near any claim these days.
What I really, really want to know is, typically, what proportion of the eligible voters actually bother to “vote” in a presidential election? What percentage of those eligible to vote are registered and then, what percentage of eligible voters typically vote in a presidential election? I was utterly stunned by the low turnout in my arguably “blue collar/retiree” mix neighborhood in 2004. And frankly, I’m really beginning to wonder the extent to which the vote counting is cooked.
>>It may be racist thinking, but the reality is that blacks vote 90% Dem in presidential elections and Hispanics vote over 65% Dem. There are no black Reps in Congress and very few Hispanics, mainly Cuban-Americans. So who exactly is being racist?<<
You prove my point. One of the large repositories of racism in the country right now is contained in the black community. Many black leaders say things about themselves and people of other races that would be scandalous if spoken by a pale penis person. (Some examples: blacks can’t be racist because they have no power; white people are “ice people”; the CIA purposely deveoped crack for blacks to keep them in the ghetto.) In fact, it’s the hallmark of the racist to believe that their group is a victim, that their heritage was once noble, and that others are less than human.
Many of the pale penis people I know - from all sorts of political stripes - are some of the most decent, non-racist individuals I know. On the other hand, I know several “minority” people with chips the size of Mount Everest on their shoulders and attitudes about hating others outside their race and ethnicity which would make the Klan proud.
White segregationists also had a high percentage voting Democrat. Hmmm.
In a democrat’s eye, the only good things about white males is they pay taxes and child support.
It is not a matter of conjecture or thinking. Race/ethnicity and religion do determine voting patterns in this country. Blacks, Hispanics, and Jews vote overwhelmingly Dem in Presidential elections. They are the most loyal Dem constituencies. The Black Caucus [42], Hispanic Caucus[23 counting the Sanchez sisters who resigned recently from the Caucus], and Jewish members [29] total 94 of the 232 Dems in the House or 40% of the Dem representation.
effete leftist of madison avenue abandoned the white male long ago.
Look at any television commercial they have the liberated female, the “magic negro” (see L.A.Times for that reference), and they have the ethnic stereotype. There is no place for the white male consumer for madison avenue other than as a charicature or a joke.
The NYC frame of mind carries over to the candidates. Even Guiliani cross dresses in accord with the white male as joke MEME of the new marketing propaganda.
Perhaps the article should simply state the truth, the white males understand the mission of the leftists of the modern Democrat Party. There is no reason to vote for those who wish to kill you.
This article is Orwellian in its doublespeak.
It translates as follwos “those grapes were sour anyways”
They can’t get the vote with the lies so they discount the vote as irrelevant.
plenty of freepers do it too..alas
Don’t kid yourself. A good-looking, leather-miniskirted, boots-wearing, young black babe with two to three inch decorated nails (and a cushy government job)isn’t going to vote for a honky, either. I call them ‘gumcrackers.’ They’re the militant ones who, by and large, claim O.J. was framed.
namely, the ones Ted Kennedy put in place back in the 60’s, which favor third-world country folk over europeans.
that description is too funny
I see a head bobbing GUUUURL!!!
that description is too funny
Feel free to use it anytime, I have no patent on it. ;^)
Perfect description-busted a gut!
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