Posted on 09/24/2008 10:51:34 AM PDT by SmithL
The way Michael Lewis-Beck sees it, the numbers don't add up.
President Bush's approval rating is hovering around 29 percent. The U.S. economy is showing few signs of shaking out of its funk. And most Americans, about 64 percent, oppose the war in Iraq.
"What we know in political science is that when a country faces problems like this, the party in the White House really gets clobbered," said Lewis-Beck, a University of Iowa political scientist who designs forecast models to predict election results. "So if you look at all those numbers, Obama should win the presidential election easily."
Yet with less than six weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election, most national polls show Democratic nominee Barack Obama holding a tenuous lead over John McCain, and Lewis-Beck says there is only one explanation.
"There is a significant group of people who just won't vote for a black candidate. Period," he said.
Lewis-Beck doesn't come to this conclusion without quantification. He has been putting together forecast models since the early 1980s. His Jobs Model Forecast takes into account the president's popularity, current figures on economic growth and job creation, and the built-in incumbency advantage. And while the numbers are fluid, Lewis-Beck's forecast predicts Obama should win the presidency in a landslide by garnering about 56.6 percent of the two-party popular vote, compared to 43.4 percent for McCain, the Republican nominee.
Yet according to Pollster.com, a one-stop shop for political polls and analysis, Obama's lead is much more narrow -- 48.4 percent to 45.1 for McCain.
"People are just not really wanting to talk about this, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out -- it's looking you right in the face," said Lewis-Beck. "The economic conditions are terrible, most don't like the war, and people think Bush is one of the worst presidents we've ever had. If Obama were a white Democratic candidate, he'd be running away with this race."
Not everyone agrees, however, that race is the only factor that can explain Obama and McCain running neck and neck in the polls.
Some say Obama's overall lack of experience in national office and shortage of major legislative accomplishments is hurting his cause. Others argue that Obama's speeches, at least early on, were big on inspiring rhetoric but thin on policy substance.
McCain, meanwhile, is not only viewed by many as a respected war hero, but his campaign has done a good job of distancing itself from the blemishes of the Bush presidency.
It also must be noted that while the vast majority of forecasters correctly predicted a very close battle between President Bush and John Kerry in 2004 (Lewis-Beck's Jobs Model was off by just 1.6 percent), those same modelers, including Lewis-Beck, mostly erred in 2000 by predicting an easy Al Gore victory.
"Those who forecast outcomes try to capture systematic things -- the predictable things from one election to another," said Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor who co-developed Pollster.com. "That's where the economy and current president's ratings and all that comes into play. But because it's so hard to measure personality and issues in a consistent way from one year to the next, those things are left out of forecasts. So my point is, there are some plausible reasons why Obama might underperform the forecasts."
Most everyone agrees it would be naive to think race will play no role in the election. But, adds Franklin, "there is definitely some disagreement about how big of a role it is going to play."
Patricia Devine, a UW-Madison psychology professor, has spent nearly 25 years attempting to piece together what she calls the "prejudice puzzle."
And while her research doesn't directly answer the question of whether the United States is ready to elect a black president, it does shed some light on the topic.
"There are different ways to measure people's prejudice," said Devine. "One is in a very direct, obvious way. You ask questions. 'Are you prejudiced? Do you think blacks and whites are equal? Would you vote for a qualified black president?'
"That is at the explicit level. And what you find over time is that people have shown less prejudice when answering these types of questions on national survey data."
For example, over the past 50 years, the polling organization Gallup has asked the public, "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be black, would you vote for that person?"
In 1958, just 37 percent told pollsters they would vote for a qualified black person to be president. By February 2007, 94 percent said they would.
To put that number in perspective, the same 2007 Gallup poll found that 95 percent would vote for a qualified Catholic; 92 percent for a qualified Jew; 88 percent for a qualified woman; 87 percent for a qualified Hispanic; 55 percent for a qualified homosexual; and 45 percent for a qualified atheist.
Somewhat surprisingly, only 57 percent said they would vote for a well-qualified person who would be 72 or older when elected, such as McCain.
"I think when these surveys were collected over time, a lot of people said, 'Sure, I could vote for a well-qualified black candidate,' " said Devine. "But they didn't ever think it would really happen in their lifetime. So, how trustworthy is that (94 percent) response? Now we're going to be put to the test."
Social scientists have known for decades that those answering polls often mislead survey takers, perhaps hoping to hide their biases.
One such example is known as the "Bradley effect," which refers to the discrepancy between voter polls and election outcomes when a white and minority candidate run against each other. The term is named for Tom Bradley, a black man who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite leading nearly every poll.
However, critics of the "Bradley effect" note that in 2006, polls correctly called a narrow defeat for Democrat Harold Ford, who is black, against white Republican Bob Corker in a Tennessee Senate race. In other words, although Ford lost, there was no discrepancy between what voters told pollsters, and how they actually voted.
Since 1998, researchers have tried to measure the difference between controlled, conscious responses to bias, and automatic, unconscious responses using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Among other things, this experimental method flashes on a computer screen pictures of white and black faces, and positive words (such as "glorious" or "wonderful") and negative words (such as "nasty" or "awful"). As quickly as possible, test takers are asked to hit the left key if they see a white face or positive word, and the right key if they view a black face or negative word.
The subjects are then asked to switch things up, by hitting the left key if they see a black face or a positive word, and the right key for a white face or a negative word. In general, white test takers are much quicker at grouping white faces and positive words than black faces and positive words.
In fact, over the past decade, that test has generally shown that more than 80 percent of white test takers exhibit a pro-white or anti-black bias. (To take The Implicit Association Test and see how you fare, visit www.implicit.harvard.edu.)
"We all have these biases and learn these stereotypes through our socialization," said Devine. "Most have these immediate, biased reactions whether we condone them or not. So, could your conscious mind tell you to vote Obama, but unconsciously you might change your mind in the election booth? It's possible, but there is no simple answer."
And no one is willing to guess how much of a role prejudice will play in the election.
"In all the past elections, the presidential candidates have been white and male," said UW-Madison political science Professor Kathy Cramer Walsh. "So forecasting models have never had to account for race. There are some very good studies of race and candidate effects, and polls and elections at some lower levels. But this is so different. It's uncharted territory."
Dietram Scheufele, a UW-Madison professor of communications, says Obama's campaign should be prepared to answer more race-related questions as the election draws near.
"In my opinion, as we get into October and the campaigns become more negative, race will become a more open issue," said Scheufele, an expert on public opinion and politics. "For example, I believe he'll eventually have to deal with the issue of his middle name being Hussein."
Scheufele says that the younger generations are more "race-blind" than older ones.
"Age tends to play a big role in who people feel comfortable voting for. So I think if Obama can anticipate some of these race issues and say, 'Look, I'm the candidate for modern America, where everybody can come to the table and it doesn't matter what race you are,' the better off he'll be."
The question of how prejudice will play out in the presidential election became even more complicated when McCain named Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate three weeks ago.
"The interesting thing about this election now is there is a minority candidate on each ticket -- so the complexion of the election has changed," said Devine. "With McCain as old as he is and the possibility that a woman could step into the presidency, now you have to choose. A black man? A white woman?
"People had the choice between Obama and (Hillary) Clinton -- but that was among the party base. So I think it will be very interesting to see how this issue plays out. It's just one more unknown."
To be certain, there are no easy answers.
Add in the fact that many pundits and politicians don't feel comfortable commenting publicly on the topic of prejudice, and it's difficult to get a good read on how this issue will truly affect the election.
"People want to put a feel-good gloss on this thing," said Lewis-Beck. "And, of course, we'd all like to think we live in a society where race doesn't make a difference. But I don't think we do, and the data don't demonstrate that we do."
"There is a significant group of people who just won't vote for a black candidate. Period," he said.It looks like he left out a few words. Here's the corrected version:
"There is a significant group of people within the Democrat party who just won't vote for a black candidate. Period," he said.Republicans wouldn't have been voting for Obama anyway. Any loss of voters due to his skin color come from within his own party, those ever-so-tolerant dimocRATs.
Putting race aside, as democrats find impossible to do, the party of surrender would do a lot better if they didn’t nominate unelectable, marxist, racist hacks.
I know some people who will not vote nObama because of that pic alone.
Larry Elder, maybe
B. Hussein Obama, no.
“Sure we’re ready for a black president. Just not obama.”
I disagree.
The country - after 4+ decades of affirmative action, preferences, racial intimidation of Euro-Americans by the elites and media - is NOT ready for a black president. Nor WILL it be ready, for a long time, if ever.
For that long - since the early 1960’s - blacks have been moving AWAY from the concept of “integration” into greater (i.e, the white majority) society and culture, not closer towards such a goal.
Thus, we have entire generations of American blacks who have been raised since birth, and purposefully educated, that whites are historically “racist”, that blacks - even 140 years past emancipation - are still not free, that the system keeps them down, that preference programs are needed, and that they [as blacks] must remain so separate from whites that almost anything they do that could be construed as “acting white” will be met with near-universal opprobrium from other blacks.
Yes, many blacks are now out of poverty (save a growing underclass that does not seem to operate on any principles of white Western culture or mores), and perhaps even the majority have climbed up into “the middle class” in terms of income.
But - all we need to do is look at what even well-to-do blacks _think_, regarding their own identities. After all that has been done by whites, blacks still identify with other blacks FIRST, and as Americans second. Don’t believe me? Then consider for a moment a poll from North Carolina that was posted right here on FR only yesterday. In that poll, 98% - ninety-eight percent! - of blacks polled said they will vote for Obama in November. I can’t believe there are less than 2% of blacks who are “registered Republicans” in that state. But even those black Republicans will vote for Mr. Obama. Why - if for nothing else than “black first”?
The election of a black president would (will?) be a disaster for America at this time - not just a “liberal” black president like Obama, but a conservative as well. Regardless of his political persuasion, a black president will be expected [by blacks] to “take care of them first”. Any black president who does not will be attacked more furiously (especially by the sicophant media) than was Clarence Thomas. The pressure will eventually become so intense that even a black conservative will be forced to appease blacks, if only to keep the peace.
Having written that, I believe the ONLY black worthy of being elected president would be a conservative (a liberal would never qualify, because liberals do not think of themselves this way) black who ran - both publicly and in his own mind - NOT as “an African-American candidate for president” but as a conservative candidate who happened to BE black, but “acts white” in most other ways. That is to say, someone who has, through a career of accomplishments, never based any of those achievements on the notion that he was in fact black. Perhaps even someone who purposely goes out of his way to express disdain for [what we now seem to regard as] normal “black behavior”.
Someone like Thomas Sowell comes to mind, or even Clarence Thomas. I’m thinking that even I could vote for _those guys_ - precisely BECAUSE they appear to consider themselves as Americans first, with their blackness second.
But again - even a President Sowell would be hard-pressed to function given the current state of black-white relations in America. A state in which “racial dialogue”, for forty years, has consisted mostly of a harangue by one side against the other, and in which the _other side_ cannot reply frankly without being deemed “racist”. So long as this situation continues, there _is no_ “dialogue” regarding race in America, and the racial divisions and rifts that are apparent today will only grow worse, not better.
Nope.
I’m one of those who cannot vote for a black for president. Sorry.
I realize this posting goes against the grain of many others here, and that it might be so controversial as to be subject to removal by the moderators. But honest dialogue is honest dialogue.
- John
(Disclaimer: several elections ago, there was a Congressman from my district named Gary Franks. I voted for him at least once, perhaps twice. Mr. Franks was a Republican. He also happened to be black.)
That's the kind of guys who I had in mind. I was also really impressed with Alan Keyes several years ago.
My thinking was that America is ready for a black president in that the kind of generic prejudice that existed in previous generations isn't so much an issue now. Many people I know are more than capable of ignoring skin color when the rest of the qualifications are there.
No one who wants to be president should be playing the race card. If skin color is even a factor with him, that's a good indication that he's not ready. He should be as color blind to his own race as he expects other races to be towards it.
“is america ready for a black president?”
certainly; but not a black socialist president with ties to terrorists and vehemently anti-american preachers.
IMHO
NO
Is there a black candidate running??
We can just as easily (and correctly) say that B. Hussein Obama is white.
I know that political polls are ridiculed and cursed on FR, and some of them are no doubt falsified to benefit the liberal orgs who pay for them. But not all pollsters operate that way, and if you check you will find that the last few presidential elections ran reasonably close to what most of the more or less neutral and responsible pollsters were predicting immediately prior to the elections. I don't believe the 10 point plunge in the numbers for McCain-Palin over the last few days is plausible, but some other less biased polls are showing a smaller but still significant decline for the Pub pair from a week ago. I don't think there can be any doubt that we are being hurt badly by calamitous current events that are easy to blame on Bush, and by extension on McCain and Pubs in general.
The election is still weeks away and a lot could, and probably will, happen to hurt or help either side in that time. But the media's harping on this economic crisis with the implication that it's the Repub's fault is not going to let up, and unless McCain can pull an economic rabbit out of his hat in the next week or so to allay the voters fears the economic situation as interpreted by the media and Dems won't do anything but hurt his chances of winning.
I think the official standard in Louisiana during slavery days was that as little as 1/8th African ancestry could make a person eligible for slavery. They were called Octoroons, and many were fair skinned with Caucasian facial features and were accepted as whites in the north and in some instances passed as whites in the south.
But in some southern states I think there was a "one-drop" standard which made anyone with "one drop" of African blood liable to be kept in slavery. I suppose most of those "one drop" individuals were the legacy of those randy slave owners who forced their "affections" on female slaves for the previous 2-1/2 centuries.
There was even a "quadroon ballroom" where the most beautiful quadroon women were romanced in New Orleans.
Kinda brings to mind the term "Hypocrites" doesn't it?
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