Posted on 03/29/2010 9:26:03 AM PDT by FreeManDC
Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.
For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38 percent -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting, but also pulled in 41 percent of white male voters.
Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.
It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation.
Pollsters regularly ask voters whether they would rather see a Democrat or Republican win their district. By February, support for Democrats among white people (male and female) was three percentage points lower than in February 1994, the year of the last Republican landslide.
Today, among whites, only 35 percent of men and 43 percent of women say they will back Democrats in the fall election. Women's preferences have remained steady since July 2009. But white men's support for a Democratic Congress has fallen eight percentage points, according to Gallup.
White men have moved away from Obama as well. The same proportion of white women approve of him -- 46 percent, according to Gallup -- as voted for him in 2008. But only 38 percent of white men approve of the President, which means that millions of white men who voted for Obama have now lost faith in him.
The migration of white men from the Democratic Party was evident in the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts. His opponent, a white woman, won 52 percent of white women. But white men favored Brown by a 60 percent to 38 percent margin, according to Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates polling.
It's no accident that the flight of white males from the Democratic Party has come as the government has assumed a bigger role, including in banking and health care. Among whites, 71 percent of men and 56 percent of women favor a smaller government with fewer services over a larger government with more services, according to ABC/Washington Post polling.
Obama's brand of liberalism is exactly the sort likely to drive such voters away. More like LBJ's than FDR's, Obama-style liberalism favors benefits over relief, a safety net over direct job programs, health care and environmental reform over financial reform and a stimulus package that has focused more on social service jobs -- health care work, teaching and the like -- than on the areas where a majority of job losses occurred: construction, manufacturing and related sectors.
This recession remains disproportionately a "he-cession." Men account for at least seven of 10 workers who lost jobs, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Nearly half of the casualties are white men, who held 46 percent of all jobs lost.
In 1994, liberals tried to explain their thinning ranks by casting aspersions on the white men who were fleeing, and the media took up the cry. The term "angry white male" or "angry white men" was mentioned 37 times in English-language news media contained in the Nexis database between 1980 and the 1994 election. In the following year, the phrases appear 2,306 times.
Tarnishing their opponents as merely "angry" was poor politics for the Democrats. Liberals know what it's like to have their views -- most recently on the war in Iraq or George W. Bush -- caricatured as merely irrational anger. Most voters vote their interests. And many white men by the 1980s had decided the Democrats were no longer interested in them.
Think about the average working man. He has already seen financial bailouts for the rich folks above him. Now he sees a health care bailout for the poor folks below him. Big government represents lots of costs and little gain.
Meanwhile, like many women, these men are simply trying to push ahead without being pushed under. Some once believed in Obama. Now they feel forgotten.
Government can only do so much. But recall the Depression. FDR's focus on the economy was single-minded and relentless. Hard times continued, but men never doubted that FDR was trying to do right by them. Democrats should think about why they aren't given that same benefit of the doubt today.
The Death of racism....Obama is making us all rally against his commie compulsion!!
He’s probably too busy shouting racial slurs at White people in the South & Mid-West like he did at Obama’s inauguration.
“how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t have f**ked with? That’s me.”
LOL! That was classic!
“Why do people continue voting for these people?”
Because most are “sheeple” who want someone to tell them how to improve their lives instead of using their gd brain to figure it out!
As a conservative with a black mom, sisters, and a gang of black aunts, that's good to hear, although you can't prove it by my family.
I'm fairly certain that they all still kiss their pictures of Obama every night before bed.
Whites are finally tired of being prey to the parasites and are no longer giving sanction of the victims.
Good news, though of course whites are a smaller portion of the electorate than they were and the black vote has never been so completely monolithic before.
Well, as for myself, I came around over a decade ago, but I still rarely run into a recent black convert to conservatism. Most I meet are like me. They crossed the Rubicon long ago.
Maybe I need to get out of redneckville more often so I can meet some of these new Republicans.
I thught Peter Jennings was dead.
“Racist white men moving away from obama because of the color of his skin”.
This has been a casualty due to the relentless pimping by the msm of this characterization on behalf of the party of death.
“41% white males voted for BO”? No real man voted for this clown. Must be the wussification of the American male that’s behind those numbers.
“And blacks are coming around too”!!
...I’d sure love to know where you got that information.
Its stunning that 35% of men are girly men,,,er,,,dumblecrat leaning....
More black people in this country would admit to their conservatism albeit for one thing.......
They live in fear of the white hating blacks who will call them a “white man’s boy” or a “coconut”.
They are afraid of being shunned by their own people. It’s a very powerful fear.
Like always. Just my opinion....
“Straight, white males....the left’s and elite media’s favoite punching bag.”
Great post. I am a white, employed, flag-flying, heterosexual male with guns & ammo who cherishes our nation’s heritage. I’m the lowest scum in the galaxy.
Not hard to figure out why they are walking away from the Democratic party.
I can’t believe that many white guys were guilty enough to vote for him in the first place, given the complete lack of actual credentials presented before the election.
I (kind of) disagree. Yeah, the Black vote is monolithic, but to call it racist?
True, Obama got 96 percent of the Black vote, but John Kerry got 96 percent of the Black vote as well, and he’s as lily white as they come.
What got him elected is that more Blacks came out to vote than ever before, that and the fact that McCain was about as LAME as a candidate as the Republicans could have POSSIBLY run against him.
Hopefully, a lesson has been learned on both sides of the aisle. But personally, I’ll believe it when I see it.
“...given the complete lack of...”
I never thought of it before, but “complete lack of” is a great oxymoron!
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