Posted on 10/19/2012 8:20:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For all the attention paid to women in this race, there's another gender gap — with white men.
The Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan campaigned in northeastern Florida on Friday, where thousands of men had descended on Daytona Beach for the annual motorcycle festival Biketoberfest.
A bunch of them were at Willie's Tropical Tattoo smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and listening to music.
Gary Biser goes by the name "Moose." Stickers on his bike helmet say, "Life's too short to ride with ugly women," "No bar too far," and other things that can't be printed. He says he is resigned to voting for Mitt Romney.
"I don't have anybody else to choose for, but he's gonna be my man," Biser says.
Biser works in the coal mines of rural Maryland. He says these past four years have been a disaster.
"Well, they've dropped our wages down, they've dropped our medical, everything else. Price of gas and everything's up. Shouldn't be that way," Biser says.
In this crowd, which is largely white men, there's a lot of enthusiasm for Republican ideas. People are less excited about the Republican nominee.
"I wish the Republican Party would quit finding multibillionaires to run just so they could get their message across," says Jerry Willard, who recently retired here in Florida.
Whatever his feelings about Romney, Willard says he hates that Democrats are trying to cut more deeply into wealthy people's incomes.
"Have you ever been hired by somebody that was broke? Have you ever been hired by somebody that was poor? Have you ever been hired by someone that was on welfare or food stamps?" he asks. "I don't think I ever have. I don't think I'm ever gonna get there. So the question is: Who the heck hires us? People with money."
There's no question who's going to win the votes in this crowd. In the last election, Barack Obama carried only 41 percent of white men, according to exit polls. And that was a high water mark for Democrats. John Kerry got 37 percent of the white male vote; Al Gore took only 36 percent.
So the important question is how big a margin among white men Romney will get this year. There's a lot of pressure to do better than Republicans have done before, since minority groups are booming.
"We do spend a lot of time in Florida talking about the growing Hispanic population and the growing black population of voters, but as a practical matter, there still are more white voters in Florida than there are other groups," says Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
Neither presidential candidate is a natural fit with this crowd, but they try. Obama welcomed NASCAR drivers to the White House back in April.
"These are some outstanding men. And it's true about the whole NASCAR organization," Obama said.
Romney made two rained-out attempts to see a race. Eventually he campaigned at the NASCAR Technical Institute in North Carolina.
"I only dreamed of cars like that. To have my name on a car like that is just too much," Romney said.
Perhaps it's no coincidence then that both men at the bottom of the ticket, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, specialize in relating to working-class guys.
Even at Biketoberfest, this group is not a monolith. In the sea of sleeveless black T-shirts, tattoos and bandanas, one Obama supporter popped his head up.
"I like when they went after him for his birth certificate while he was going after bin Laden," says Ormond Beach, Fla., resident Bobby Sayward. "It's like this guy went right behind everybody's back and he got the job done. Why people don't vote for him is going to be an amazing thing to me."
In this sea of white men, the Obama voter is a true minority.
LOL Subsidized writer for NPR write about “white men” and then “interviews” bikers . . .tattoos, beer, smokers, dopers, et al...
Such bias and desperation, all the while doin the lapdance for Commie Obommie
This the dirty secret of the 2012 elections liberals never discuss. Obama is way down with white men.
He isn’t going to get a majority of the white male vote. He has no chance of getting re-elected without it.
It just happens to be politically incorrect to mention the 110 pound gorilla in the room.
“It’s like this guy went right behind everybody’s back and he got the job done.”
The uninformed person in the bunch always seems to be the Obama voter.
I wonder if he actually ever talked to the “pro-Obama” guy or is he a composite or ringer?
Your typical Obama voter is upper class, a college kid slacker, a woman, an LGBT and a minority.
It never is a traditional white male.
Liberal regard for demographic diversity ends right there!
I’m surprised the author did not mention a Confederate flag.
Yeah, but I prefer it to going to a country club and interviewing only white millionares for Romney.
I’m surprised a liberal mentioned the DEWM.
Isn’t that an endangered species? Liberals have contempt for white men.
That explains all the female voter outreach. Like men care about abortion and the availability of $9 contraceptives at Wally-World.
They should stop insulting our intelligence.
I wonder if that 41% vote for Obama in 2008 included a healthy dose of the “Bradley effect.” Some guys may have told the pollster they voted for the anointed one when they really had voted for the geezer.
I suspect that Romney got better grades in math than Obama but I can’t prove it.
Yeah. “Ooh, ick! A white male! How very 17th century!”
Poor libs. They work so hard at being trendy “rebels”.
“It never is a traditional white male.” (for libtards)
*
True. But never forget the white liberal guilt syndrome. One of my best friends in my circle is a Filipino guy. He tells me that white liberals are the biggest phonies he has ever met as these people preach multiculturalism or have ‘CO EXIST’ stickers on their cars, but they never have any non-white friends.
He tells me he feels more alienated in liberal places like West Hollywood than being in Oklahoma City.
“Like men care about abortion”
This man does.
I meant killing your kid.
You think men are gung-ho about it? The Democratic Party thinks so.
“LOL Subsidized writer for NPR write about “white men” and then “interviews” bikers . . .tattoos, beer, smokers, dopers, et al...”
Read it. This is not a ‘biased for Obama piece’ from NPR. It is interesting that they chose this group to interview...and generally, this might have represented the ‘Democrat voter’. These are not the leftist Iowa City, Columbus, Austin or other liberal college campus influenced conglomerates of individuals. These are the ‘Democrats’ who have been influenced (indoctrinated) through the years by their union organizations. These are manufacturing union influences...the influencial leaders are pro Dem, but that does not make these guys so much so...think of the ‘Reagan Democrats’...they were these people.
These people are non SEIU...these are not the public employes union people who are dependent on the expansion of the Federal government...or the expansion of State government. These are people like many of us here in this forum...the are influenced by the reality of what is. They can be educated even more than what we see here in the comments in this NPR article. Education is OUR responsibility...the RINO propaganda machine (GOPe) won’t do it. They can become us. We have to make it happen.
That’s not a very big gorilla.
I remember when it was Americans voting for a President!
These days, it is how white men vote, how women vote, how hispanics vote, how blacks vote, etc. Since when has Americans become so divided into voting groups except with this racist President! Worse, the MSM exploits this for Obama! Talk about dividing America - this man has destroyed any chance of unity for years to come!
“I remember when it was Americans voting for a President!
These days, it is how white men vote, how women vote, how hispanics vote, how blacks vote, etc. Since when has Americans become so divided into voting groups except with this racist President! Worse, the MSM exploits this for Obama! Talk about dividing America - this man has destroyed any chance of unity for years to come!”
*****
So true!!
Ari Shapiro the so called NPR reporter, refuses to stand for the pledge of allegiance and married his boyfriend in San Fran. ‘Nuff said.
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