Posted on 06/07/2003 10:21:50 AM PDT by Drew68
June 7, 2003
Leave it to The Denver Post to smear a large portion of the Denver electorate with unrebutted charges of racism.
Why did John Hickenlooper crush Don Mares this week in the mayor's race? Because whites were sick of 20 years of minority rule and determined to take the city back, according to an "election analysis" that appeared Thursday in that paper. One day later, a column quoted other analysts saying the same thing.
"We have seen over and over again people talking about wanting a white mayor," the president of the Denver Area Labor Federation told the Post after supposedly running into a legion of these in-your-face bigots while out stumping for Mares.
Funny, I somehow missed this widespread pining for white supremacy in my Denver neighborhood. Do these people conspire under the full moon? Or is their bile only triggered by a knock on the front door from a labor official?
The worst of the alleged white offenders, apparently, are well-off newcomers and the nouveau riche. As the Post explained, some analysts "see (Hickenlooper's) landslide as a sign of class shifts in Denver, where widespread gentrification helped double the median price of a home from 1990 to 2000." This accusatory tone pervaded Thursday's entire article, which repeatedly suggested something ugly lurking beneath Hickenlooper's overwhelming popularity among whites.
"It seems somewhat interesting that white folks, even if they're liberal Democrats, are more likely to support a white candidate for mayor than they otherwise would," another political observer ominously remarked.
Yes, it is somewhat interesting, if true. But are white folks, "even if they're liberal Democrats," really more likely to support a white candidate in Denver? As it happens, we have four examples since 1983 of a runoff election for mayor between a white candidate and a minority: Federico Peña-Dale Tooley in '83, Peña-Don Bain in '87, Wellington Webb-Mary DeGroot in '95 and Hickenlooper-Mares this year. And yet in only one of those contests, the current one, did the minority candidate fail to garner significant white support (of roughly 40 percent or more).
Who were those whites voting for Peña and Webb if not, in many instances, the liberals now being smeared? Must they support a minority every time in order to shake a charge of racism? Are three of four times really insufficient?
To be sure, plenty of newcomers just voted in a Denver mayoral race for the first time. But surely no serious analyst outside the pages of the Post would maintain that rich out-of-state whites moving to Cherry Creek, LoDo and Park Hill are likely to be more bigoted than existing residents. Indeed, the recent national voting habits of highly-educated professionals are a big reason liberal strategists such as Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis believe in "the emerging Democratic majority," which also happens to be the title of their book.
Sure enough, it turns out that many counties populated by well-heeled professionals voted for Al Gore in 2000. As conservative analyst David Brooks noted after the election, "The lesson seems to be that if you run a campaign under the slogan 'The People Versus the Powerful,' you will not do well in the places where 'the people' live, but you will do fantastically well in the places where 'the powerful' live."
Yes, I know: Even in racially tolerant Denver, people still tend to vote in ethnic blocs when a candidate of their group is available. But it so happens that during the past 20 years whites have been least likely of the three major groups to follow this pattern in lock step. What was remarkable about the recent election is the support Hickenlooper garnered across the full political and ethnic spectrum. He is the first white candidate in 20 years to appeal to liberal, moderate and conservative whites to nearly the same degree, while attracting (apparently) a majority of black voters, too. Even a significant minority of Hispanic voters seem to have cast ballots for him. Yet in the pages of the Post, this achievement is twisted into The Revolt of The Angry White Voter.
"They (whites) wanted a change," a Regis University professor told Post columnist Cindy Rodriguez. "No one wants to talk about that."
Yes, it's remarkable how few of us are eager to impute the worst motives to our fellow citizens in the absence of clear and convincing evidence; thank goodness for the likes of this professor, so willing to do the disagreeable finger-pointing on our behalf.
Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com
Denver Post article can be found here: Mayoral race reveals plenty about race
If they let minorities rule for 20 years, they can't be all that racist. The minute a white guy wins an election, it's because the voters suddenly turned racist?
Plus the liberals are assuming all hispanic candidates believe exactly the same thing. We had a hispanic mayor here who backed Bush but most hispanics were for Gore.
Exactly. To the liberals, race trumps everything.
That's what is making this entire spectacle so entertaining!
Clinton ---both of them are white ---I'd rather have almost any minority before I'd have one of them ---even for mayor.
That's why the liberals who felt a little guilty for loving a white guy ---Bill Clinton ---so much had to start calling him the "first black president". That was so absurd ---and it was from people who never would have voted for Alan Keyes.
55.18% of those eligible to vote didn't. Pukes trying to deal the race card don't want to talk about that.
Actually, Czar Webb's gun control schemes are currently in the hands of the courts right now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
FWIW, there were no Republicans running for Mayor. A Republican couldn't get elected Mayor of Denver if he gave away free crack.
"But, always remember that a politician doesn't have to be black to be corrupt or inept."
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I dunno whether to laugh or cry. Seems to me...we/you/me shouldn't have to say what you said above...........Seems to me that we've far and away enough examples to last the rest of our years....
Sigh......
FRegards,
My theory is there is a tendency among some "rich" (not even necessarily rich, just comfortable) folks, subconsciously perhaps, to so fear the poor rising up and destroying everything they hold dear that they vote against anyone remotely resembling themselves or openly advocating anything that sounds like it benefits them so that there is no appearance of people like themselves actually running things.
Instead, they vote for any minority or "underclass" person or "radical" or leftist who is running. This, they hope, will "ease the steam pressure" of the overheating boiler of race relations, as described in "Bonfire of the Vanities." It is the same tactic that drives the entire Democrat party - dole out goodies to mollify the underprivileged who supposedly have nothing to lose by hating the rich or whites or whoever happens to really be in control.
Well, sometimes enough is enough and even the rich dupes of this sort of thinking wise up and elect someone based on something other than their racist fears. Good for Denver, this will just cause a lot of leftist guiltmongers no end of anxiety for a while.
What if he gave away free crack WITH a check for $500?
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