Democrats And The White Vote

President Obama is likely to win re-election while overwhelmingly losing the white vote. Does it matter?

If the polls and OTB’s presidential predictions are right, President Obama will win re-election tomorrow. But Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen note that it will come with a big caveat:

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

Josh Marshall finds this critique outrageous:

Or to be more specific, Obama’s winning but not with the best votes. I mean really, if you can’t win with a broad cross-section of white people, can you really be said to represent the country?

He put it even more succinctly four years ago:

But creeping in the shadows of these conversations about how Democrats can no longer manage to win the white vote and are only saved from political oblivion by running up big margins among African-Americans is a little disguised assumption that African-American votes are somehow second-rate.

While that sentiment no doubt exists, I don’t think this it’s fair to attribute it to Vandehei and Allen. Surely, it’s noteworthy if winner does poorly with the dominant demographic group in the country.

Non-Hispanic whites still make up 63.7 percent of the population as of the 2010 Census. In the 2008 election, they constituted 74 percent of the electorate. The fact that one political party overwhelmingly gets their votes is problematic. Even in 2008, when Barack Obama won in a landslide in an election that was a perfect storm for his party, he only carried 43 percent of the white vote.

Conversely, the fact that the other party gets virtually all of the black vote (12.6 percent of the population) and the lion’s share of Hispanics (16.4 percent with a bullet) is troubling.

Is winning the way Democrats do—with huge margins among racial minorities and a large number of whites—less legitimate than winning the way Republicans do—with a large majority of the majority but almost none of the minority population—less legitimate? Of course not. But Vandehei and Allen aren’t talking about legitimacy but mandate.

The fact of the matter is that, so long as the racial divide among the parties  continues, it’s next to impossible for either party to get a “broad mandate.” America is increasingly a country of reinforcing cleavages, which can be crippling to the health of a democracy.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Democracy, Race and Politics, US Politics, , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Console says:

    No democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the white vote since 1964. Yet amazingly enough, this is always supposed to reflect poorly on everyone other than white people.

  2. jukeboxgrad says:

    What Politico said is offensive, and I’m not the first to notice that it’s similar to something Byron York said a few years ago (link):

    the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are

  3. john personna says:

    The entire premise is racist. It means that I, voting Obama, am “not part of the white vote.” It’s a short hop, a stumble, to me being a traitor to my race.

    Grouping it another way though, Obama wins the multicultural vote, of which I am part. I like that much better.

  4. mattb says:

    I can’t help wondering — beyond racial dynamics — how much of this has to do with the media environment/swings state focused nature of the modern American presidential race. If Obama wins — as I expect he will — it will be interesting to look into how the “white vote” breaks in the Swing States (which featured a lot of messaging and attention) versus how it breaks in all of the states that were largely ignored by the race (both those comfortably blue and red).

    One has to wonder, to what degree, this current attention to a handful of states potentially undercuts the ability of a president to receive an sort of “mandate”.

    Of course, who ever wins will claim a mandate.

  5. jukeboxgrad says:

    But Vandehei and Allen aren’t talking about legitimacy but mandate.

    Even though Bush’s 2004 margin was only 2.5%, plenty of people called that a mandate. Including supposedly liberal reporters. Link.

    This should be kept in mind when throwing around the word “mandate.”

  6. Scott O says:

    I’d be curious to see what percentage of white voters support Obama in red states vs blue states. Is it a regional thing? I tried the google but couldn’t find anything easily.

  7. SKI says:

    One ray of hope for those pining for the “broad mandate”: young (aka <30) whites vote also prefer the party that doesn't base it's appeal on xenophobia and bigotry. In time, if that continues, there will be mandates again.

  8. Tsar Nicholas says:

    What’s amazing about this whole topic is that after 40-plus years of the liberal media-academe cabal banging the drum beat of white racism the reality is that whites are far less race obsessed than other demographic groups. Yet the irony is lost on the left wing.

    Romney is going to get around 60% of the white vote. Definitely no more than ~62%. Obama will receive ~95% of the black vote and perhaps ~75% of the non-Cuban Latino vote. Is that really something about which the left should feel proud?

    Politics by identity is a bad thing and it’s antithetical to a sound democracy. But the post-’68 version of the Democrat Party could not care less. If Obama wins this election, even if without a popular vote majority, even if by the margin of Chicago-style politics in Cleveland, the left will preen, posture, gloat and mug for the cameras, like they just won the Olympics. Sad but true.

  9. superdestroyer says:

    @Console:

    Why would the majority of whites want to vote for the party of quotas, affirmative action, forced busing, and separate and unequal government. Even in 2012 the Democrats were in front of the Supreme Court arguing that is was legal that universities have different admission standards for whites and Asians versus blacks and Hispanics.

    Elite, highly educated urban whites have won the affirmative action game and look down that whites and Asians who were not smart enough to outdistance the quota and affirmative action population.

    As the U.S. heads to being majority non-white, it should be obvious that no conservative party can survive in the U.S. AS more than 50% of children are born to single mothers, it should be obvious that the U.S. is headed to being an entitlement state where one party dominates and the losers are the people who pay very high taxes to fund all of the goodies that the government will have to pass out.

  10. Geek, Esq. says:

    The reason for the polarization is the Republicans’ decision to stick their finger in the eye of minorities to appease the bigoted id of their base.

    Go back to just 2004 and Bush won 44% of Latino voters. Since then the Republicans have tried to outdo one another in making themselves unacceptable to Latino voters.

    And, the recent flareup of a 5 year old video where Obama mentions Jeremiah Wright–complete with racist troglodytes like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson opining on black speech patterns–showed just how racist the Republican base (at least that which is online) is.

    Mr. Joyner was a noble but sadly rare exception to that virtual Klan rally.

  11. rudderpedals says:

    Proud liberal white guy here. Vandehei and Allen’s article is a nasty piece of work justified only if they’re cynically preparing the battlefield for Obama’s second term with an intransigent House.

  12. john personna says:

    @Scott O:

    I’d imagine that a youth vote is being called “lost white vote,” etc.

    I think James has picked up on a sad vibe. You can slice the vote any number of ways, but Republican commentators are choosing, in final days, to talk about all the brown people against them.

    Multiculturalists at the gates.

  13. superdestroyer says:

    @SKI:
    Do you really think that middle class and blue collar whites under the age of 30 really want a government of open borders, unlimited immigraiton, very high taxes, quotas, affirmative action, and racial norming.

    Why do you think that urban centers are almost devoid of blue collar whites and espeically blue collar whites under the age of 30. There is no place in the U.S. for blue collar whites when living in Manhattan, Northwest DC, SF, Boston, Chicago are the only cities that have high paying jobs.

    As the presumptive Senator from Mass, Elizabeth Warren, explained, White americans are going broke trying to avoid bad schools and bad neighborhoods. Do you really think that blue collar whites under 30 want to live in a country where they are forced to live in bad neighborhoods and send what few children they have to bad schools?

  14. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    The 60’s are calling and want their fears back.

  15. Anderson says:

    This isn’t hard, people. Since Nixon, the GOP has styled itself as the party defending white people against the colored menace. The Democrats didn’t leave whites, whites left the Dems.

    Of course that causes non-whites to rally to the other party. Are they wrong to do so?

  16. superdestroyer says:

    @Geek, Esq.:

    How many times must one debunk the 44% number. There have been many artilces that showned that Bush did not get anywhere near 44% of the Hispanic vote.

    Why should Republicans support open borders and the accompanying high taxes, bad schools, sprawl, low wages, and crime in order to Hispander to a group that overwhelmingly vote for Democrats? Whites would be better off leaving the Reublican Party and voting in the Democratic Party to try to eliminate the most liberal Democrats instead of trying to elect irrelevant Republicans.

  17. superdestroyer says:

    @john personna:

    I suggest you go review what Elizabeth Warren wrote in “The Two-Income Trap.” Whites are still trying to avoid much of the downside of diversity and it costs a ton of money to avoid it. That is why liberal elite whites in urban areas with their private schools and Ivy League educations can avoid the downside but that the middle class whites have had to evacuate urban centers.

  18. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    I want to thank you super, because you were the one who clued me to “open borders” as a racist handshake. The even more ridiculous “unlimited immigration” seals it, of course.

    All that is completely divorced from reality, but it doesn’t need reality to goose the amygdala with a shot of fear.

  19. george says:

    Doesn’t matter any more than it would matter that if Romney wins it’ll be with less than half the black, or hispanic etc votes.

    A vote is a vote because a citizen is a citizen. Really, this is just silly – slow news day?

  20. Rob in CT says:

    I tried googling this and haven’t so far (which is to say a minute or two) come across a graph that plots the % of the white vote for the 2 parties over time. I’d expect to see a roughly 50-year long trend in declining white vote share for the Ds and a corresponding increase for the Rs.

    As for whether this is something to lament… well, yes and no.

    Prior to the 60s, certain Americans were 2nd class citizens. The decision was made to change that, and there is a chunk of the previously 1st-class citizenry that resisted and then resented the hell out of it. It shook up the political status quo (Dems losing white, especially Southern white, votes but picking up minority votes and thus becoming increasingly a party that had to answer to those voters… which in turn amped up the voters who now needed a new home and eventually found one in the party of Lincoln).

    Could things have been done such that we avoided backlash? I don’t think so, no. There is always backlash. Action, reaction. Entrenched privilege, enfored by violence, wasn’t just going to gracefully fade away. When has it ever? So there was a struggle. And that struggle set the battle lines. The result has been that non-whites increasingly identified with one party and whites increasingly idenitfied with the other. This becomes self-fulfilling, even after the initial battle is over. Today, the number of people that would actually like to bring back old-school Jim Crow is small. It’s not about that anymore. It’s more abstract (see: Atwater, Lee for more).

    I do hope we see this trend reverse, at least in part, over the next few decades.

    Oh, and James? Way to post superdestroyer bait.

  21. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Good heavens, that isn’t Warren take on her own book, is it? She makes a case that many working families have responded to wage stagnation by sending the wife to work, gaining income, but other stresses as well.

  22. john personna says:

    @Rob in CT:

    Oh, and James? Way to post superdestroyer bait.

    That’s the key. James is responding to general discussion in conservative circles, but there is more “superdestroyer” in that than any of them would like to admit.

  23. superdestroyer says:

    @john personna:

    There are 100’s of millions of third world residents who want to immigrate to the U.S. How many of them would immigration activist like Jose Antonio Vargas or Luis Gutiérrez keep out of the U.S. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is pushing for the free movement of people between the U.S. and Mexico. What is difference between the free movement and unlimited immigration?

    What is amazing that the progressives want open borders but refuse to say what they really believe.

  24. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    There have been many artilces that showned that Bush did not get anywhere near 44% of the Hispanic vote.

    OK. Cite one. Link to it. Shouldn’t be too hard.

  25. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    That’s all you’ve got? An idea floated by a caucus? Hang it up.

  26. Console says:

    @superdestroyer:

    I find it strange that rich people are able to understand the benefits of free movement of capital. But workers don’t seem to be able to comprehend that free movement of labor is the only way to level the playing field with the rich guys.

    I do want open borders. But then again, I’m not scared of brown people.

  27. Anderson says:

    Case in point: Lindsay Graham:

    “If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95% of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.”

    Conservative = losing nonwhite votes. There you have it.

    … JJ, Doug, and Steven all know the South too well not to see the racism that’s alive and well. Not all Republicans are racist, but the racists vote Republican, and even the GOP leaders of good will don’t dare repudiate them.

  28. MBunge says:

    If you could point to policies and political strategies on the part of Democrats that were responsible for them losing the white vote, that would be bad. I don’t think that’s the case, and it’s certainly not true that Democrats are somehow more hostile to the interests of working class whites than the GOP.

    The reality seems to be that Democrats lose the white vote because Republicans have polarized whites to drive them away from the Democrats. Given the blind eye that our political elites have turned toward that GOP behavior, I’m not sure how Democrats could respond by doing anything more than trying to polarize other voting groups in their favor.

    Mike

  29. Anderson says:

    … Graham’s slip, if slip it was, reminds me of Goethe’s sarcasm:

    I, pagan?” quipped Goethe — who persecuted his heroines in reflection of moral and religious hypocrisy. “Well, after all, I let Gretchen be executed [in Faust] and Ottilie starve to death [in Elective Affinities]; don’t people find that Christian enough?

    Maybe Graham was being likewise sarcastic, but if so, like Goethe, he had a point.

  30. superdestroyer says:

    @john personna:

    Elizabeth Warren argued that American families are spending a higher percentage of their income of housing, healthcare, taxes, and retirement savings and that it is impossible for middle class white to cut back in those areas. That Americans are going broke buying homes in “good neighborhoods” with “good schools.” Yet, the Democrats plan is to raise taxes, nationalize schools so that there are no more good public schools and import millions of people from third world countries so that there are fewer good neighborhoods.

    When whites in California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, or New Mexico are looking at being forced to learn Spanish to be able to get a job, then is it any wonder that most middle class whites are not excited about open borders and unlimited immigration.

  31. OzarkHillbilly says:

    From the other side of the coin-
    Tom Scocca:

    Obama has a deficit of 23 percentage points, trailing Republican Mitt Romney 60 percent to 37 percent among whites, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll. That presents a significant hurdle for the president—and suggests that he will need to achieve even larger margins of victory among women and minorities, two important parts of the Democratic base, to win reelection.

    and…

    What is it with these white men? What are they seeing that ordinary people don’t see? What accounts for this … secession of theirs, from the rest of America? John Sununu, Romney’s campaign co-chair, responded to Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama by saying, “I think that when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being president of the United States—I applaud Colin for standing with him.”

    Sununu was trying to be snide. But there he is, standing with Mitt Romney. Just like Donald Trump and Clint Eastwood and Buzz Bissinger and Meat Loaf—one aging white man after another. It’s a study in identity politics.

    White people don’t like to believe that they practice identity politics. The defining part of being white in America is the assumption that, as a white person, you are a regular, individual human being. Other demographic groups set themselves apart, to pursue their distinctive identities and interests and agendas. Whiteness, to white people, is the American default.

    That last sentence says it all, “Whiteness, to white people, is the American default.”

  32. Anon says:

    As an Asian-American, I lean Democratic, even though I am not a big fan of things such as affirmative action, etc. The reason is that for better or worse, it’s easier for me to stomach the left wing of the Democratic party than the right wing of the Republican party. Most of the nut cases on the far left, such as animal-rights terrorists, communists, etc. don’t seem to actually be part of the party in any sense. I don’t perceive the same case with the far right and the Republican party.

  33. JKB says:

    Seems like an interesting play on the “Curley Effect” on the national scale. Of course, the groups courted for votes don’t generally fair all that well in the long run, especially after the disfavored groups leave. The “Curley Effect” is problematic on a national scale, even the state scale, as people will move out of the city limits but are less likely to abandon their ancestral state and nation.

    The projected win here by Obama might change that calculation. At a minimum we may see more of “going Galt” as producers cut back on their surplus production that provides the cash used by others. But I suspect we’ll see more federalism revolt as the states become carve outs of prosperity by fighting the last century’s march of federal interference. The power of the federal government may revert back closer to its historic norms.

  34. superdestroyer says:

    @MBunge:

    Democrats policies that lost the middle class white voters:
    1. Forced busing,
    2. Race norming
    3. Affirmative Action
    4. Quotas
    5. Depolicing and making excuses for criminals.
    6. The immigration act of 1965

    More than 50 years after Brown et al, vs Board of Education, there were Democrats standing in front of the Supreme Court in the Fischer case arguing that separate and unequal is not only constitutional but good government policy. And Democrats wonder why middle class whites who work in the private sector do not want to vote for them.

  35. muffler says:

    The thought that to some voters the color of a man’s skin is more an indication of their motive and honesty than the character of the person is sad.

  36. C. Clavin says:

    It appears to me that it is the Republicans who are reinforcing cleavages. It’s rich old xenophobic white guys against everyone else.
    Democrats have a huge tent…appealing to many different groups…including oh-by-the-way highly educated urban whites. Republicans have a pup-tent…with enough room for just one group.
    So where does the problem lie?

  37. Mikey says:

    @Rob in CT:

    I tried googling this and haven’t so far (which is to say a minute or two) come across a graph that plots the % of the white vote for the 2 parties over time.

    This only goes back to 1990, but it might have some of what you’re looking for:

    Trends in Party Affiliation

  38. john personna says:

    @JKB:

    So, I know lots of white business owners who have taken their production to Tijuana. Did they “go Galt” with that?

    For a little state of the art action:

    MAKE Magazine visits 3D Robotics Tijuana

    Now, the interesting thing here is that while conservatives are pushing racial fear, they are still also touting free trade. So .. “white people who learned Spanish” to manage operations in Tijuana are good guys. Mexican assemblers to come to Santa Ana are bad guys.

    (The first Europeans to visit what is now Santa Ana were the Portolà expedition of 1769)

  39. superdestroyer says:

    @john personna:

    I guess when you cannot argue facts, you have to turn to snark. Once again, would the Democratic Party keep anyone out of the U.S. is the Democrats have total control? Please list who would be kept out and please give cites.

  40. michael reynolds says:

    Nothing to add to the above except to say that there are a number of felicitous bits of writing up there.

  41. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @JKB:

    At a minimum we may see more of “going Galt” as producers cut back on their surplus production that provides the cash used by others.

    Oh yes… The “Producers”… cough cough…are going to cut off their noses to spite their faces… Right.

    Here’s hoping their aim is a little low and they just lop off their heads. Here of late they haven’t produced much of anything of worth. They are nothing but a bunch of leeches sucking the life blood out of the economy.

    Take a look at MItt: He says he is unemployed. Yet by his own tax returns (what he will let us see of them) he makes something north of $10 million per year. For what? Staying out of the way?

    And people will vote for this leech?

  42. superdestroyer says:

    @Console:

    You are what I think of as the “clever” people. That is individuals who think that they are clever enough to take advantage of open borders and unlimited immigraiton while avoiding the costs.

    Do you really think that social security, Medicare, the affordable care act can survive in a country with open borders and unilimited immigration.

    I wonder what they teach in economics at the progressives universities that makes people think that the U.S. can have open borders and a high level of entitlements?

  43. bk says:

    Hey, let’s just give “Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites” 3/5ths of a vote. Bingo, that should satisfy Vanderhei, Allen, and some of the people here.

  44. Anon says:

    What do people think of the fact that McCain has adopted children from Bangledesh, and Jeb Bush’s wife is Mexican-American?

  45. Rob in CT says:

    Mikey,

    Thanks.

    JKB:

    The projected win here by Obama might change that calculation. At a minimum we may see more of “going Galt” as producers cut back on their surplus production

    I give you Charles Dickens, writing in the mid-19th century:

    Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used — that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts — he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions.

    However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they never had pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, on the contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the haze yonder; and it increased and multiplied.

  46. superdestroyer says:

    @C. Clavin:

    The question is who is going to pay all of the tax bills so that the Democrats can have a big tent. As the U.S. loses its middle class, who is going to pay the taxes to fund all of the entitlements and set asides that the big tent Democratic Party will demand.

    Look at how California has high state taxes and still has severe budget problems. Do you really think that a 70%+ marginal tax rate will have to effect on the economy in the long run and that it will raise the funds required for all of the entitlements that the Democrats are promising?

  47. bk says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Democrats wonder why middle class whites who work in the private sector do not want to vote for them.

    I’m middle class. I’m white. I work in the public sector. And I am a lifelong Democrat that has already voted in early voting in my “swing state”. What I see in some of the comments above are ramblings of bitter old white guys. Good news for John McCain, should he ever decide to run again.

  48. bk says:

    Sorry, meant to say that I work in the PRIVATE sector.

  49. Anon says:

    @superdestroyer: Hm…wouldn’t SS actually benefit from an influx of workers?

  50. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    I don’t imagine that the Democrats would propose anything more extreme that GWB’s plan for worker visas. I found GWB entirely reasonable on that. I know that the “base” thought him a traitor.

  51. superdestroyer says:

    James,

    I do not believe that the Democrats are worried about cleavages. The Democrats know that every demographic trends in the U.S. from immigraiton to single mothers to a collapsing birthrate of blue collar and middle class whites, the Democratic Party knows that is does not need to care or pay attention to middle class and blue collar whites who work in the private sector.

    If the Democratic Party has their way that will not be enough middle class, private sector employed whites left in the U.S. to have any effect on elections, policy, or governance.

  52. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Please list who would be kept out and please give cites.

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There have been many artilces that showned that Bush did not get anywhere near 44% of the Hispanic vote.

    OK. Cite one. Link to it. Shouldn’t be too hard.

    Still waiting SD.

  53. Console says:

    @superdestroyer:

    What Anon said.

  54. george says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    From the other side of the coin-
    Tom Scocca:

    It sounds just as silly coming from the other side of the coin, and I’m guessing that’s just Scocca’s attempt to show by example there are idiots on both sides of the coin (though currently there are more on the GOP side by my reckoning).

  55. superdestroyer says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: this is this from a peer-reviewed academic journal
    http://faculty.washington.edu/mbarreto/papers/2004vote.pdf

    We conclude that the pre-election
    data provide little evidence that President
    Bush received the 44% level of
    support from Latinos estimated by the
    2004 exit polls. We examined 10 such
    surveys and found Latino support averaging
    60% for Kerry and 32 percent for
    Bush—which is the traditional two-to-one
    ratio of support enjoyed by the
    Democratic Party.

    I have quoted this before at outsidethebeltway but I learned long ago that any cite or fact that does not reinforce the beliefs of a progressives will either be ignored or nitpicked. I also know that it will rarely be answered directly.

  56. Rob in CT says:

    @superdestroyer:

    An immigrant that comes and gets a job here will pay taxes here and spend money here. A job outsourced overseas brings back very little (cheaper consumer goods, but then that can be true of low-wage immigrant work here in the US). Seems to me the immigrant is the better option. Free movement of capital is a reality. Free movement of labor more difficult (even with what you claim are “open borders”).

    If you don’t want the immigrants or the workers overseas to get “our” jobs, you must not only seek to halt immigration (a bit like King Cnut and the tide) but also go full protectionist (or seriously devalue the dollar, I suppose) such that Americans once again buy American-made products enough that we no longer run a trade deficit. Without triggering a war, trade or shooting. Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

  57. superdestroyer says:

    @Anon:
    When did progressives start caring about the personal choices of politicians. Progressives never care when liberal Democrats send their children to very white, very non-diverse private schools while demanding that the middle class give up the hope of a good education in the name of diversity.

    McCain and Jeb Bush are both cheap labor Republicans who are too stupid to understand that open borders and unlimited immigration will eliminate any conservative party can basically eliminate the middle class.

  58. john personna says:

    @Anon:

    What do people think of the fact that McCain has adopted children from Bangledesh, and Jeb Bush’s wife is Mexican-American?

    Great stuff, but the GOP did not choose to leverage that to a multicultural vote this time around.

  59. john personna says:

    @superdestroyer:

    McCain and Jeb Bush are both cheap labor Republicans who are too stupid to understand that open borders and unlimited immigration will eliminate any conservative party can basically eliminate the middle class.

    What part of “North American Free Trade Agreement” don’t you understand?

    Seriously.

  60. Anon says:

    It seems to me that the immigration concerns raised by those such as superdestroyer are premised on the belief that immigration causes a net drain on resources. Is there any actual research/data to support that? I think there are at least three categories to consider: (1) illegal immigration at current and historical levels, (2) legal immigration at past, current, and possibly expanded future levels, and (3) “open border”/unlimited immigration style policies. The reason that I think it’s worth distinguishing between these 3 categories is that I think the immigrant makeup might be significantly different in each category.

  61. bk says:

    @superdestroyer:

    the Democratic Party knows that is does not need to care or pay attention to middle class and blue collar whites who work in the private sector.

    Keep repeating that bs.

  62. superdestroyer says:

    @Rob in CT:

    Open borders @Rob in CT:

    You can see Americans going Galt is the lowering birthrate. Americans are faced with the prospect of having a lower standard of living is they have children and having a harder times avoiding bad neighborhoods and bad schools is they have children. Thus, the birthrate for middle class Whites and Asians is lower than the birthrate for blacks and much lower than the birthrate for Hispanics.

    Why do progressives want middle class whites and Asians to give up on the idea of grandchildren in order to fund the entitlement state?

  63. john personna says:

    @Anon:

    We have Japan as an example, further down the road to an ageing demographic. They say Japan must take an inevitable hit to GDP as a result. Some say we’d be there without Mexican immigration. It’s complicated though.

  64. C. Clavin says:

    @ Destroyer…
    You are just full of shit…I’m sorry…but I don’t know how else to put it.
    Democrats have agreed to entitlement cuts as part of Simpson Bowles and the Grand Bargain.
    Who is talking about 70% tax rates? Democrats are talking about a 4% increase to the rates under Clinton when the economy was cranking.
    And the US started losing it’s middle class 30 years ago when Reagan began the war against it.
    But the bottom line point you make is that this country can only afford to be rich white and suburban???
    Sorry…you are full of shit.

  65. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer: Thank you. I admit that I never cared that much about it one way or the other, but when people start saying “Everyone knows…” I wonder who everyone is.

  66. superdestroyer says:

    @Anon:

    Many progressives love to point to the 1950’s as the heyday of blue collar and middle class Americans. Of course, the 1950’s can after three decades of very limited immigration.
    Many progressives love to point out how much good the New Deal did for blue collar Americans. Of course, those same progressives ignore that Keynesian economics works better without immigration.

    If you want high taxes, a high level of government servides, and want Krugman’s idea of Keynesian economics to work, then the U.S. must severely limit immigration and be willing to wage a trade war with other countries.

    However, since progressives seem to all support open borders and unlimited immigration, I just believe that progressives really do not care about helping the economy in the long run, care about the environment, or even care about education in the U.S. When Berkeley California is having to drop lab sciences to fund ESL classes, it should be obvious that immigration is a net loss. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/24/local/la-me-berkeley-schools24-2010jan24

  67. Vast Variety says:

    @superdestroyer: Unless your a decendant of Native Americans your an imigrant. America is a nation of imigrants. It’s a shame we no longer honor the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

  68. Rob in CT says:

    Prosperous people generally have fewer kids, the world over. It’s just what happens. The main reason, as far as I can tell, is the old saw: expeditures rise to meet income. As you get more prosperous, you tend to start seeing certain things as basic necessities. Expensive things. And when you tally them up, you realize that if you want those thigns for your kids, and you want a “comfortable” retirement (the definition of “comfortable” also having changed with increased prosperity), you might not want to go and have 5 of ’em.

    Why do progressives want middle class whites and Asians to give up on the idea of grandchildren in order to fund the entitlement state?

    Why does superdestroyer thing that clumsying inserting ridiculous outcomes for progressive policies is an effective argument?

  69. superdestroyer says:

    @C. Clavin:

    The U.S. House progressive caucus wants a 70% marginal tax rate

    The PB calls for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the rich at the end of 2012. It also adds two tax brackets with a 45% tax for income over $1 million and 49% for income over $1 billion. We should remove the Reagan tax breaks for the rich by adding progressive steps between $200,000 and $1 million with a 70% rate for income over $1 million

    .

    http://www.connerforus.com/2012%20CC%20Budget%20Plan.htm

    Do you really think that a 70% tax rate would balance the budget or would it just allow for much higher levels of government spending?

  70. JKB says:

    @Rob in CT:

    I’m not sure of your point quoting 19th century writer writing about deep sunk cost producers suffering from very tight transportation limits.

    But I would think you would welcome the strivers cutting back, taking only what they need for a comfortable, opulent life then shutting down for the year. No use striving to earn a million when you are only going to get to keep the first 250k. Take the time off, shut down the factory, spend time going to your kid’s soccer game. No one ever says on their death bed, “I wish I had worked more.”

  71. superdestroyer says:

    @Vast Variety:

    Does that mean that the U.S. must maintain open borders and unlimited immigration because people came here in the past. FDR enforced severe limits on immigration yet progressives want to forget what having a high level of entitlements requires.

  72. MBunge says:

    @superdestroyer: “Democrats policies that lost the middle class white voters:1. Forced busing,2. Race norming3. Affirmative Action4. Quotas5. Depolicing and making excuses for criminals.6. The immigration act of 1965

    1. How many places did busing actually occur? The most famous one I know of is Boston and it doesn’t seem to have hurt Democrats among white voters there.

    2. I’ll admit I don’t know what the hell “race norming” is.

    I believe 3 and 4 are the same thing.

    5. Neither of those things have been true of Democrats for at least 20 years.

    6. So, 42 year old white guys are voting against the Democrats because of legislation passed 5 years before they were born?

    Mike

  73. Tony W says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    whites are far less race obsessed than other demographic groups. Yet the irony is lost on the left wing.

    What a silly comment – of course we white folks are less race obsessed – after all it’s not our votes the Republicans are trying to suppress through lies and official mischief. It is not our kids who still get looked at suspiciously at the shopping mall because of the color of their skin. It’s not our great-grandparents who were born into slavery.

    Those old, straight, white men who support Romney care only about themselves – and they want to pull the ladder up behind them.

    Like many on this site I am simply an old, white, upper-middle-class, married, straight man who can see that it benefits society for me to pay more taxes to support infrastructure and security for everyone. Who is divisive now?

  74. Rob in CT says:

    @JKB:

    My point, of course, is to say that the whining and threats of “going Galt” have been made for a long time.

    As Personna pointed out, the “Galting” going on has been going on in both good times and in bad, under “high” tax rates and low ones: moving factories overseas to seek cheap labor and/or weak or nonexistant environmental regs.

    No use striving to earn a million when you are only going to get to keep the first 250k.

    Wow, talk about not understanding how taxes work. But then I’ve seen this many times in real life: lots of people simply have no idea how taxes work.

    The proposed change would the top marginal rate from 35 to 39.6%. So for $ earned above $250k (adjusted income – so higher if we’re talking gross), one would pay 4.6% more on those dollars. That’s a far, far cry from “not getting to keep anything over $250k.” But I see this sort of hyperbolic distortion a lot.

    Bringing it back to Dickens, how did things go in the 90s when those rates were in effect? Oh, right.

    Take the time off, shut down the factory, spend time going to your kid’s soccer game. No one ever says on their death bed, “I wish I had worked more.”

    The person who shuts down the factory when he has customers willing to pay for his or her product, because he/she would have to pay an extra few percentage points of tax on earned income above X is a f*cking moron. Which makes it rather unlikely they’re running the factory in the first place.

  75. Rafer Janders says:

    I don’t know if this has been mentioned upthread, but what’s often going unremarked on in these conversations is that Democrats don’t have a problem with the white vote per se — after all, Democrats win the majority of the white vote in New York, New England, the West Coast, and parts of the Upper Midwest. If Democrats really failed to appeal to white voters, you’d expect that to be felt across the board, but it’s not. No, the reason the Democrats lose the white vote is almost entirely due to the South, where they lose whites in overwhelming numbers.

    The party doesn’t have a “white voters” deficit — they have a Southern white voters deficit. And I don’t think there’s any fixing that, given that a large part of that deficit is due entirely to racial, religious and ethnic prejudice on the part of those voters.

  76. MattT says:

    @Scott O: Here’s a page with several charts breaking down the 2008 vote. Obama won the white vote in 19 states, and was in the high 40s in several others, all of them north of the Potomac or west of the Mississippi.
    http://www.nationaljournal.com/where-obama-s-white-vote-matters-less-in-2012-20110331

    7 out of the 8 states where the white vote broke hardest against Obama are former slave states. He bottomed out at 10-14% across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

  77. superdestroyer says:

    @MBunge:

    The Boston PUblic Schools are 14% white. The whites in Boston did not sit still for forced busing. It has occurred in places from Boston, to DC, to Houston, to Seattle. Have you already forgotten the term white flight.?

    Race norming http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/19/weekinreview/the-nation-race-norming-tests-becomes-a-fiery-issue.html for those progressives who have forgotten.

    Ans the progressives are still anti-policing and anti-law enforcement. Look at the Obama Administraton proposal for race-based school disciplie http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_3_school-discipline.html

    The Democrats have pushed for open borders and unlimited immigration since 1965 and the cheap labor Republicans have gone along with them. How can a middle class exist in the U.S. when it is forced to compete with low wage immigrants?

  78. superdestroyer says:

    @MattT:

    What was in an election that was a rout for President Obama. You should look at 2004 to see a better baseline of how Democrats do with white votes. I believe that Kerry receive a majority of white votes in fewer than 10 states.

  79. Rafer Janders says:

    @JKB:

    No use striving to earn a million when you are only going to get to keep the first 250k.

    You poor fool. You don’t understand how marginal tax rates, do you?

  80. Rafer Janders says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    What’s amazing about this whole topic is that after 40-plus years of the liberal media-academe cabal banging the drum beat of white racism the reality is that whites are far less race obsessed than other demographic groups. Yet the irony is lost on the left wing.

    In a similar bit of irony, men are far less obsessed with sexism than women are….

  81. dennis says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    C’mon, T-Nic; that’s just a ludicrous assumption. So, who have we been voting for all these years after we finally were given (a topic for later) our access to the right to vote? Before Barack Obama? See how asinine your argument is in light of that?

  82. Rob in CT says:

    How can a middle class exist in the U.S. when it is forced to compete with low wage immigrants?

    How can it exist when it must compete with low-wage labor, period. Unless shipping costs rise dramatically, or we go protectionist (with all the downside risk that carries), the American worker will continue to face low-wage competition whether there is a lot of immigration of not (and think immigration is not so clearly negative in that you end up with people working and paying taxes here, buying stuff here, raising families here, etc).

    The idea was, supposedly, the American consumer would benefit via cheaper goods and so things would even out. But given a long and large trade deficit, it has not evened out (shouldn’t the dollar have weakened further, assisting this? I wonder). So, what to do? How do you stop the bleeding? Well, you don’t build a fence along the Mexican border. Talk about a boondoggle!

  83. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    You can see Americans going Galt is the lowering birthrate. Americans are faced with the prospect of having a lower standard of living

    Not so:

    “Fertility is often higher in poorer families within a society, and across countries those with higher average fertility tend to have lower average income. Do these associations imply that
    high fertility causes poverty among family members, or that poverty contributes to higher
    fertility, or both? Is the direct association between fertility and poverty a basis for assessing the value of policy interventions that reduce fertility by subsidizing the voluntary adoption of birth control, or by imposing on parents a quota of children which penalizes excess births, such as implemented by China?”

  84. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @george:

    It sounds just as silly coming from the other side of the coin, and I’m guessing that’s just Scocca’s attempt to show by example there are idiots on both sides of the coin (though currently there are more on the GOP side by my reckoning).

    It may sound silly George, but in this neck of the woods it is very true.

  85. An Interested Party says:

    Romney is going to get around 60% of the white vote. Definitely no more than ~62%. Obama will receive ~95% of the black vote and perhaps ~75% of the non-Cuban Latino vote. Is that really something about which the left should feel proud?

    Should those on the right feel proud about the fact that their standard bearer has to depend almost completely on the white vote to gain power? Should those on the right feel proud about the fact that the political party that represents them has almost no appeal at all to non-white and other minority groups nor do its representatives even try to appeal to these groups…on the contrary, they are openly hostile to these groups… the right should be so proud…

    If Obama wins this election, even if without a popular vote majority…the left will preen, posture, gloat and mug for the cameras, like they just won the Olympics. Sad but true.

    Oh, in other words, they’ll be doing the same thing that Bush and the right did in 2000…

  86. Anderson says:

    “as producers cut back on their surplus production”

    Uh, what? Capitalists don’t produce a surplus by choice; they produce what will sell.

    Randians are the right-wing versions of Marxists; neither understands shit about economics, which is rewritten into a morality play. “Atlas Shrugged” just takes Stalinist tripe about heroic proletarians vs. plutocratic parasites and inverts it.

  87. superdestroyer says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The birthrate went up in the 1950’s where there was a growing middle class. However, starting in the 1970’s, the white birthrate starting going down (higher cost of living, higher taxes, inflation) and has continued to slowly decrease. However, the birthrate for whites in the U.S. is well below replacement. That is one of the reasons that the Democrats are not really interested in white middle class, private sector employed voters. That group is shrinking.

    What is amazing is that the black birthrate has started going down in the U.S. in last 15 years or so. What will happen to the U.S. as the white birthrate continues to go down and the Hispanic birthrate along with immigration rate continues to be much higher.

    There is no way a conservative party can survive in a country that is less than 50% white and more than 50% children are born to single mothers.

  88. dennis says:

    @superdestroyer:

    The Boston PUblic Schools are 14% white. The whites in Boston did not sit still for forced busing.

    That’s right, sd; they didn’t sit still for it. They lined up along the bus route, throwing rocks and yelling, “nigger go home!” I was on those buses, headed to White Irish Catholic-dominated South Boston — “Southie.” Oh the memories! Thanks for the walk down that lane.

  89. dennis says:

    Don’t anyone get all in a bunch about the n-word. It’s part of our history, part of our shame, and will, sooner or later, be a rung on the ladder of our rise out of all that. Eventually. One day. Maybe.

  90. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @dennis:

    Eventually. One day. Maybe.

    Maybe when our children are running things, Dennis. Maybe. Hopefully.

  91. Rob in CT says:

    Feel the starry-eyed optimism! 🙂

  92. MBunge says:

    @superdestroyer: Holy crap, that “race norming” link was for a story in 1991.

    Mike

  93. JKB says:

    @Anderson:

    Well, I was thinking more of the production of a surplus over some standard of living. But it is true, if a US producer cuts production due to it not being worth the effort in the face of taxes and regulation, someone else will pick the production up as long as the market remains. Of course, that producer may not be faced with US taxes and regulations.

    But I used a bit of hyperbole to make a point and every one wants to get bogged down in the weeds. I give, none of it will happen. Humans will not make their own, independent choices that might adversely impact the public policy choices being made. Nope, we are all just machines with no minds of our own especially when it comes to questioning the Obama.

  94. Janis Gore says:

    @superdestroyer: Goddammit, sd! You get feared and snubbed every time you turn around, regardless of how good your heart is and how good your talents are, then tell me you won’t be pissed off and act out.

    You are white. You have no f*****g idea.

    Your gd drug war is effectively a campaign against brown people.

  95. dennis says:

    Itz bcuz I got “moderated” for use of the n-word. I’ll repost:

    @superdestroyer;

    The Boston PUblic Schools are 14% white. The whites in Boston did not sit still for forced busing.

    You’re absolutely correct, sd; they didn’t sit still. They lined that bus route, throwing rocks and yelling, “n****r go home!” I was on those buses, going to White Irish Catholic-dominated South Boston — “Southie.” Oh the memories! Thanks for the trip down that lane.

    ***There, moderators, is that better???***

  96. Janis Gore says:

    Meanwhile, the black manager at the convenience store is grateful that she could stop smoking after I gave her a pack of SuperStop filters.

  97. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    There is no way a conservative party can survive in a country that is less than 50% white and more than 50% children are born to single mothers.

    Huh? Why? Because to be conservative means you have to be racist?

  98. Just Me says:

    And I don’t think there’s any fixing that, given that a large part of that deficit is due entirely to racial, religious and ethnic prejudice on the part of those voters.

    Just a point but that prejudice goes both ways. There is much disdain for the conservatively religious among the left.

    One area I do think the democratic party’s support for affirmative action is an issue-affirmative action often leaves the impression (real or imagined) that lower class African American’s are getting a head start on equally lower class whites. This breeds resentment. I think it is especially felt when applying for colleges (one university my daughter is applying at has 1 merit based scholarship for non minority students and 11 for minority students-this is a college that meets 100% of need for the poorest applicants, but a college’s definition of need and how the loans work out are two different things).

    Also, one thing that is ignored is that many of the democratic policies with regards to coal and other fossil fuels tends to shut mines, plants and refineries down. People in these fields are losing their jobs like mad-and the democratic response is to continue with these policies. Basically unless the low skilled job is a union one, the democrats generally do not seem to care nor do they care if policies mean people are losing those jobs.

    My point here is that it isn’t always about racism. And to say that it is ignores other problems.

    As for open borders-I am not support of open borders, but I do think legal immigration is way too expensive and way too complicated. People shouldn’t have to hire lawyers to immigrate. I do wonder though in a country with 8% unemployment and sky rocketing unemployment for young African Americans if more immigration won’t make matters worse.

  99. superdestroyer says:

    @MBunge:

    Whites have been moving away from the Democratic Party in the 1970’s. Forced busing started in the 1970’s. Race norming started in the 1970’s. It just did not start in 2008.

  100. superdestroyer says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Because a country where most children are born to single mothers will be a country where voters will demand a massive government and a high level of spending (think of the District of Columbia). A country that is less than 50% white will be like Chicago, Baltimore, or DC where there is no functional conservative party.

    Can a conservative party survive in a country where the government has you fill out a form on your race and ethnicity and then determines what standard you will be held to.?

  101. JKB says:

    @Just Me: My point here is that it isn’t always about racism. And to say that it is ignores other problems.

    Don’t tell them that. If you take away their ignorance how will they live? How will can they keep the faith in the face of reality?

  102. steve s says:

    The white vote is pretty much evenly split between republicans and democrats in the southwest, northwest, and northeast. The white vote is heavily republican only in the confederate states.

    So no, losing that group does not, in my mind, diminish Obama.

  103. MBunge says:

    @superdestroyer: “Forced busing started in the 1970′s. Race norming started in the 1970′s.”

    How much forced busing still exists? How much “race norming”? How many non-racists whites would even know what the phrase “race norming” means? More importantly, why is it that Southern Whites are the only whites who are, according to you, overwhelmingly alienated from the Democratic party by these policies? Was there ever a lot of busing in the South? How about race norming?

    Mike

  104. Raoul says:

    Going by last election’s numbers-what’s more troubling-Obama getting 43% of the white vote (higher still if you count white Hispanics)? or the Republicans getting 5% of the black vote 33% of the Hispanic vote, 40% of the Asian vote and a minority of the women’s vote and catholic, gay, etc.- politics is always about building coalitions – the problem arises when one party decides not too.

  105. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Just Me:

    Also, one thing that is ignored is that many of the democratic policies with regards to coal and other fossil fuels tends to shut mines, plants and refineries down. People in these fields are losing their jobs like mad-and the democratic response is to continue with these policies.

    Reality knocking here: Refineries are expanding. Coal is dropping but it has nothing to do with Democratic policies, it has to do with capitalist policies, namely that natural gas is cheap, plentiful, and burns cleanly.

  106. JamesinNewYork says:

    I don’t think it makes any sense to consider the white vote as a monolithic whole. It appears that Obama is poised to win states with very few minorities, such as Vermont, Iowa, Maine and Minnesota.

    Rather than see the Democratic Party as unable to win the white vote, I think a more accurate analysis is that the Democratic Party cannot win the votes of white southerners. In states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, etc. Obama is losing the white vote by more than 50%.

    In areas of the U.S. outside the south Obama is about even with white voters.

    What we really have here is one party, the Republicans, who are overwhelmingly the party of southern whites and nothing else, while the Democratic Party is a diverse party able to win votes across the age, income, ethnic and racial spectrum everywhere outside the south.

    The scary things for Republicans is that this is the last election where they can actually win on the backs of their Dixiecrat base.

  107. Curtis says:

    One of the first things I read on 538, probably close to five years ago now, is that the more minority voters there are in a state, the more uniformly Republican the white electorate is there. So in a state like Mississippi, where there is a high percentage of minority voters, the percentage of white Republicans is enormous. In iowa, where there are very few minority voters, the white vote splits much closer down the middle.

    Of course, I would love in a world where we all just got along, and our inherent virtue were so awesome that we just knew what to do and didn’t need any governing at all. I’d also love to live in a world where each of the parties had similar numbers of each race in it. But that is beyond us from now.

    But I do think it is important to recognize that Obama, and Democrats generally, are relatively competitive with white people outside of the Deep South, and the regional component of this phenomenon is largely ignored.

  108. Gustopher says:

    I’m just glad that we live in a post-racial society where even a little brown kid can dream of growing up and becoming President… So long as he’s not an atheist, of course.

  109. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Because a country where most children are born to single mothers will be a country where voters will demand a massive government and a high level of spending (think of the District of Columbia). A country that is less than 50% white will be like Chicago, Baltimore, or DC where there is no functional conservative party.

    All I can say to this is, you don’t know any single mothers, do you? You don’t know any non-whites, do you?

  110. jukeboxgrad says:

    Obama, and Democrats generally, are relatively competitive with white people outside of the Deep South, and the regional component of this phenomenon is largely ignored

    Exactly. The GOP is the party of the South. I think maybe the most vivid way to see this is to take a look at the parts of the country where Kerry (2004) did significantly better than Obama (2008). Think about what that means, and then take a look at the map. Link.

  111. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: The birth rate increased in the 1950s because there wasn’t anything left open for women aside from being nurses, secretaries, teachers, and mommies. And there was a hell of a lot of encouragement for the last. Remember all the panic about the Red Hordes out-breeding us?

    I lived in Japan for a long period of time, and I can tell you, the main drop in the Japanese birth rate is because women are voting with their feet. They don’t get married and don’t have kids, because the lifestyle of the traditional Japanese housewife/mom isn’t all that much fun, especially by comparison to what else can be done out there.

  112. grumpy realist says:

    P.S. The last time I looked at my skin it was a sort of pinkish-white. I’m a pretty died-in-the-wool Democratic voter, mainly because you Republicans have no understanding of science and no belief in women’s autonomy. Pandering to the bible-thumpers doesn’t help your approval with me, either.

  113. Rafer Janders says:

    I lived in Japan for a long period of time, and I can tell you, the main drop in the Japanese birth rate is because women are voting with their feet.

    I’m not intimately familiar with Japanese sexual customs, but I’m not sure it’s the feet that are the body part that’s really involved here…..

  114. Rafer Janders says:

    @Curtis:

    One of the first things I read on 538, probably close to five years ago now, is that the more minority voters there are in a state, the more uniformly Republican the white electorate is there. So in a state like Mississippi, where there is a high percentage of minority voters, the percentage of white Republicans is enormous. In iowa, where there are very few minority voters, the white vote splits much closer down the middle.

    Eh, I think that’s only true in the South. Look at Hawaii, for example, or California, where there are a lot of racial and ethnic minorities, and yet also a Democratic-leaning white electorate.

  115. george says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It may sound silly George, but in this neck of the woods it is very true.

    Not sure I understand – do you mean its true in the Ozarks that either white votes (if you’re GOP) or minority votes (if you’re a progressive) are inherently worth more than the others?
    Pretty sad if that’s true.

    What I got from Scocca’s article is that in general, white males have for the last few elections voted mainly GOP, blacks for the Democrats, and in this election the prediction is those trends will be increased (ie a few more precentages of white males will vote for Romney than voted for Bush, a few more percentage of blacks will vote for Obama than voted for Kerry) – ie voters are voting tribally (to use his word). But since the change in patterns from say Bush-Kerry is around 10% both ways, I’m not sure if his conclusions follow from the results.

    Ultimately, I just see it as trying (by very coin in the game) to discredit the opponent’s votes. Which as I said, is nonsense – for good or for bad, people vote they way they want to vote, which is the whole point of voting. I think (or maybe just hope) that Obama will win, and I don’t think it matters at all what the breakdown of who voted for him will be. But the same would be true if Romney won – a win is a win. If its not, we’ve no longer got a democracy.

  116. Gromitt Gunn says:

    @dennis: I’m shocked – shocked, I say! – that our resident racist looney toon hasn’t responded to the black dude.

  117. Janis Gore says:

    The black roofer I’ve just contracted from Waterproof seems pretty damn sharp and competent. He ain’t cheap either.

    I asked for two estimates and he gave me two computer-printed estimates with breakdowns within twenty minutes. He’s right clean and articulate, too.

  118. Rob in CT says:

    But I used a bit of hyperbole to make a point and every one wants to get bogged down in the weeds.

    But your argument doesn’t work without the hyberpole, and that’s important.

    There’s been a lot of research on the “Laffer Curve.” The most recent report asserted that the revenue-maximizing “optimal” (as in for revenue maximization only) top marginal rate is ~70%.

    Others have claimed lower numbers in the past. And it may be that it’s not a constant, but rather something that moves around a bit depending on other factors.

    The present top rate is 35%. The proposal on the table from O & Co. is to allow that to go back up to the draconian 39.6% it was 15 years ago, when the economy was in the dump and… oh, wait.

    Now, moving production elsewhere is a real threat and it’s happened. But that’s about production costs (mostly labor costs). Not taxes. And it’s something for which nobody has a great answer.

  119. john personna says:

    @Rob in CT:

    There’s been a lot of research on the “Laffer Curve.” The most recent report asserted that the revenue-maximizing “optimal” (as in for revenue maximization only) top marginal rate is ~70%.

    I agree totally, but I also think we should encourage people to think about the levels where they want a top rate to bite. Some would make it a moral issue that “no one should pay more than X%” without really noting that it is “X% of the part above Y.”

    I would not be afraid at all of a top rate of 70% on the part over $50 million per year. Though it is only really catching those few who can’t help reporting more than $50 million in a calendar year.

  120. john personna says:

    (Poor them.)

  121. Just Me says:

    What we really have here is one party, the Republicans, who are overwhelmingly the party of southern whites and nothing else, while the Democratic Party is a diverse party able to win votes across the age, income, ethnic and racial spectrum everywhere outside the south.

    So essentially white voters in the south should be written off by the democratic party. Much like it appears the GOP writes off the African American vote.

    Sounds like there needs to be an article on how the democratic party can reach these voters since from this discussion it is pretty much decided that the GOP is going to be dead and irrelevant as of Wednesday.

    Once again-while the left acts as if whites in the south should be written off as mouth breathing racists, many of the things they are concerned about-are real concerns. But in this new coalition of minorities and elite whites, the rest of the white population is now expendable.

  122. john personna says:

    @Just Me:

    Once again-while the left acts as if whites in the south should be written off as mouth breathing racists, many of the things they are concerned about-are real concerns. But in this new coalition of minorities and elite whites, the rest of the white population is now expendable.

    The “we’re only losing because we’re white” thing came from the Republicans. The left was happy multiculturally electing Barack Obama.

  123. Rob in CT says:

    So essentially white voters in the south should be written off by the democratic party

    Agreed that this is not the right answer. The right answer is to try and convince that group to vote for you, even if it looks… well, unlikely at the moment.

  124. Janis Gore says:

    I am conservative. I just answered a survey at Amazon and managed to get a pair of diamond ear studs and a bottle of Italian perfume for $20.

    I’m just not racist, homophobic, or misogynist. I’m even religious.

  125. Janis Gore says:

    I’ve had a running battle with third-generation wealth for 7 years now, and I’m tired.

    Mitt Romney can go to hell.

  126. superdestroyer says:

    @grumpy realist:
    Japan is also a very expensive place to live with housing at astronomical prices. Having children means a lower standard of living and many people in Japan refuse to take the hit to their standard of living.

  127. JamesinNewYork says:

    @Just Me: Nobody should write off white southerners. That was not my assertion. My point is simply this: the Democratic Party does not have a white problem outside the south.

    However, I think it is fair to ask why southern whites see the election so much differently that non-southern whites.

  128. Janis Gore says:

    The roofer and I were born within eight days of each other in February 1957.

  129. MattT says:

    @Curtis:

    One of the first things I read on 538, probably close to five years ago now, is that the more minority voters there are in a state, the more uniformly Republican the white electorate is there.

    I read that too, and it struck me now as then as a way to tiptoe around the elephant in room while pointing out that the white electorate is more uniformly Republican in former slave states, and most uniformly Republican in those states where strict segregation was enforced within the memory of many active voters.

  130. superdestroyer says:

    @JamesinNewYork:

    In 2000, I believe that Democrats received less than 50% of the white vote in California. However, since the Republican Party is irrelevant in California, it would seem natural that middle of the road whites would start voting more for Democrats. As most states become locks for the Democrats, more whites will become automatic Democratic Party voters.

    Once again, the real question is what happens when the majority of voters in the U.S. are automatic Democratic Party voters.

  131. superdestroyer says:

    @MattT: Wyoming, Nebraska, and Utah are also heavily REpublican voters and do not meet your criteria.

    I always found Detroit metropolitan area as the most racist place in the U.S. and is a very blue area. However, the Democrats in Michigan know to hide to racial goodies such as shown during the lawsuits against the University of Michigan.

  132. MattT says:

    @Just Me:

    So essentially white voters in the south should be written off by the democratic party.

    Not at all. The Democrats need, and I think have and will continue to, appeal to white voters in the South with policies that are better for everyone on the economy, defense, and the environment. But at some point the horse has to be willing to drink.

  133. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: It’s not the housing expense; it’s the expense for juku (cramming schools)….

    But a lot of it is women not wanting to be housewives. Hell, half of my co-workers were female. You telling me that they’re lying to me when they said they didn’t want to be mom/housewives because it was boring?

  134. superdestroyer says:

    @MattT:

    Did it benefit the middle class whites in DC, Baltimore St Louis, Detroit when those cities became dominated by the Democratic Party? The idea that race-based school discipline, open borders, unlimited immigration, high taxes, massive defense cuts, higher entitlement spending, more quotas, more affirmative action, and more single mothers is going to help middle class whites in the south in laughable. Even the rampant credentialism caused by affirmative action and massive immigration has been a negative for middle class whites.

  135. superdestroyer says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Part of the boring is the reduction in lifestyle. How many of those single women are still living with their parents. How many of them get to spend their pay on designer clothes, handbags, and vacations. When an apartment costs millions, people will stop having children to avoid the reduction in the standard of living. The same thing is occurring in Manhattan.

  136. Whitfield says:

    The Republicans really blew it when they did not pursue the Hispanic people who can vote. This is their kind of group hard working, strong family structure, and very strong ties to religion.

  137. superdestroyer says:

    @Whitfield:

    I think the Republican blew it when they did not put an end to affirmative action, set asides, and quotas during the Reagan Administration. The Republicans also blew it when they supported the first amnesty and decided to write California off forever.

  138. michael reynolds says:

    @dennis:

    To me the issue is never the word but the intention behind it. To make it about the word itself is to believe that Mark Twain was no better than superdestroyer. Ascribing motive is messy but more honest than obsessing over any particular arrangement of syllables.

    That said, I take my guidance from Eminem who avoids the word. (Pretty much the only word he avoids.)

  139. JamesinNewYork says:

    @superdestroyer: I don’t think anyone’s vote is automatic. Once the Republican Party sees that it cannot win in the way it has over the past 20 years, it will adjust. One thing I know for sure is that this country needs a small government party. Once the Republican Party leaves its current extremism and goes back to being a small government – more freedom party, it will find votes throughout the country, from young people and from non-whites.

  140. ernieyeball says:

    @superdestroyer: Once again, the real question is what happens when the majority of voters in the U.S. are automatic Democratic Party voters.

    I dunno…maybe Democrats will win a lot of elections.

  141. superdestroyer says:

    @JamesinNewYork:

    The demand for a small government party has never been lower. When almost 50% of the worker do not pay income taxes, there will be little demand for a small government party. When the government is passing out $4 trillion in goodies, there will be little demand for a smaller government. With the government slowly taking over healthcare, there will be less demand for small government.

    The future of politics is about maximizing the number of people who receive government goodies and limiting taxes to a small enough group that that group is powerless to effect policy. David Axelrod has laid the grown work for the future of the one party state with open borders, a larger public sector, very high taxes on a small percentage of the population, and a shrinking of the middle class.

    If you want to see the future just look at Chicago, DC, or California. There is no real demand for a second political party and thus, none will exist.

  142. superdestroyer says:

    @ernieyeball:

    But what happens when the Democrats win most elections, the Democratic Primary is the real election, and almost no incumbent faces the risk of being voted out of office. How high can taxes go, how big can the government get, and what kind of economy will the U.S. have?

  143. michael reynolds says:

    @superdestroyer:

    But what happens when the Democrats win most elections,

    Isn’t that when you and your skinhead friends rise up in revolt? Haven’t you done any planning on this?

  144. ernieyeball says:

    SD Sez: As more than 50% of children are born to single mothers, it should be obvious that the U.S. is headed to being an entitlement state where one party dominates and the losers are the people who pay very high taxes to fund all of the goodies that the government will have to pass out.

    All the single mothers I know work at least 1 and sometimes 2 jobs which means they are paying FICA and Medicare taxes. They also spend money on their kids which means they are paying sales tax. They all drive cars so they are paying motor fuel tax. Many of them are in college full time which means they are trying to better themselves. Some are white, some are black and they all have the more than full time job of being Mom. Good on ’em!

    SD Sez: If the Democratic Party has their way that will not be enough middle class, private sector employed whites left in the U.S. to have any effect on elections, policy, or governance.

    Why are you so obsessed with race?

    SD Sez: …a country where most children are born to single mothers will be a country where voters will demand a massive government…

    There you go predicting the future again.

    NO ONE can predict the future. That would include you.

  145. superdestroyer says:

    @michael reynolds:

    MR,

    I think the revolt will be in the form of increased cheating on taxes, more people becoming scofflaws, and a decrease in social capital. When people cannot affect policy or governance, they will take less interested in their fellow citizens. When being a citizens has no advantage over being an illegal alien, people could easily stop caring. When people are forced to learn a second or third language in order to get a job, more people will stop caring.

    Of course, progressives will just keep pretending that the U.S. can maintain open borders, unlimited immigration, a massive government, high level of entitlements with no adverse effect on the economy.

  146. superdestroyer says:

    @ernieyeball:

    You cannot predict the future but demographics is destinty. Single mothers have a higher unemployment rate than married mothers. Children of single mothers are worse off, on average. However, since it benefits the Democratic Party to have more single mothers, http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/07/single_motherhood_worse_for_children_.html, there will be more single mothers in the future.

    Married whites who work in the private sector are the least likely to be DEmocratic Party voters. Thus, there will be fewer married whites working in the private sector in the future.

  147. Rob in CT says:

    This is what happens when you fear a boogeyman. You can’t think straight. The boogeyman is behind everything man. Everything that isn’t going well? Totally the boogeyman’s fault.

  148. michael reynolds says:

    @superdestroyer:

    Hey, I need someone to clean the floor in my garage and haul away a tree stump. Can you come over and do it? No? You sure, because I want to make sure a good red-blooded American gets the job. I don’t want to deprive you of a chance to do some hard, low-pay work for me.

  149. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: You might as well start hyperventilating about all those ex-rich hedge fund husbands who dump their SAHM wives for a newer, cheaper model. Where do you think those “single mothers” come from? A lot of them are divorced wives…..

  150. superdestroyer says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Most single mothers have never been married. Remember, the divorce rate for couple where both are college graduates has never been lower.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

  151. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: An apartment costing millions?! where are you pricing land, in bleedin’ Central Park?

    Look, kiddo. I lived in Tokyo for 10 years. It was expensive, but it wasn’t as half as expensive as getting a place in London, where I paid almost 1700 quid per month for a bloody one-bedroom apartment stuck at the end of one of the runways of Heathrow. Japan ain’t THAT expensive to live in, housing-wise.

  152. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: One reason why women don’t get married is because the males in their life a) don[‘t have a job, or b) don’t look to keep a job. A lot of the women say: “why should I marry someone who can’t take care of himself and is just going to be one more burden for me to carry?”

    Why don’t you go yell at the multitude of single young men who aren’t shapping up to be husband material, rather than yell at single mothers who are at least doing their best to take responsibility for raising their children, be it with second jobs or whatever?

  153. ernieyeball says:

    @grumpy realist: Why don’t you go yell at the multitude of single young men who aren’t shapping up to be husband material,..

    Could it be that he is from Montana or thereabouts where the men are men and the sheep are nervous?

  154. Barry says:

    James Joyner: “But Vandehei and Allen aren’t talking about legitimacy but mandate.”

    And ‘mandate’ is not ‘legitimacy’?

  155. Barry says:

    @JamesinNewYork: “One thing I know for sure is that this country needs a small government party. Once the Republican Party leaves its current extremism and goes back to being a small government – more freedom party, it will find votes throughout the country, from young people and from non-whites. ”

    The GOP has been the ‘more freedom party’ when?

    Dubya?

    Reagan?

    Nixon?

    Eisenhower?

  156. superdestroyer says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Tokyo is more expensive than NYC http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison /tokyo/new-york-city. Also food is more expensive in Tokyo versus other places.
    Women would have to give up Coach bags to have children in Tokyo.

  157. superdestroyer says:
  158. An Interested Party says:

    Those on the right are just so sick and tired of hearing about racism…but here’s the deal…why is it that the President is getting the support of about half the white population in every part of the country except the South? What is it about Southern whites that make them so despise the President, as opposed to whites from every other part of the country? This really isn’t rocket science…

  159. superdestroyer says:

    @An Interested Party:

    Why are whites the only ones who are accused of being racist due to their voting patterns. Would you consider blacks racist when they keep re-electing incompetent racist like Marion Barry?

    A different spin is that whites are about the only swing voters in the U.S. Non-white voters are overwhelmingly automatic Democratic Party voters who will vote for incompetents like Jesse Jackson Jr rather than vote for a Republican.

  160. grumpy realist says:

    @superdestroyer: Again, if you’re insisting on living a Western life in Tokyo, with steak and a huge apartment and a car, then of course it’s going to be freakin’ expensive.

    If you live like a Japanese? C’mon. I lived in Tokyo for 10 bloody years quite well on a salary that would have been peanuts for anyone living in NYC. Don’t talk to me about expensive. You know NOTHING of what you are talking about.