Analysis: White Males May Prove Pivotal In Democratic Race
 

Analysis: White Males May Prove Pivotal In Democratic Race
By JONATHAN TILOVE
c.2008 Newhouse News Service


WASHINGTON — This year, for the first time, the Democratic Party will nominate a candidate for president who is not a white male. But the results from Super Tuesday contests coast to coast suggest that white males, like a sovereign who gets to name his successor, may be the decisive swing vote in this historic battle between a black man and a white woman.

While the results fluctuated wildly state to state, it appears Illinois Sen. Barack Obama narrowly won the white male vote in battling New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to a Super Tuesday draw.

Indeed, white males "are holding the balance of power in the Democratic primaries and caucuses," said David Redlawsk, a University of Iowa political scientist who was elected a John Edwards delegate in his state's caucuses and has written about the intersection of gender and politics. "White males are playing a fairly important role here," he said, if for no other reason than they are the one large group yet to obviously choose up sides.

Since the New Hampshire primary, white women have been consistently siding with Clinton. They represent a disproportionate share of the Democratic electorate because they are both more likely to be Democrats and more likely to vote.

Black voters are backing Obama in numbers trending toward the unanimous.

And in Super Tuesday primaries in New Jersey, New York, California, Arizona and New Mexico, Latinos rallied to Clinton by large margins. (Only in his home state of Illinois was Obama able to win half the Latino vote.)

But white males, as the Super Tuesday results made plain in complicated fashion, are up for grabs.

According to state-by-state exit polls, Obama handily defeated Clinton with white males in California (52 percent to 34 percent), Connecticut (57 to 40), New Mexico (59 to 34), Utah (64 to 29) and Illinois (59 to 37).

But Clinton swamped Obama with white males in New Jersey (58 to 39), Missouri (55 to 41), Oklahoma (55 to 32), Tennessee (58 to 32), Arkansas (74 to 20) and New York (52 to 43).

Meanwhile, in Delaware, Arizona and Massachusetts, the white male vote divided evenly between the two.

This is new terrain for Caucasian men.

Since George Washington, white males in America have been secure in the knowledge that the president of the United States was going to look like them, more or less. No longer.

What's more, as white men voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses make their decisions, they face the prospect of being poked and prodded just like any other demographic subgroup.

Before last month's South Carolina primary, for instance, journalists visited black beauty salons in the Palmetto State to report the "cross pressures" on black woman voters. Would they vote their race or their gender? As it turned out, black women then and since have overwhelming chosen Obama.

The time may have arrived for the media to descend on "white barbershops," to find out how white males are coping with the cross pressure to vote their race or their gender.

Obama's big win in Georgia was the first result reported Tuesday night and CNN analyst David Gergen, a top adviser in the Reagan and Clinton White Houses, marveled about the history being made. Here was a black candidate for president winning 45 percent of the white male vote, to 48 percent for Clinton in the Deep South.

Lou Dobbs, who was hosting the coverage, warned against stereotyping Southern white males. But Gergen, noting that he grew up in North Carolina, repeated that this was truly historic.

Perhaps.

Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University in Atlanta, notes that most white males in Georgia vote Republican, and that white males constituted only 16 percent of Tuesday's Democratic electorate there.

"That's very, very small," Black said.

By comparison, white women were 27 percent of Georgia's Democratic voters; black men, 19 percent; black women, 33 percent.

Black further noted that Hillary Clinton is not an especially appealing candidate for many white men in the South. Yet next door to Georgia in Alabama, which Obama also won on the basis of overwhelming black support, Clinton defeated Obama among white males, 73 percent to 23 percent.

Race and gender are only part of the story.

Matthew Lassiter, a historian of race at the University of Michigan, notes that the strongest strain of Obama's appeal is generational. On his campus, he said, it's hard to find a student who is not for Obama.

Across the board, exit polls indicate that Obama does better with younger whites and Clinton does better with older whites.

For example, in last month's primary in South Carolina, in a three-way race that still included former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Obama won 27 percent of the white male vote. But he won a majority of the vote of all whites under 30.

While Obama also tends to do better with wealthier, better-educated whites, and those who are political independents, Tuesday's results indicate he succeeded as well in picking up the support of many white men whose first choice was Edwards. Edwards had sounded more populist themes, but dropped out of the race last week.

Charles Gallagher, a professor of race and ethnic relations at Georgia State, lives in Atlanta's Virginia Highlands, a neighborhood with very few blacks in the middle of a very black city. Gallagher, who is white, said both he and his wife wrestled with their decision before voting for Obama. Both felt a little guilty about not voting for a woman.

"This could be a breakthrough for my two daughters — telling them you can be president," Gallagher said.

But on his way to the polls, he saw a black Obama supporter yelling "Hillary Clinton, more of the same," and figured that electing a black man president would be a bigger breakthrough than electing a white woman.

Even so, Gallagher said, for many white men the choice may involve even more complicated processing, right down to the subconscious.

Looking at Obama, they may see a black man who is not Al Sharpton, or a black man who is, in fact, biracial — with a white mother. Their thinking: "He's a twofer, he's black and he's me."

For those same white men, white women are familiar objects of love — wives, mothers, daughters. But they can also be sources of friction — the boss, the department chair, or the same wife, mother or daughter on a bad day.

Who knows but that Hillary Clinton's support from white males depends at least a little bit on the quality of those interactions at home in the days or hours before they vote?

"There are a lot of edges to this," Gallagher said.

http://www.newhouse.com/analysis-whi...atic-race.html

...and who sez that race isn't an issue in this election ?

Wow - so one of the largest voting demographics (likely effectively tied with white women) will be important?

Scintillating analysis.

Chuck Norris says there is only one white male vote that counts. All others merely follow.

LOL, sorry, Chuck, but looking at Huckabee's delegate count, I don't think all that many are really following you. (but your ad was still funny!)

Glad I'm not the only one.

Just wait. Chuck finally drop kicked Romney out of the race and Huckabee will soon be on the ticket (perhaps as VP, but maybe that's what my goal was all along...)

Everything is all going according to my plan (drumming fingers).

I'll take your's and KSig RC's word on that being the gist of the article. My eyes glaze over when I see a post that long.

McCain will lose a lot of moderates if he puts Huckabee on the ticket. That's my prediction, anyway.

Mine do, too.

I read enough sentences to think "This is a 'DUH' article."

An accurate prediction, I think. He lose a lot of independents as well.

Not if the other choice is Hillary.

RUN RALPH RUN!!!!

This white male will not be voting for president in november.

Apathy and nonparticipation do not serve a democracy well.

Plus, if you don't vote, you can never, ever b*tch when you don't like how things are going.

Keep an open mind and let's at least get past the primary season, for goodness sake.

I'm kind over ANY news story saying one segment is "pivotal" in the Democratic Race.

First it was the single women who were voting one way, then the African Americans, then the Latinos.... seriously. Let's just say all the different segments are important in some way, but it's doubtful any one will be the most important in the race

Well, whites make up like 58% of the US population - so I think winning the white vote would be "pivotal" to be quite honest.

That's, coincidentally, why I think this article is retarded.

Exactly.

(I think whites are still more than 58% of the population, including Hispanic or Latino whites.)

Yeah, I was trying to account for Hispanic/Latino by doing a silly back-of-envelope thing (I thought "70% white - 10%ish self-reporting as latino, then guess a random number") - I just looked it up, it's more like 74% report as white, and about half of the 14% that reports as latino is white/latino, so more like 67%ish. So yeah - you're way right here (which reinforces the point of how retarded this article is).

This is why we hire someone to handle demo balancing for me.

The 74% is more like it. :) I thought I had missed some huge demographic shift. Whites used to comprise 80-or-so% of the total population.

The % that reports as Hispanic and Latino does not reduce the % of white. Hispanic and Latino origin and race are distinct concepts and the Census adopted this method in 2000 (http://www.census.gov/popest/race.html). This means the 74% is correct.

So yeah the article is like announcing that water is wet, especially considering the size of the white male population and the fact that their vote has always mattered a whole lot, in general. However, the article also addresses how white males who plan on voting Democrat are, for the first time, choosing between racial and gender minorities. This is the first time the white male Democrat vote will not be used for a white male and that's where they may feel like they are under a microscope (i.e. "let's see who white men are gonna vote for THIS time") and as if their votes are a tie-breaker of sorts.

What if at least some white males voted for the candidate they felt was best qualified, regardless of sex or race??? Wouldn't that skew their little census??

Some friends and I were talking about this:

We think that some people (read: not all) will end up changing their minds when they are actually at the polls because the reality of the matter will sink in.

For instance, some (read: not all) racial and ethnic minorities who were not pushing for Obama may feel differently when they are actually about to vote. Some (read: not all) women who were not pushing for Clinton may feel differently when they are actually about to vote. Even people who said they weren't going to vote based on gender or race this entire time. Some (read: not all) racial and ethnic minority women may struggle with which is more salient and beneficial in the long run and this may result in a very last minute change of mind on their part.

To that extent, I honestly think some (read: not all) white liberals who have been pushing for Obama this entire time will change their minds when they get to the polls. Same goes for men who have been sounding progressive by supporting Clinton. Of course, people will say that I'm full of it for saying that, but it's hard to know what many people will choose when the reality of voting for a particular person who is a member of a particular GROUP sinks in. Regardless of the platforms. People want to feel progressive and unswayed by demographic factors, but when no one's there to monitor whether their gender or race-neutral progressive words translate into action, they might fall back.

People are notorious for lying to pollsters. So there's that, too.

How would it?

FYI: My other post about voters changing their minds isn't in response to this one. I read this post after I posted.

They keep discussing the male vote in terms of sex and race - seemingly ignoring the fact that there is more to the candidates than whether or not they have a penis or the color of their skin. To assume otherwise is really sexist or racist. That's all I was saying.

There are more to the candidates but not every voter votes based on that.

And those who do will still be choosing one of the 2 candidates, which will still have sex and race implications whether folks like it or not.

That's why I said "some".

What about it, is what I'm asking.

Just pointing out another reason this rather "Well, duh!" political analysis is, well, "duh" worthy.

The elephant, or donkey I guess in this case, in the room is that they discuss the white male Democratic vote in terms of race, sex, and generation but not platform. That's it. I'm not noting what's there as much as what is not.

eta - I'm apparently hallucinating now, so I think I'll go to bed.:o

You aren't hallucinating. I deleted my post because I think I was having a "duh" moment of my own and hallucinating that the article said something that it did not. So I decided to take a Law and Order and sandwich break. :o

Now I've re-read part of the article and completely see what your initial post was talking about. :o The article does seem to assume that demographics were the decision making factor for the average black, female, and (hypothesized to be for the) white male voter. And that of course won't account for every voter's decision making process but is an attempt to observe and predict a trend. As long as there is a trend to observe that more or less goes along with their predictions, the results of their "census" won't be messed up.

whatever you 2 are smoking.....I want some....

Will that make you respond to your own damn thread topic beyond a one sentence snippet? ;)

Oh...you was waiting for me to respond to the craptastic thread I started?

Naw...I was having more fun watching you all...

No.

But since you jumped in for nothing, I am asking why you have no profundities to share. ;)

Mine was at the very beginning!

but...a few random thoughts:

I was listening to baisden's show yesterday and he asked a white caller why he would vote for Obama **BTW DST did you hear that** and he his reply was that Obama was refreshing, clean looking, and very articlulate...and I had a Chris Rock flashback.

What was odd (and to a point not surprising) was that the caller never really mentioned anything about Barack's platform and if whether or not he agreed with it...

IMO, it's just as bad as if a Black person votes for Barack simply based on the fact that he is Black.

So even I wonder if they know what and why they will vote for him IF they vote for him.

so....there's the rub. White men will not, repeat will not, vote for Mrs. Clinton. Democratic white men are voting for Obama instead. If Mrs. Clinton is the Democrats' nominee, they'll vote Republican. If Obama is, they'll have to make another decision, but we don't know what it will be until all the votes are counted.

So, is race still a factor moreso than gender?

ETA: What I find even more of a cunundrum is a question of how conservative Repubs are going to vote. From what I have been hearing is that they hate McCain so much that if it comes right down to it, they will "spite vote" Hillary in just to keep McCain out of office. So, what is the plan if Obama is nominated? He is pro life, anti spending, a war hero and so on....what more can they want? I see a hard decision for many come November regardless of which way the Dems nominate.

Oh Zeus and Hera, no! The man's as nuttier than Ron Paul.

Yeah. That's something to be proud of. :rolleyes:

Just out of curiousity, who would you guys rather have than McCain? Romney?

Most of the people I've known who wouldn't vote for a woman for President are equally sure that they wouldn't vote for an African American either (or probably anybody of color). But, I don't think any of them have ever voted for a Democrat either. Anecdotal, yes.

SEC and PhiGam


you know what...don't vote...and while you are at it....you may want to pick up a paer or 2 and read about the violence going on in Kenya because ofthose that exercised their right to vote....

If that is not enough to make yo to put a foot out the door to exercise something that you don't have to worry about dying to do then do me this one favor:

When November rolls around and the person you would have picked (but you dididn't abstained from voting) please do the following

a. Abstain from whining and bitching in administarive policy
b. take up arms and protest
c. get mad and any changes or reforms
d, In the case a riot on the scale of Kenya just happens to take place, as the mob passes your house, please refrain from picking up any torches and pitchforks and joining in.

I know that I have fams that fought, been beaten (and one was denied actually) and got jailed to get the right to vote in this country so I will be there regardless of who the nominee is...there is such a thing as a write in!