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Face it, Democrats: Barack Obama's got a growing problem with whites
 ... Nearly half of the voters in North Carolina and Indiana said Wright was an important issue for them.
| That's because Wright hates them. The question in their minds is whether B.O. does, too, but isn't saying so. |
Then there is an April poll by The Associated Press that found "about 8% of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for President."
| There's always an 8-10 percent bottom to any bell curve, isn't there? |
According to a May Newsweek poll, 12% of voters said they thought most Americans would "have reservations about voting for a black candidate that they are not willing to express"; 41% said they thought some Americans would have such reservations. To some, any reference to such numbers is desperate at best - and race-baiting at worst.
| Sounds more like the facts of life, unpleasant though that may be. It's also the background noise of politix. |
"I have much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton told USA Today this week, making clear that she consistently does better among white, working-class voters. "There is a pattern emerging here."
That prompted The New York Times editorial page to write: "Yes, there is a pattern - a familiar and unpleasant one," making reference to charges that during the primary campaign the Clinton camp has used veiled racial attacks against Obama.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is living in similar denial. If the GOP brings up Wright during the fall campaign, Dean said recently, it will amount to "race-baiting...just like Willie Horton was race-baiting so many years ago."
| "God damn America" isn't race baiting. I feel approximately the same way toward Rev. Wright as I do toward Bill Ayers tromping the flag, which is to say not particularly well-disposed. |
Obama has run a brilliant campaign. He has won over many white voters by making them proud to vote for a supremely educated and capable man who, at his best, makes race a secondary concern. It is not inconsistent, unfair or unsavory to point out, at the same time, that Obama has been growing weaker over the months in his ability to win all but black voters. Nor am I necessarily suggesting that white voters are drifting from him because of his race - as opposed to judgments about the content of his character or candidacy.
| He's an airhead of no particular accomplishment, a Chicago ward-heeler made good. I don't like his wife because she comes across as a snotty, condescending kind of person. If he was white, he'd still be an airhead of no particular accomplishment, similar to lots of other politicians I don't like. His race is the least of the factors I don't like about him. |
This is about facing facts. And history will reflect poorly on Democrats if they believe it is virtuous to ignore race in the name of nominating the first black candidate for the White House - even if it means giving the Republicans a better chance to once again walk away with the big prize of the presidency.
Posted by: Fred 2008-05-12 |
