Is there still racism in the US? Undoubtedly. Does it change how people vote? Undoubtedly. Is that all negative? No. Is it mostly negative? Doubtful. First off, it’s easy to scapegoat and say most of the racists vote Republican anyway…that would be unfair to say. I suspect however that conservatives, by virtue of what “conservative” means, would be more resistant to a change like this. And make no mistake about it, this is a HUGE change for us. it’s not just that 145 years ago, blacks were still held as slaves, 40 years ago people still shot black leaders for fighting for equality. Many who were around then are still alive. And it’s not as if MLK was shot, and all of a sudden we were a kinder, gentler nation. Indeed, I believe blacks make 68 cents on the dollar for what similarly qualified whites make to this day. Even growing up in the 80s, you have to remember how revolutionary it was to have something like the Cosby Show on television. Change like this is slow. There are many whites who were raised to think that blacks were somehow different in a good way.
And it hasn’t helped that black culture has in many ways glorified violence, and the “gangsta” lifestyle…things that scare the living daylights out of white folks who may not even have black people in their communities. Rural voters are often more conservative, not because they wouldn’t like the benefits that come along with certain change, but because they fear the detriments. So it’s no surprise that the majority of the sentiment that associates black culture with “bad change” would be rural/conservative voters. Where do we see the red on the maps? In your more sparsely populated areas! But New York and California…places that have huge population centers are by virtue of the number of people, more culturally diverse…people who live in metropolitan areas have decided to take the bad with the good, and those areas are blue on the map. It’s not because people who live in metropolitan areas are “smarter”, but they’ve been exposed to other cultures…like black culture. They see it in their own backyard, every day. And because blacks in actuality aren’t worse than whites, when whites see this with their own two eyes, it diminishes the ignorance, the fear, the racism.
So I am NOT saying that there are no liberal/Democrat racists…certainly there are…but the conditions that bring on mainstream racist ideas are not as prevalent where liberals are in the majority. So, indirectly, you have to realize that in the reddest states, the ones where no Democrat has a chance anyway, you are going to see Obama lose by more than would a white Democrat…but a loss is a loss. Again, there is still SOME racism in the blue states, and that may well depress Obama’s numbers somewhat, in a country like this it HAS to. But essentially, all you really have to worry about is the racist Democrats in the mildly blue states. Because if a Republican is racist, he’s already going to vote for the Republican. If a Democrat in New York is racist, it’s going to be like taking a single drop of water from the ocean. It’s going to matter in the states where it’s close.
But one must look at mitigating factors. There are people of ALL races who are going to vote for Obama BECAUSE he’s black. There are people who think that’s an important step in our evolution who might switch their vote, or possibly just turn up when they otherwise wouldn’t have. I believe a black candidate who is viable will increase turnout among people who don’t vote because all they ever have to choose between is two rich old white men…but not this time. And look at the African American vote. Usually blacks vote for the Democrat 90/10, this year it’s likely to be 95/5. I tend to think that there are actually more people in close states who will vote for Obama in some part because he’s black than there are people who will vote against him for that reason but who would have voted for a white Democrat.
Another part of racism is the small but loud faction which is actively hateful towards blacks…you know, the Aryans, the KKK, folks like that. But 1) they don’t represent a huge portion of voters, and 2) a lot of these people honestly don’t vote anyway. This is because they don’t just hate blacks…they hate Jews (and others…basically anyone who isn’t white), and Jews in particular, well every candidate Dem or Republican is pro Israel, and that in part makes these kinds of people inherently distrustful of government altogether. They are essentially a different kind of anarchist…they’re not going to vote for McCain because Obama is running. Indeed, some want the government to be destroyed, and think a black President is just the prescription…some Aryans have actually said they’ll vote for Obama for that purpose!
I think when you get right down to it, any factor that exists with any one candidate is going to make him unpalatable to some part of the base, and palatable to some element of the opposite’s side of the base…in a nation of 300 million individuals, each with their own way of making up their own minds, it’s impossible to really find one characteristic like race and say its’ going to have a net negative or positive impact…there are almost always offsets of some kind.
To be honest, look at the numbers. If you just add up the states where Obama has an average polling lead, he’ll get 375 electoral votes. He’s as far ahead of McCain as he should be now. Earlier in the campaign, the idea that he’d have been way ahead would have held water….but he’s just taking a bit longer to get to the numbers he should have, considering his competition. And a slow climb with a peak at the end, when people make up their minds, is to be expected….Obama after all has only been a known commodity to the majority of Americans for a little over a year.
And the individual is really what is of the utmost importance here. We COULD have had a white person as our representative….Hillary Clinton. But she would not have pursued a 50 state strategy. She might have won, she’d have shored up Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania earlier, but that would have left her vulnerable….lose one of those states for WHATEVER reason, she could lose the election because she has no backup. But would she be competitive in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana? She probably wouldn’t have contested most of those states. Right now, Obama has about a 90% chance of winning, because if he loses any one, two or three states, he’s got 5 or 6 to fall back on, PLUS he’s ahead in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Just like the liberals have embraced changes for the better regardless of the possible risks, Obama has embraced the changes in the Democratic party…Clinton resisted them…and THAT’S why she lost. She was the past, the history of the party, she was not about change. Obama was about moving forward. Someone like Clinton could have won the Republican primary…she represented the safe choice, the less risky one. Obama was the one who represented a new way forward, and that’s what Democrats have wanted. It’s just that even the liberal party in this country has traditionally been conservative, because conservatives have been so effective at painting any liberal ideas as communist/socialist. Things finally got so bad, and the leadership of the Republican President was SO BAD, that enough people finally said, NOT THIS TIME. We’re going forward.
And because there are millions of people who have never voted before, because both candidates were too status quo, too conservative, too much of the same, Obama has a historic opportunity to bring them to the table, which will more than offset any racism that permeates the final results.
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