You know all the media hype we’ve been hearing of late about Obama’s presumed troubles with white voters? According to a study by NYT columnist Charles Blow, the numbers don’t bear it out. In fact, quite the converse: “The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much. On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period). While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.” That it does. (See also Rural Votes.)
At this point, I expect to see Republicans publicly discounting black voters as not “real” votes. The really disturbing thing about this campaign is that it appears that sentiment extends much further into the Democratic party and the punditry and political culture in general than I had suspected. This has been the subtext, and increasingly the text, of the whole narrative of Clinton’s continued campaign, and the media has been all too happy to buy into it. Add in the blatant double standards in the coverage of Wright and the attendant refusal to even contemplate engaging the concerns and culture of the black church and community, and you have a rather nasty picture. I bet this has clarified a whole lotta things for African American voters in terms of where they really stand and how much progress really has(n’t) been made. Though they probably didn’t need that clarification anyway, but it’s been a big wakeup call for me, at least.
Also, Clinton is now apparently willing to totally alienate both the activist base and our historically most reliable voting bloc and constituency. Who the hell does she expect to get her elected in the fall? White working class voters who are still willing to vote Democratic really aren’t that numerous anymore outside of the Rust Belt, and even there they are in decline. And they don’t have the resources to volunteer or donate, or the local community organization to get out votes and get things done. In the thankfully very unlikely event that she does somehow snatch the nomination, we are going to be talking epic fail in November.
I don’t think there was originally a plan by the Clinton campaign to discount the African-American vote as much they have. Only when African-American voters, for various reasons, switched their allegiance from Clinton to Obama did that bloc unfortunately revert to 3/5ths status in the Clinton campaign’s fuzzy math.
Regardless, it has been sad to watch.
I don’t think there was originally a plan by the Clinton campaign to discount the African-American vote as much they have.
I don’t think it was a plan either; she and Bill have historically had very good relations with the African American community, and I seem to remember her having rather overwhelming support there even after Obama had announced and even right up until Iowa. But they’ve been all too happy to turn on a dime just like that the moment it was deemed politically necessary(and that’s a rather thin reed to me, though basically every argument they have is like that at this point) in the short term to do so, and that’s not a good way to build a party or win elections or be decent human beings. It’s both craven and stupid in addition to being pointless, and again, the fact that they’re willing to do it and the media and a big piece of the Party is willing to go along with it has been pretty disturbing to me, though it probably shouldn’t have been surprising.