Boosters and Bigots

May 27, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

A commenter on the previous post equates Blacks who voted for Obama because of his race with Whites who voted against Obama because of his race. (This paraphrase cannot capture the tone of the comment, which should be read in its entirety.) If we phrase the issue that way, the equation is undeniable.  It’s practically a tautology.  Both are voting on the basis of race rather than policy.

But most people would see a difference – a difference between for and against, a difference between hope and fear, a difference between the desire for inclusion and the demand for exclusion, a difference between liking one of us and disliking (even hating) all of them. 

A minority group voting for one of theirs – especially the first time one of theirs has ever had the nomination of a major party – is different from a majority group voting against a candidate because of his minority status.  In 1960, 80% of Catholics voters supported John F. Kennedy – about 17 percentage points more than a non-Catholic would have gotten.  Most people (though apparently not the commenter) would not equate those Catholic voters with the anti-Catholics who voted against Kennedy because of his religion.  If a Jew is ever nominated, most people (though apparently not the commenter) would not equate his Jewish supporters with the anti-Semites who would vote against any and all Jews.  Most people understand the difference between a booster and a bigot.

In the case of Obama, the pro- and anti- votes are different not just in quality but also in quantity.  The 96% of the Black vote did not give Obama such a huge bump.



That Black vote for Obama was only six points higher than the Black vote for Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore.  (I was surprised that Clinton, “the first Black president,” got a lower percent of the Black votes than did these other candidates. )  That six-point boost is also much less than the anti-Black vote revealed in the map and graphs in the previous post.

3 comments:

Simply Aaron said...

"That six-point boost is also much less than the anti-Black vote revealed in the map and graphs in the previous post".

To me this illustrates the fact that the comment on the previous post was somewhat of a two wrongs fallacy, but good on you Jay for showing your work. I think that we can say with fairly good certainty that Obama was down on votes in the Sunbelt because of issues outside of his policies, but we will probably never know down to a significant percentage point how much was due to race alone. Obama had so many outsider labels bestowed upon him other than Black that could have derailed him with the quite conservative Democrats of that area.

Jay Livingston said...

Thanks for the comment. A comment by TR on the cross-posting at Sociological Images made the same point in somewhat greater detail. It’s not race alone, but that plus the other perceptions, true or not: Muslim, born elsewhere, schooled in Indonesia, father not American, etc.

TR lives in Arkansas and is reporting on what he hears: “the concern isn't that Obama is black so much as that he's perceived as less American . . . the far more common complaint is that he "isn't American". . . . even amongst educated moderates, there's a general feeling that he doesn't view the country with quite the same pride and patriotism as other, preferred candidates.”

Bob S. said...

A point about the boost that you failed to mention.

Yes the percentage of votes is similar but the number of voters turning out for Obama was much greater.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/politics/21vote.html


And do you have any evidence to support your contention that it was 'hope and fear' that was the difference in the racism? Or is it just your opinion again.

The commenter didn't equate a booster and a bigot; he equated bigots who only voted for Obama because he was black (half anyways) with people who voted against him because he was black.

How are they not equivalent? You can't tell me that all the voters who turned out for the first time knew and cared for Obama's policy.

I know from first hand interaction with many such voters that the majority of them did not know and did not care about his policies.