Strange Trump
The new Time cover has text saying “WHY THE ECONOMY IS TRUMPING RACE.” I haven’t read the article those words are teasing, and you can’t hold a journalist responsible for what gets said about his work on the cover, but I think it’s pretty strange to say that race is being trumped in the current presidential campaign. Consider the latest ABC/WaPost poll. It’s full of bad news for John McCain:
Powered chiefly by the public’s economic concerns, Obama leads John McCain by 10 points among likely voters, 53-43 percent, in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Though every race is different, no presidential candidate has come back from an October deficit this large in pre-election polls dating to 1936.
So . . . economy trumps race? Well, not really:
Among all white voters, McCain leads Obama by 7 points, 52-45 percent; that, however, is a bit less than the average Republican advantage among whites in presidential elections. Obama makes it back with 95 percent of blacks, as well as clear majority support among Hispanics.
Now, clearly, if race were dominating the election, Obama would be doing somewhat worse than Gore or Kerry among white voters. But it’s still the case that McCain, for all his problems, has a solid lead among white people. But Obama is doing very well among America’s growing non-white minority and that seems to be primarily powering him into the lead.
51 Responses to “Strange Trump”
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October 13th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I think the point is that Obama’s race is being trumped by the economy. Evidence for this being that he’s doing better among white voters than either Gore or Kerry.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Cue analysts talking about how Obama would be losing if it weren’t for the Democratic party’s reliance on minority votes, that Republicans would actully be winning if we only counted the “real” votes.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I’m fairly astonished that Gore and Kerry did so poorly with white people. What the hell is wrong with us white folks?
October 13th, 2008 at 10:28 am
If Obama, as a black man, is doing better with white voters than Gore or Kerry, doesn’t that seem like a pretty good argument that race isn’t really factoring into people’s choices?
October 13th, 2008 at 10:31 am
the GOP is a white christianist nationalist party. they will suffer as demographics shift. the whole hating latinos thing was really dumb as was the recent god bless irish illegals we gotta get ‘em citizenship fast comment by old spice (bible spice’s running mate).
October 13th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Jake, everyone knows that Democrats only want to wave the White Flag of Surrender and they secretly hate our freedoms. I wouldn’t know, but I hear that white people just can’t get down with that.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Maybe the article is about how we are more concerned with the economy than with the Presidential “race” and the cover person had not read the article either. Or TIME could have its head up its ass.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Times are so shitty that it’s OK to vote for the Smart Guy instead of the rich-ass popular kid who throws awesome pool parties. The racial aspect enhances the contrast even more so. The tragedy is that things (the economic shitstorm, but also Iraq Invasion and whatnot) had to get this bad before it was OK to vote for the nerdy black kid.
Just imagine if The Village had given the OK to vote for (and/or not dump on) the nerdy smartypants in 2000. How much better would we and the world at large be? Way, way better off.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Whether it’s by design or merely an effect, the Republican Party’s appeal lies mainly among those white voters who regard skin color as a primary value. So when Obama gets 45% of the white person’s party, that’s fairly good news. It may take another decade or so for the Republicans to fully grasp what a bad bargain they struck some 40 years ago. Yes, they enacted a counterrevolution but they’re manning the barricades with a declining demographic. More importantly, this demographic is exclusionary and paranoid. And for better or worse, their tribe owns the party. Want a national party? Look elsewhere.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Why do people have such a hard time saying “racism”? “Race” ≠ Racism. Economic worries and concerns are trumping racism, which means that Barack Obama very well may be elected the next President of the United States, on the numerous merits of his candidacy, rather than losing despite them.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Nice post, MY.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:00 am
The fact that Obama is doing better than Gore or Kerry among white voters to me means that Obama’s race is not that important to voters. Instead, the race of the voter continues to be extremely important, with white voters being much more pro-Republican than non-white voters.
So race is a factor, but not the race of the candidate so much.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Disagree. I think the Democrat is the cool kid this time around. I think at this point, most people who weren’t die-hard to begin with think of McCain as either a douchebag or a diaper-wearer. (If I were Maureen Dowd, I would call this “the Depends-Massengill Syndrome”– although if I were Maureen Dowd, I would have blown my brains out years ago, so I suppose the point is moot).
October 13th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Or maybe, for many white voters, John Kerry and Al Gore (but not Bill Clinton?) were defacto black candidates?
October 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Disagree. I think the Democrat is the cool kid this time around.
How long ago was TV all Jeremiah Wright all the time? Think about how Tweety, Brokaw, Russert, just to name the so-called Liberal NBC speak of McCain, with reverence and awe of the fighter jock and honorable bipartisan good man. When Wes Clark spoke truth to Bob Schieffer about how getting shot down doesn’t automatically qualify one for high office, how was that received?
McCain is the son and grandson of Admirals. He’s known privilege all his life. Obama came from nothing, worked his ass off to get where he got (plus he’s a black man in America). We both know who threw the bitchin’ pool parties which all the cool kids attended. Hell, McCain still does (tire swing!).
October 13th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I agree with WillieStyle. I think Matt is misinterpreting what the article means by “economy trumps race”…
October 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Here’s the viewpoint of an acquaintance of mine who lives in Phoenix, verbatim:
“At the risk of being very aware you are the most liberal “left” friend I have ever known. Obama scares te hoLy crap out of me! As do his cult like followers
I have alwasy been socailly liberal but ffiscally I am conservative and that has worked very well for me as all my other firends (with the exception of maybe you) Who work for a living. I have voted both democrat and repbulican depending on the person and issues at stake. (Not that a presidential vote of the population counts, I know 528 people pick the president.)
But Obama truly frightems me. He is charming and articulate and well educated, Much like Hitler when he was Time magizine’s “man of the year”.
Frightning that some well educated people like him very much. Guess I am thankful for my lack of education which I think helps me make better decsions in my life. LOL”
October 13th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I see what you’re getting at, Ed, and it seems like its based on the way the media lavished another spoiled brat with praise and adulation in 2000 and 2004, and the way they dealt with McCain prior to about a month ago.
So I agree that the media’s turned, but I don’t think it’s the economy that’s changed their mind. I think it has more to do with the fact that McCain’s irritability, nastiness, confusion, and general crotchedy-old-personness has made it impossible for them to push that narrative without looking like morons. There were two debates where instant polling made it impossible for them to pretend that people like him, the Des Moines interview that made him look like an asshole, relentless negativity, etc.
Give the Village some credit, though–they hung on to that tire swing as long as they could.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Give the Village some credit, though–they hung on to that tire swing as long as they could.
We deserve some credit too (ow, my arm!). Our Team finally has the means and structure to push back the Right Wing Noise Machine at least a little bit and get the Village to snap out of it. But if times were good, things might be different. If there were only Wars to worry about, the Village would pray at the altar of the Confirmed War Hero, no matter how looney his ideas or that the nerdy Other got the Iraq Invasion right from the get go.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:39 am
By the way, I think the locus of this issue is the racialization of entitlement spending. For conservatives, race has been the prism through which pretty much all social programs are viewed, at least ever since Reagan’s invocation of “welfare queens from the South Side of Chicago” in 1976.
The conservative movement’s small government mantra really means “stop helping lazy minorities with my hard-earned money.” If race has become less determinative in this election (in that more whites are voting for Obama), it is perhaps because there are a lot more white people who crave the government safety net, making it harder to see those needing government aide as some insidious other.
Notice how the Republican focus on Fannie and Freddie and minority ownership initiatives is trying to reassert the racialized vision of government spending.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:51 am
But Obama truly frightems me. He is charming and articulate and well educated, Much like Hitler when he was Time magizine’s “man of the year”.
I’m happy that you’ve befriended a crazy person.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I’m happy that you’ve befriended a crazy person.
Sadly, Jeffery Davis, red@cted’s friend is probably not crazy and is not at all outside of the mainstream of conservative thought on this. My own father, who is a smart guy and is certainly not crazy, could have said pretty much exactly what red@cted’s friend did. (Actually, he’s said much worse.)
There are a lot of people out there who are ready and willing to believe the most terrible things about politicians they disagree with. It’s not enough just to think that politician X has bad ideas that will be bad for the country. No. politician X has to be evil and be crafting a secret plot to kill whitey or some such thing.
You get some of this on this left, of course, but it’s not nearly to the degree of unhinged ferocity of what you see from the right.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Opps! Sorry about the stray italics.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
That’s great Matt. Obama is doing better than Kerry among white voters, and you’re still out in front calling white voters racist and seeing racism in these results.
It’s long been said the worse part of Obama is his supporters, and you’re a fucking loon.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
It’s going to be a fantastic 8 years with assholes like you Matt ready to decry any criticism of Obama as racist.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It’s going to be a fantastic 8 years with assholes like you Matt ready to decry any criticism of Obama as racist.
No, anon, just the racist stuff. Can you tell the difference? Can you dig it? By the way, I saw you in some of those awesome Youtubes of the Good Americans at the Palin rallies. You and the rest of the krowd look great! Keep up the good work!
October 13th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Re red@cted
But Obama truly frightems me. He is charming and articulate and well educated, Much like Hitler when he was Time magizine’s “man of the year”.
Hitler well educated? I am not aware that he ever went to a university in Austria.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Obama scares te hoLy crap out of me! As do his cult like followers
Yeah, crazy, gullible kids like Warren Buffet and Paul Volcker.
As for Hitler, I think he went to art school.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I’m still not sure why a person who is half white and half black is considered to be black rather than white.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Is race being trumped when major news organizations are composing magazine covers trumpeting how race is being trumped? It’s kind of like writing “don’t think of an elephant.”
October 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I haven’t read the article either, but I think the word “trump” is the key to understanding the cover–and I think you’re reading too much into it. To me, it looks like a play on the “race card” meme we’ve heard so much about during the past year.
The cover seems to suggest that, by trying to make Obama look like a scary “other,” McCain is trying to “play the race card.” I agree that he is, and I imagine we all know that the McCain campaign always planned to play that card at about this time in the contest–especially if the race was close or if they were behind.
The Time cover simply makes the banal point that people are so worried about the economy that McCain’s once-powerful race card is “trumped” by economic concerns. The seemingly all-powerful Ace of Spades (!) has run up against an even more powerful “card”-one whose identity and appearance in the game is unpredictable, like a trump card’s.
So the argument of the cover is a simple one. Of course Time’s editors chose that argument for this cover because it gave them an excuse to put Obama’s on the cover along with the word “race” in big bold letters, so there is certainly more going on here than just the explicit argument being made….
October 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Shorter Matt: If you don’t support Obama, you’re a racist.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Well Brad, you could support McCain for his grasp of economic policy.
Or you could support McCain for his statesmanlike approach to foreign policy.
Or you could support McCain because he has been running such a great campaign.
Or you could support MCain because Palin winked at you and sparks flew.
Or you could support MCain because he’s so mavericky
Or you could support McCain because he always tells the truth 100% of the time.
Or you could support McCain because he surrounds himself with brilliant people.
Or, since none of the above is true, you could support McCain because Obama is an Arab Muslim Terrorist with a secret socialist agenda to install Osama Bin Laden as Secretary of the Treasury.
Or, you know, you could be the keeper of the big non-racist secret as to why white folks like you don’t support Obama.
Just sayin’…
October 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
If a Republican only wins white people by 7 points, he loses.
Guaranteed.
October 13th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Matt should break this down a bit better. I believe that stats show Obama is capturing white women by a small margin and he leads among white men too at certain income and eduication levels.
October 13th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
That would be the point I think. To me it says, if you appeal to a very specific voting block, one I might suspect that race does enter into the minds of the people voting within that block. If white people are the only ones voting for you with any numbers, what does that say about racism? Volumes…
October 13th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Looked at the cover of Time and read it this way: Black and White and Colored to the Right.
what a crappy thought.
Obama is the most well spoken, has the most courageous if even conservative views, has the most disciplined volunteers and represents a party that has needed a uniting figure. Even if it should turn out that he fills his cabinet with old fogey dems or Chicago machinery, and scandals hound his administration, I think one will be able to measure his terms in office as superior to those of the last awesomely awful eight years.
I look forward to eight years of Dem control of the Executive and Legislative Branches.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Or you could support McCain because Palin winked at you and sparks flew.
Watch it! You’ll have Rich Lowry after you for trying to steal his woman!
October 13th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
If you don’t think racism has been an issue for a proportion of voters you haven’t been listening to what many, when asked, are willing to admit. And we all know there’s more racism in this country than people are willing to admit to.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I live in Bradenton, Florida (that’s Flori-DUH) and yes, racism is alive and well (I’m sad to report).
People in this backwater where I’ve lived for about 6 years are extremely racist. If I only had a nickel for ever “n” joke I was told, I’d be a millionaire.
The local yokels all assume I’m a racist jerk too because I’m a white guy. A girl I was dating, her Aunt works at the Manatee County School Board. The Aunt sent out one of those “I’m afraid he’s the ANTI-CHRIST” e-mails….I AM NOT, REPEAT NOT, MAKING THIS UP.
I mentioned “Senator Obama” at the Cigar Bar on Main St. on Sunday night and the OWNER of the place tells me (100% true, I promise) that “HIS SKIN DON’T LOOK LIKE MINE”. The guy was enraged. I mentioned that GW Bush has white skin and has raped and pillaged this country….it got no traction whatsoever.
I am now officially ashamed of Bradenton, Florida. The same stuff has been going on for the entire election season. The old folks use the soft racism “Well, I can’t vote for him, he’ll just get shot anyway.” Great perspective, my elderly friend, thanks for your progressive viewpoint!
I am ashamed of “bradentucky” as we call it, it’s not fair to Kentucky. I’m actually ashamed of the South and America too.
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