2008 Primaries Thread

can it be presumed that he would get a larger black turnout in swing states with significant black populations? especially after this primary?

Gershy, Molly and I live together, so we have the same IP address.

I'm amazed that you try to take such pleasure in shutting down discussion by whining until the person who called you on your bullshit gets banned. I admire your commitment to open discussion.

I should say that I'm much more struck by Obama's ability to win massively in such lily-white areas than by his struggles (however minor, really) to gain white support in more diverse areas.

Sure -- we probably shouldn't assume that all white Clinton voters will go Obama in the general -- there's probably a sliver that will vote McCain in large part because of a reluctance (acknowledged or not) to vote for a black candidate.

But, conversely, could Obama actually put some hardcore Red states in play? Kansas?

Prolly not 'hardcore' red, but I think there's several new states that could be play if Obama's the candidate this year, especially coming off his primary numbers.

What this says to me is that it's easier for white voters, in mass, to support a black candidate in states with very small black populations, not because white voters in these places are less "racist" (a loaded word best avoided in most circumstances) but because their political thinking is less rooted in reacting to race or race-based identity politics.

I think this is a really elegant way to put it.

State Democratic parties in many southern states have a functional divide between urban black political machines (Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans) and the white-dominated apparatus in the rest of the state. The white Dems tend to be more rural and conservative, and have to content with rhetoric from the Republicans about tax dollars going to welfare queens in the ghettos, and try to offer pork-barrel and more conservative rhetoric. This is played out again and again in primary battles, executive races, and legislative manouvering. The Ford family in Tennessee is an interesting case-- Harold moved much further to the right of any elected Democratic official I can think of, but the endless ads linking him to family scandals did quite a bit of damage (more than the disgusting "call me, Harold" ad, I suspect).

I would suggest that the Dem primary race in several southern states has followed this pre-existing racial alignment.

It certainly doesn't mean that Hillary supporters in the south are in the fucking klan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

xp to Hubie:
in 2004 Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia all went to Bush by pretty narrow margins.

If you add an increase in black + independent turnout (ignoring the myriad of other factors), Obama could win any of these states against McCain. So yeah, this could redraw the map.

Get this through your head: even as a joke, it's totally self-defeating to dismiss Southern Democrats who have had to put up with decades of having our asses handed to us by racists as being, in fact, racist.

That kind of stupidity has created an us vs them mentality that has handed hundreds of electoral votes to the Republicans over the last four decades.

So yeah, if some smug shit is going to slur what I've been fighting for-- a liberal/left voice in a place that needs it-- I'm going to call him on his bullshit.

http://www.geocities.com/mmesuzanne/sockpuppet.jpg

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/3/d/1/hillary_drivingmiisshillary.jpg

Regarding the Frank Rich NYT article: Rich's anti-HRC bent does color his argument, but I can imagine a nightmare convension like he envisions, even with less of a ruthless politician than Rich makes HRC out to be.

love the wal-mart bag
xp

Reverend, just to make things real literal, are you accusing me, who has been on ILX since 01, of having a sock puppet identity in the form of my fiancee, with whom I live and share an internet connection?

False accusation. We await your apology.

I live in Memphis FWIW. You mean Harold Jr., but your point is well taken.

But, again, I don't think this is a Southern phenomenon or even a black-white issue. Anywhere that has racial/ethnic diversity also has, unavoidably, a political climate rooted in racial competition, which impacts the political instincts of people who live there even if they resist it.

he's also winning Grammys.

He won best spoken word LMAO.

-- The Brainwasher, Sunday, February 10, 2008 12:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

BEATING OUT BILL CLINTON TOO LMAO

link to rich column??

-- deej, Sunday, February 10, 2008 2:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10rich.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

True enough. See Chicago vs downstate, or the example of Buffalo where Molly's from, where they're convinced that they have a net tax loss to support NYC, despite facts being to the contrary.

Yeah I meant Junior. We live in Nashville.

dick, it seems like you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. you might just want to let it go.

yeah this thread is a clusterfuck enough w/o you guys going a it

so anyway everyone was saying hillary was supposed to win maine cause of the demographics and she got served - a sigh on things to come?

uh sign

im sure ive said this before but i dont think the superdelegates have any interest in swinging this thing - particularly if the delegate leader is polling better than the second place finisher in the general election - a lot of these people have to run on the same ticket

well, the point I'm making is that the conventional wisdom about demographics seems off. Obama wins big in pretty much every largely white state. But, yeah, I'm assuming this momentum will keep building and spill over into states where the demographics don't seem to be as much in his favor -- Ohio, Pennsylvania.

x post I pointed out that gershy's comment was unacceptable. Since then, it's been me (with one nice assist from my fiancee) defending off gershy and a pathetic claque, who have gone so far as to try to have me banned from ILX and have tried to claim that I'm using Molly as a sockpuppet. I think I was entitled to defend myself against slander, and those who pulled this bullshit should feel shame and apologize.

Since I know I won't get an apology, I'll leave it at that.

plz stop we get it ok

jesus christ

deej:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=frank+rich+column

yeah i went there

Dick, I don't think anyone tried to get you banned (at least not recently, I don't see any "ban Dickerson Pike" thread on ModReq)

What this says to me is that it's easier for white voters, in mass, to support a black candidate in states with very small black populations

what numbers bear this idea out?

(see primary results)

right, but besides this primary? the argument becomes pretty circular if that's the only backup

Rev, I tried to stick up for myself on noize board after guess who whined and I ended up with a ban after strained agitation from several folks, was accused of sockpuppeting (from ILE, not noize0, followed by gloating. Now are we done with this?

yah ive heard this obama cant win wite in racially mixed states meme everywhere recently and im just not buying - there are plenty of other trends to look at there

dp how are you not saying "in the 2008 democratic primaries, obama has won a coupla few very white states, so i conclude that white voters are more likely to vote for black people if they themselves aren't around black people (??). want proof? just look at obama in the 2008 primaries!"

of course tying al gore to anyone is going for the jugular, so maybe i just don't have what it takes

woops wrong thread sorry dudes!

I'm not saying he can't win white votes in diverse areas -- clearly he can. But he's winning much larger percentages of the white vote in non-diverse areas. This is not a coincidence is all I'm saying.

Even if it's only true in this election (and since Obama is the only serious African-American presidential candidate of the post-civil-rights-movement generation, we don't have a lot of examples to go on, obv.) it's still true. And seems to mean something.

Tracer, did you mean me or Hubie?

x post woops

This is not a coincidence is all I'm saying.

uh yah i dont know if you want to call it a coincidence but it could easily just be a side effect of other trends - like hillary being strong w/old white people in the northeast and south her two home regions - or any other such theories

i mean people arent just voting y/n obama hes running against hillary

x post - My father (67, white) voted Hillary b/c of policy details and the feeling that she's a brawler when one is called for, not a negative anti Obama formulation

She won California, jh0shea. I wonder if people in the Hillary states are seeing this is a familiar state office primary set-up, with unfamiliar urban liberal (sometimes, not always, black) vs established carefully moderate figure from outside the big city. It seems like I've seen this kind of thing many times before, just not in a presidential primary that lasted long enough to accrue a lot of evidence.

yah but she didnt win wites by too much in california - she did pwn latinos tho

Los Klansmen

http://i28.tinypic.com/wgvw2r.jpg

Hubie Brown! pls come back & fix our Memphis Grizzlies

cleentone not klanton

http://www2.truman.edu/~ramberg/teaching/jins362/simpsonsaliens.gif

Grizzlies, get Gene Bartow the fuck out of there. And move back to the Pyramid.