LITTWIN: Voters show issue of race isn't just black and white

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The question, again, is race. The answer, again, is that no one knows yet what the answer is.

What I do know is that something strange happened Tuesday night on the ever-winding - logo alert - Road to Denver and that race was at the center of it.

We'll start along those West Virginia country roads where Barack Obama didn't simply get clobbered - losing by 41 points to Hillary Clinton. It's also where John Edwards, a white male who had dropped out of the race several geological eras ago, drew 7 percent of the vote. That Edwards endorsed Obama the next day is what we call a conversation- changer, but it doesn't change the story line.

That story goes this way: Twenty percent of West Virginia Democratic voters - a number accounting for half the Clinton victory margin - said race played a key factor in how they voted. In other words, 20 percent admitted they chose Clinton because she is white - or, more to the point, because Obama is black.

That's not the strange part. In fact, this is exactly what everyone expected from West Virginia, a state that is overwhelmingly white and in which a disproportionate number of voters fall among Clinton's hard-working white people or Obama's bitter blue-collar people or whatever stereotype leading down whichever West Virginia hollow you prefer.

No one was surprised by the result, and, as far as I could tell, no one was even mildly disapproving. The West Virginia white vote was apparently a given, just as the vote in parts of Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio and parts of Indiana were all a given.

In a conference call Wednesday, I asked Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson about the 20 percent vote, and he gave me the no-one-should-vote-because-of-race-or-gender-or-religion boilerplate. Since it was a phone call, I couldn't tell whether anyone was winking.

Clinton says West Virginia shows she's the stronger candidate. But what West Virginia really showed is that, for some voters, skin color remains destiny - and, please, don't tell me black support for Obama is the same thing, particularly given that blacks have voted overwhelmingly for many white Democrats, including both Clintons.

The unexpected twist is how many voters have had so little trouble saying that they had real trouble voting for a black guy. Political correctness, obviously, is off the boards. There's a new kind of honesty out there - for what it's worth - and no one is sure how to deal with it.

The Clinton people pretend it's not happening - even as Clinton herself had talked in West Virginia, once anyway, about hard-working white people. And the Obama people pretend it's not quite happening because Obama can't win the presidency if race becomes the central issue in the campaign.

But the white vote is, of course, not just the white vote - and blue-collar voters are not the only swing voters - or Obama wouldn't be on the verge of wrapping up the nomination, and he wouldn't be leading John McCain in most polls.

Obama is, for example, heavily favored in heavily white Oregon next week while, on the same day, Clinton is favored in heavily white Kentucky. For another example, the issue of race is seen much differently in our mountain state - which, note to Bob Schaffer, does not include Mount McKinley - than it is in West Virginia's mountain state.

Why? Demographics matter, of course, and so does geography and so does history. But if you think the answer is easy, come with me to Mississippi - we won't stay long - and check out the really strange thing that happened.

They held a race Tuesday to fill a U.S. House seat in a Mississippi district that has been overwhelmingly Republican in a state that is moss-dripping Southern.

Travis Childers, a white pro-gun, anti- abortion Democrat, was running against Greg Davis, a white pro-gun, anti-abortion Republican. And so the Republicans, looking for an angle, made Obama the issue. If you go to YouTube for the TV ad, you can see Childers paired not only with "liberal" Obama, but also with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who, as far as I know, hadn't endorsed in this race.

This was, uh, old-school politics in Mississippi, with all its racial overtones. But what's strange is that the Democrat won, and by 8 points.

This is a district the Republicans had held since 1995. It was a district George W. Bush carried with 62 percent in 2004. Even Dick Cheney came in to campaign. And yet the Democrat won, which is what can happen when 80 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

It's the third consecutive election the Republicans have lost in heavily Republican districts - the second in the Deep South, where, in both cases, the plan was to take on Obama. If you think Republicans aren't panicked, see what Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., told The Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "We're the airplane flying into the mountain."

And so, you take your lessons from where you can. For the Republicans, it seems, nothing is safe, at any elevation. But there's a larger lesson here that you can't have missed: On the issue of race, it seems, absolutely nothing is clear.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com.

• May 15, 2008

  8:53 a.m.

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  rjnova writes:

  The main problem with Obama is he is the most unqualified candidate running---maybe the most unqualified candidate since Jimmy Carter. That is a problem for you liberal Democrats. Very nervous about Hillary because she has more negative approval across all voters than any elected nominee and hoping Obama can slide by because he is a slick talker. Many white guys will not vote for him because he is black, or half black. But for many independent voters his problem will be he has no substance, except as far more liberal than Hillary.

  Obama mouths platitudes and how he will change the grid lock in DC. But he has absolutely no record of bipartisan legislation. When he did attend the Legislature he voted Present 130 times on any controversial issues so he could avoid defending his vote. That is what is laughable about his call for less partisan politics, a fine talking point but like with all his talk comes with absolutely no plan. Based upon his lack of legislative experience he brings, which is far left of Hillary, what he is really saying is move left and agree with me and my socialist ideas and you will be my friend.

• May 15, 2008

  9:15 a.m.

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  samsmargolis writes:

  "and, please, don't tell me black support for Obama is the same thing, particularly given that blacks have voted overwhelmingly for many white Democrats, including both Clintons."

  No one can tell you anything, Mike. You've already made up your mind that any whites not supporting Obama are racist; but, blacks that support Obama simply because he's mixed race (you keep saying he's black, but that's just a census thing....) are somehow righteous and holy. Can we expect you to continue the race-baiting, white-guilt rant through this entire campaign season or will you eventually try to focus on something of substance...like Obama's voting record as mentioned by rjnova above?

• May 15, 2008

  11:54 a.m.

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  Don_Lopez writes:

  Mr. Littwin has been covering politicians for so long that he’s become quite adept at some of their shadier skills.

  For example, concealing a fib with the truth hoping the reader won’t be able to differentiate between the two.

  Mr. Littwin does not want readers to equate black support for Obama with white support for Clinton because “blacks have voted overwhelmingly for many white Democrats, including both Clintons.” And he’s right, they have. That’s the truthful part.

  The fib is that the two groups of race-based supporters really aren’t the same thing when they are. But Americans don’t often get to observe how blacks vote when a white Democrat opposes a black Democrat because it’s a battle rarely seen on a national scale outside of a presidential primary.

  However, it does happen and thanks to former-President Clinton America was reminded that in 1988 Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina presidential primary because of the overwhelming support of black voters.

  Mr. Littwin wants desperately to be able to portray whites voting for whites as bigotry but blacks voting for black as, well, something different.

  But it isn’t.

• May 15, 2008

  1:38 p.m.

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  mike_littwin writes:

  Don_Lopez,
  But it is different. Just as an example, Al Sharpton ran for president in 2004 and in the Democratic primaries got 5 percent of the Mississippi vote, 3 percent in Florida, 4 percent in Maryland, 6 percent in Georgia, 10 percent in South Carolina. That is a small minority of the black vote in each state.

  In West Virginia in 2008, 20 percent of the Democratic voters admitted their vote was based on bigotry. It is different. It is disturbing.

• May 15, 2008

  2:08 p.m.

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  StraightTalk writes:

  Littwin said this about the ad aired against Travis Childers in Mississippi: "This was, uh, old-school politics in Mississippi, with all its racial overtones."

  In all fairness, Littwin, why didn't you mention the flyer that magically appeared on election day that said "Greg Davis wanted to honor the founder of the KKK with a statue in Southaven.....Stand up to Greg Davis - Vote Democratic."

  The saddest part of this is that Davis once talked about a statue of Jefferson Davis, not the Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue. But then accuracy has never been a strong point of most political races - deception, however has been.

  Littwin, I'd call that old-school politics in Mississippi, with all its racial overtones, not the example you cited.

  By either doing sloppy research, or conveniently leaving out part of the story in order to prove your point, you chip away at your credibility.

• May 15, 2008

  3:56 p.m.

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  mike_littwin writes:

  Straight Talk,

  I'd say both are examples of old-school politics, and with racial overtones. The difference is that we don't know who sent out the flyer, and I'll assume it wasn't Barack Obama. In this case, we do know that the Republicans ran their ad on statewide TV. If you don't think the ad has racial overtones, I'm guessing you haven't watched it.

  (Btw, most of the ugly, old-school race-baiting politics in the South was committed, of course, by Democrats.)

• May 15, 2008

  7:49 p.m.

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  freethinker07 writes:

  Obama made race an issue. He talked about a dialog on race. I understand that to be short-hand for "whites have to apologize to everyone." That seems to be what his Black supporters understand it to mean and he hasn't contradicted them.

  Hillary made gender an issue. I'm not sure where the battle lines are drawn on this one but I am certain to be blamed for something.

  Now if I have to choose among Obama, Hillary, and McCain, race and gender will be issues.

  If Obama had refused to discuss race, we could have had a colorblind election, If Hillary had refused to discuss gender, we could have had a non-gender specific election. Everyone mentioning race or gender would be penalized for unsporting behavior

  Now we have a woman who mentions gender, a black who mentions race, and a white male who wisely keeps his mouth shut on both subjects.

  So We have only one candidate who didn't decide ten years ago that I'm guilty of unspecified crimes against groups with a higher PC rating than mine.

• May 16, 2008

  6:48 a.m.

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  Don_Lopez writes:

  Mr. Littwin,

  With all due respect, you can’t possibly be comparing Senator Obama’s presidential campaign of this year with Al Sharpton’s presidential campaign of four years ago, can you?

  Senator Obama wants to be President of the United States while all Al Sharpton wanted to be was President of Black America and he used the Democrat presidential primary to claim his prize. Reverend Sharpton can be a very entertaining guy—he does a great James Brown impersonation—but his presidential candidacy was an ego-driven joke and everyone—well, almost everyone—knew it. Blacks certainly did, which explains the numbers you quoted.

  Should Senator Obama lose in November I’m sure you will want your readers to believe it was because of a racist electorate while ignoring the many other non-racial reasons Americans might not want to give him the keys to the most powerful country on the planet.

  You will point to the 20% of white West Virginia Democrat voters who admitted to using race to determine their vote as proof of racism while ignoring the 90% of black Democrat North Carolina voters who used the same criteria. You say there’s a difference but saying there’s a difference doesn’t make it so.

  There are those—are you listening, Mr. Littwin—who want Americans to believe that racism comes in only one color and from only one political party.

  They are wrong twice.

• May 16, 2008

  11:09 a.m.

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  Ichbins writes:

  Yes, if truth holds to form, and the photo is a current one, it must be directly put forth Mr. Littwin, there is nothing more pathetic than an old hippie.

• May 16, 2008

  11:54 a.m.

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  mike_littwin writes:

  Don_Lopez,
  You're correct. Al Sharpton's bid was a joke. There has never been a serious black candidate for president until now. I wonder why. There have been 3 black senators elected since Reconstruction. I wonder why. Barack Obama has lost among white voters in nearly every state with a large black population and won among whites in nearly every state with a small black population. I wonder why.

  Bigots hardly come in one party. The 20 percent of West Virginian voters were all Democrats. The sad history of politics in the South is nearly all Democrat. But to equate blacks who vote in large numbers for the first legitimate black presidential candidate in the country's history with those who vote against the first legitimate black candidate (because, as they readily admit, he's black) is a piece of logic that, I'm afraid, just won't hold.

• May 16, 2008

  1:02 p.m.

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  SASQUATCH writes:

  Littwin and Campos, two 1960s liberal socialist brain-frys and Woodstock graduates, can't get past race, color, ethnicity, gender, religion or any human characteristic that makes folks unique and different. They are obsessed with divisiveness.

  Guys, why don't you just throw your saddle-bag fryed brains into a Oster blender, mix in a little E-100 and dry vermouth, flip on the switch and revisit the 1960s.

• May 16, 2008

  10:29 p.m.

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  r0ckyAurora writes:

  Re: Littwin's 4th paragraph...
  Lies, damned lies, or statistics? Just because someone said that race played a key factor in how they voted doesn't mean that they voted for Clinton. But I guess it makes a better "story", as the lead-in suggested.

  If 91% of whites had voted for Clinton in WV (the percentage of blacks who voted for Obama in some recent state) she would have won by more than just 65-28%.