Obama’s Electoral Path to The White House (Part I)

Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama by 12 points (47 percent to 35 percent) among those [White voters] with family incomes below $50,000. By contrast, Mr. Obama beat Mrs. Clinton by five points (40 percent to 35 percent) among those earning more than $50,000. There was an education gap, too. College graduates voted for Mr. Obama 39 percent to 34 percent; Mrs. Clinton won among those who never attended college, 43 percent to 35 percent.

Put another way, what the director of polling for the Pew Research Center is telling us is that in the New Hampshire primary, what I dub the “Liberal White Voter Bloc”—solid middle-class and upper middle-class White voters—favored Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, while lower middle-class and working-class White voters favored Clinton over Obama. Furthermore, Andrew Kohut’s New York Times article also informs us that underlying a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” support for Obama in the New Hampshire primary was not just an income dynamic but also an education dynamic among White voters, because the “Liberal White Voter Bloc” was equally defined by college-educated voters.

When Andrew Kohut identified in his New York Times article the role of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” that supported Obama over Clinton in the New Hampshire January primary, he was also identifying what eventually became a crucial “electoral building-block” for the road to victory for Senator Obama by the end of the Democratic presidential primaries in July 2008. Now we must ask what are the constituent middle-class and upper middle-class White voter-bloc units that make up what I dub the “Liberal White Voter Bloc”?

These constituent White voter-bloc units are the following: 1) Middle-class/Upper middle-class persons in 18-40 Age Group; 2) Middle-class/Upper-middle-class persons in the 40-60 Age Group; 3) White ideological-independents; 4)White ideological-moderates; and 5)White women in the 45-under Age Group. This list of constituent White voter-bloc units who at this time juncture (September 20th, 2008) make up what I dub a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” is portrayed in TABLE I.

In aggregate terms, the potential Obama-supporting “Liberal White Voter Bloc” constitutes between 35% and 40% of the White electorate nationwide. If the Obama presidential campaign can mobilize behind Obama most of these White voters, combined with a majority vote among White independents/moderates and strong majorities among African-American and Hispanic voters, Senator Obama will win in November.

We should note, however, that ensuring a viable mobilization of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” in support of Senator Obama in the November election will involve surmounting some real obstacles. Basic among those obstacles is the simple fact that many White American citizens are not ready to undergo an important development in the character of what might be called “their American identity”. They are not ready to “multiculturalize their American identity”. Which is to say, they aren’t ready to graft-an-African-American-cultural-ingredient on to their White American identity, especially in regard to political attitudes and voting preferences favorable to an African-American as president of the United States.

In the concluding section of this article, I will discuss more fully the problem— here in the early 21st century—of getting a majority quantum of White American voters to “multiculturalize their American identity”, to close-the-curtain-on-racism, that is. Meanwhile, the data shown in TABLE II provide us a glimpse of what might be called the “attitudinal obstacles” that confront the Obama campaign’s endeavor to obtain a maximal mobilization of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” in support of Senator Obama in November.

One curious set of figures in TABLE II sort of stand out in regard to the issue of what I call “attitudinal obstacles” among White voters that confront the Obama campaign’s goal of a viable mobilization of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc”. Namely, that as of a September 15th Siena Research Institute Poll published in the New York Post (September 16, 2008), only 32% of the Jewish Voter Bloc in New York state support the Obama campaign, while 54% favor John McCain.

This anti-Obama preference pattern among the Jewish Voter Bloc in New York is clearly counterintuitive. Why do I say this? Because the Jewish Voter Bloc is reputed to be more liberal toward the civil rights activism African-American leadership pattern. Which is to say, toward the mainstream African-American leadership pattern as represented by politically effective activist African-American organizations like the NAACP, National Urban League, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Bar Association, Rainbow Coalition, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Council of Negro Women, Children’s Defense Fund, etc. Therefore, insofar as Senator Barack Obama’s political career has been associated with the mainstream African-American leadership pattern, one might have thought that the Jewish Voter Bloc in the Democratic Party-leaning state of New York would welcome an opportunity to vote for a high-caliber African-American candidate like Obama.

What a depressing thought that the Jewish Voter Bloc in New York would turn-its-back on a top-flight African-American presidential candidate like Senator Barack Obama! Indeed, I consider the current poll data showing 54% of New York state Jewish voters favoring McCain’s rightwing Republican campaign rather hard to believe. However, being an optimist among progressive African-American intellectuals, I also suspect that during the final six weeks of the presidential campaign a majority of New York Jewish voters will retrieve their liberal values and support Obama.

No doubt as every American college student probably knows, the process of grafting-an-African-American-cultural-ingredient on to White Americans’ cultural identities has been a slow uphill Sisyphean-type endeavor since the end of the Civil War in 1865. The nasty tenacity of features of the racist ethos among far too many of our White compatriots has been depressing, and challenging this racist ethos must therefore remain a persistent goal of liberal and progressive forces in American life.

Of course, this goal of pressuring the racist ethos into a multicultural and cosmopolitan Americanist identity has been a center piece of the African-American civil rights activist leadership tradition (the tradition of the NAACP, the National Urban League, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, etc.), and it was within the legacy of this African-American leadership tradition that Senator Barack Obama evolved as a major American politician. Fortunately for American politics here in the first decade of the 21st century, the full-fledged social movement dynamics that shaped and defined the Obama campaign throughout the 2008 Democratic primaries, have helped to reduce the negative impact of America’s racial legacy in today’s presidential contest. Accordingly, I believe it is a realistic goal for the Obama campaign to seek a viable electoral mobilization of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc” for the November election.

NOTE ON COUNTERVAILING WHITE DYNAMICS: (I) WHITE WOMEN VOTERS

Be that as it may, attention must be given to what might be dubbed two potential “countervailing White socio-cultural dynamics” among today’s White voters. I label these dynamics as “countervailing” because, if they are operating at a “hyper-level” rather than “moderate-level”, they could derail the Obama campaign’s goal of a viable electoral mobilization of a “Liberal White Voter Bloc”.

The two potential “countervailing White socio-cultural dynamics” I have in mind are the following. One is a rather long-standing tradition among White women voters of favoring Republican Party presidential candidates over Democratic Party presidential candidates. The second is the persistence of what I call “racist predilections” among about one-third of White Americans—racist predilections that might be stirred to consciousness and thus influence the votes of a critical minority segment of White voters in November.

Whereas liberal Democratic presidential candidates during the 1960s gained a majority of White women voters—namely, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey—subsequent liberal Democratic presidential candidates between 1972 to 1992 failed to gain a majority of White women voters. The data shown in TABLE III relate this pattern. The young, charismatic, Southern liberal Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, former governor of Arkansas, interrupted the Republican pattern when he won a majority of White women voters in 1992 and repeated this achievement in 1996. However, the two subsequent presidential elections saw White women returning to the tradition of favoring the Republican presidential candidate—George W. Bush.

The situation regarding the interface of White women voters with Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential candidates during the 2008 election season is revealed by data in TABLE IV.

There’s only one good word to describe what might be called the “electoral demeanor” of White women voters during the 2008 election season toward the Obama-McCain candidacies for president of the United States. That word is “mercurial”.

As shown in TABLE IV, poll results produced by ABC News/Washington Post Poll show sizable fluctuations in White women’s preferences as between Obama-McCain. From a 16-point advantage for McCain in June 2008; to a much smaller 7-point advantage for Obama by late August 2008 (three days befor the start of the Democratic Convention); swinging back to a sizable 11-point advantage for McCain by early September 2008 (just after the end of the Republican Convention); and at the start of the last week in September there was a shift toward Obama, a small 2-point advantage–49% Obama to 47% McCain.

Clearly, the “electoral demeanor” of White women voters toward the Obama-McCain candidacies has been a mercurial one. As the analyst for the ABC News/Washington Post Poll (September 24, 2008) put it: