The reason that side is getting short shrift is simple: the political
discourse in America is shaped by white, middle aged male pundits who
live in the burbs and tend to think of the American "voter" as a white,
middle-aged white guy from the burbs. But America is chock-a-block with
minorities and women and urbanites and liberals and young people, and
most of those groups have voted at historically low levels because they
never saw a national candidate who looked anything like them or who had
shared their experiences in any meaningful way.
That's not to say that we won't be treated to a bevy of ugly messages if
Obama ends up heading the ticket -- some coded messages, some explicit
-- designed to appeal to America's uglier, racist side. We certainly
will (and already have in the primaries
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/12/clinton-cochair-attacks-_n_7...>).
And if Obama were to become the nominee, he would almost certainly lose
in deeply "red" states; in the Bible Belt. But those states aren't in
play for Democrats anyway. In his book /Whistling past Dixie/, political
scientist Tom Schaller showed that Democrats don't need those states to
win nationally. The book caused a lot of controversy over the question
of whether Dems /should/ write off the deep South in the near term, but
nobody could shake Schaller's numbers and argue that they /couldn't/.
It's the "purple" states that matter in a national race, and, if Obama's
win in Iowa was any indication, he has the potential to dominate in
those races.
In Iowa, he blew away the field among voters who identified themselves
as independents. He beat Clinton among unmarried voters, 43-24; with
first-time caucus-goers, 41-29; among young people aged 17-29 he
/slaughtered his opponents/, with four times Edwards' second place
support. He beat Edwards among voters who prioritized the ability to
"bring about change" by 51-20.
And I think it's difficult for white people, this author included, to
understand just what his candidacy /symbolizes/ for people of color. For
a year we heard that the African American community was divided over
whether he was "black enough" for them to fully embrace as one of their
own. In the wake of Iowa, at least according to anecdotal evidence,
black and brown America were profoundly moved to see Obama, this
powerful African American orator, winning over cornfed Iowa.
It's impossible to predict how that might play out come November. But
any analysis that just looks at the Democratic and independent crackers
who'll bail on a black man with a funny name and doesn't factor in the
millions that might be inspired by his iconic candidacy (not to mention
his personal charisma) underestimates Obama's potential.
Last week, Obama blew up a long-standing piece of conventional wisdom
about the youth vote. His campaign had been saying for months that he'd
excite boatloads of young people whose youthful energy would propel him
to a decisive win. For decades, that's been the desperate cry of a
campaign that had no shot -- those promises have been made many times,
and on every occasion young people's "excitement" didn't translate into
young people's votes. But something different happened this time.
According to Young Voter PAC, a group that encourages young people to
get politically engaged, Iowa's "youth turnout rate rose to 13% in 2008
compared to 4% in 2004 and 3% in 2000." 22 percent of Democratic
participants were young people, up from 17 percent in 2004. Entrance
polls showed that the lion's share were there for Barack Obama -- while
Hillary got twice Obama's support among the over-65, he /trounced her/,
5 to 1, among those under the age of 30.
The youth vote, thanks in part to Bush's ruinous presidency, has grown
dramatically in each of the last three elections. But there's still a
lot of potential in that demographic -- in 2004, even after an enormous
11-point increase over 2000, less than half of young voters aged 18-24
<http://www.civicyouth.org/quick/youth_voting.htm> bothered to go to the
polls -- the lowest turn-out for any age group.
Fewer than half of Latino voters
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/0049...>
voted in 2004 and despite the fact that 3 million more blacks came out
in 2004 than in the previous cycle, they still trailed the participation
rate for whites, 67-60
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR200...>.
What happens if 65 or 70 percent of those voters turn out in 2008 (long
lines in GOP states be damned)?
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