Guardian forced to concede racism not behind Barack Obama’s cratering support.

You have to skip through quite a lot of garbage about racism and the South to get to the meat of this Guardian post*, but it’s kind of worth it:

What needs to be pointed out, however, is that most of Obama’s current approval slide likely isn’t because of racism.

[snip]

The greatest fall for Obama isn’t among whites in the south; it’s in the northeast – you know that region that was on the correct side of the Civil War. Obama went from winning northern whites by 10pt in the election to a -12 net approval now. The next greatest drop is in the west where Obama fought to a near-tie in the election, but now has a net approval of nearly -20 among white voters. Close is his 14pt drop in the midwest where Obama’s net approval is now a measly -23pt.

The one place where Obama’s support among whites hasn’t fallen sharply is in the south. Obama’s net approval there is only a statistically insignificant 3pt lower than it was before the election. In other words, it’s likely he completely bottomed out in that region. Lack of white support for Obama hasn’t bottomed out in other regions.

Indifferent news for Barack Obama – he won, remember**? – but horrible news for any Democratic Presidential candidate that can be unambiguously (or even credibly) linked to the Obama administration.  I dunno: do the Democrats have any of those planning to run in 2016?

Moe Lane

Via

 

Moe Lane

*I find it fascinating when white liberals are shocked to discover that their five decades of steady attacks on a geographical area have eventually and inevitably resulted in voters from that area making the decision to not vote for white liberals. Sean Trende’s The Lost Majority  explains why well enough, IIRC, but here’s the gist: the liberal wing of the Democratic party cut off the conservative wing at the root.  Conservative Southern Democrats started dying of old age.  Their conservative children decided to go vote for Republicans, who actually wanted them. Eventually state legislatures started flipping.  The end.

**Barack Obama also knows full well that he’ll pretty quickly rebound in popularity once he stops being President.  And he will: I suggest that nobody emulate the BDS people and expect that Obama will be a name that will live in infamy.  You will spend the next twenty years or so being mildly annoyed if you do.

19 thoughts on “Guardian forced to concede racism not behind Barack Obama’s cratering support.”

  1. Carter is the model .. even today, folks who damn well ought to know better talk about “Ford’s recession” or “Reagan’s recession”, skipping right over Jimmuh “Habitat For Some Humanity” “Carter.
    .
    Expect the same. If a Dem wins in 2016, it’ll be “green shoots” and “funemployment” and “things are getting better”… and if a GOPer wins, it’ll be blame blame blame.
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    Mew

    1. Yeah, but Reagan and Ford ( and Nixon) had completely hostile media. With the weakening of the press and the growing strength of the blogosphere, combined with Conservative dominance of talk radio, revisionism of history can be limited.

      1. While your argument has an amount of merit, midwest, but ..
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        The most similar model the media appear to be disintegrating toward is the Brits, where you can tell a person’s politics by the newspaper he (or she) chooses.
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        Read Daily Kos? You’re an idiot. Also a liberal and likely vote Dem.
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        Read Moe Lane? You’re a genius. Also a conservative, although possibly not a “true conservative” .. and maybe a squishy RINO.
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        I could go on, but I’ve likely gored enough oxen.
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        Point being, the libs are still the ones publishing the history textbooks, eh?
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        Mew

        1. Funny, I went from a moderate, squishy RINO to a “true conservative” and I still read Moe. He doesn’t chase away conservatives and hasn’t gone full libertarian. Yet.
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          On that note: When did Red State go from being a conservative site into a fully functioning libertarian site? I remember a time when suggesting legalizing drugs would have gotten you laughed off the site. Now you get shredded for suggesting you keep drugs illegal and going to the left of Hillary Clinton is now a good idea.

          1. Funny, I didn’t notice and I’ve always been in favor of legalizing drugs, or at the very least getting rid of the federal laws and letting the states decide what to legalize.

          2. BG, Redstate has never been, and likely never will be, a conservative site. It’s a Republican site, conservative, liberal, RINO, what have you. See, for example, what happened to conservatives who weren’t happy with the RINO nominee the last couple of times around. Chris Christie gets the nomination and decides to run on a new assault weapons ban and raising taxes on business, and the front page of RedState will be in full support mode. That’s their mission. To try and convince conservatives to vote for whatever person eventually gets the nominee.

          3. I’d suggest a closer look at the abuses the collusion of federal and local law enforcement permitted under drug seizure laws, Gator.
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            After you honestly review what’s going on, if you can still say that legalization is the worse of two evils, that’s your call .. I disagree.
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            What may have started out as a good and conservative thing has morphed into a liberty-crushing nightmare, eh?
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            Mew

          4. @acat: No. Drugs are dangerous and nothing good can come of them, NOTHING. I used to think like you, maybe 18 years ago (when I was 15). However I have seen what drug addiction does to a person and it is not pretty. Just ask John Belushi, River Phoenix, Whitney Houston, Chris Farley, Amy Winehouse, Errol Flynn, Billy Mays, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Sr., Heath Ledger, Judy Garland, Michael Jackson, Cory Monteith, and many more if it is a civil liberty issue. Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears is going to join that list if they keep up their self-destructive behavior.

          5. Bill S, Streiff, and Neil Stevens are all very ANTI-Libertarian, but Streiff views marijuana the same way he views liquor ( in moderation it can’t hurt you) so he has no problem with marijuana being legal.
            But you went after McLaughlin for being Libertarian ( he isn’t).
            McLaughlin is a strategist so he’s going to think of ways the GOP can win, not necessarily what the GOP should do mind you.

          6. @midwestconservative: If McLaughlin suggested Republicans take a ‘Repeal Age Of Consent Laws’ stance to win elections, would you be you be defending him?
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            Sure I came down hard on him. He absolutely deserved it: 1) He suggested we go to the left of Hillary Clinton. That alone should be consider dumb and ridiculed. 2) He doesn’t mind drugs, just as long as they are over there (“there” being anywhere other than where he is). That’s hypocrisy in my book. It’s also a libertarian thing to say they are ok with other people using drugs, but they themselves don’t touch the stuff. He takes it one step further in that he is ok with states/counties/cities legalizing drugs, just so long as it is not his state/county/city. So don’t tell me he’s not a libertarian.

            1. Dan’s not particularly a libertarian, he is a friend, this is not a site that is friendly towards the bashing of either RedState or its writers, and I have already let this go on too long. I say this pleasantly, but I am saying it: stop.

  2. Moe, are you concerned about the occassional rhetoric on “Northeast/Massachusetts/San Francisco liberalism” doing the same thing for the GOP (cutting off our own, albeit limited, roots) in the those areas?

    I remember being slightly worried about that with the admittedly fun ‘granola-eating Vermont freak show’ ad that attacked Dean back in ’04, and I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed in other ways for the aforementioned places since then.

    Obviously those attacks were muted a bit in ’12 with Romney as the candidate, yet I don’t think that rhetoric is going away.

      1. Not like Baghdad by the Bay would hear us even if we *were* mainstreamed. They’re on their own wavelength, baby.
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        Mew

    2. You have to go back to the 50s to see the last time the GOP had any clout in San Fran. And even then those Republicans can be described as “Liberal” what the GOP should do is focus on the states we haven’t quite turned yet ( West Virginia, Kentucky) and those States we should be able to turn ( Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, maybe Illinois)

  4. I’ve still some hope that he will harvest enough of what he has seeded with his actions, that more people will become disenchanted and see the wider picture before the end of his administration. I may not be counting on it, but I intend to do my part to see that history judges him accurately.
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    That said, fear may a better term than hope, given some of the mechanisms by which such could occur.
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    White Supremacism could be behind Obama’s decline. Obama’s flagrantly racist white supremacism may have caused all true enemies of white supremacism to rally against him. 🙂

  5. This is great to know! Hopefully, we can keep the House in 2014 and maybe even get the Senate. Any possibility of us winning the WH in 2016 if this continues to hold?

    1. 2016 will depend, IMO, more on whether a good candidate can consolidate support within the next 18 months.
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      The model is still 1977-1980.
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      Mew

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