Posted on 08/09/2009 5:02:37 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Two weeks after President Obama said that Cambridge, Mass., police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates for arguing with them inside his home, Republicans are still taking stock of their unexpected political gift.
A Pew Research poll released on July 30 found the president’s approval rating among white voters slipping seven points, from 53 percent to 46 percent, explicitly because of their disappointment in the Gates remarks. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released on August 4 found that six out of 10 white voters disagreed with the president’s remarks. A Quinnipiac poll released on August 6 found that white voters, by a 2-1 margin, believed that the president had “acted stupidly” in talking about Gates.
“He would have been a whole lot wiser to shut up,” said Roy Fletcher, a Republican strategist based in Baton Rouge, La. “He got really close to losing the image he has as a post-racial president. For a few days, the question for a lot of people became, ‘Wait a minute. Is he the president of the United States? Or is he just the president of minorities?’ And that was a really unfortunate thing.”
As the Gates saga finally fades from the news cycle–few pollsters or strategists reached by TWI thought it had lasting power, and one compared its short-lived nature to the frothy Gary Condit scandal of 2001–it’s left Republicans encouraged about their chances of whittling down the Democrats’ House and Senate majorities in 2010. The mini-controversy put into focus a fact about the 2009, 2010 and 2011 electorates that Democrats don’t enjoy talking about and Republicans don’t enjoy bragging about. They will be, as Fletcher put it, “older and whiter” than the electorate that put Obama and most Democrats on the Hill into office in 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonindependent.com ...
(1) The "stupidly" comment
(2) Failing to prosecute the New Black Panthers for intimidating white voters
(3) Nominating a "wise Latina" who supported racial quotas (Ricci)
(4) His decades-long affiliation with Rev. Wright.
(5) His racially polarized public approval -- already his disapproval is pretty high with whites, but his black support is almost unanimous (I know there's Sowell, Walter Williams).
Freepers can probably supply more examples.
People are waking up to the fact that we have the hate whitey husband and wife team in the big house.
The problem is the GOP have not a single gonad amongst them.
People have already forgotten all about the GATES incident
Opportunity is good, but they need to step carefully on this one so that they aren’t seen as reinforcing the racist stereotypes some have against the GOP.
Correct!!!
There...fixed it
I actually have a theory that Black voters are the next big conservative group.
Typically don’t like to dwell on race that much but when I saw an approval rating for Zero of 97% among blacks it really got me to thinking. You couldn’t get 97% of the general population to agree on what time it is. Does this popularity arise from his racial makeup or is this a function of superior job performance? s/
So true!
When I first saw this headline, I thought it was the State Run Media’s backhanded attempt to call the GOP racist.
When your opponent has no shame in lying, then they’ll lie to attack you every time.
I thought the same as you.
Truth.
The GOP needs to treat it as the radioactive issue it is.
The picture of the three of them walking out of the White House speaks volumes. Obama is the biggest racist of all...
“The problem is the GOP have not a single gonad amongst them.”
The craziest thing is the two best hammers the GOP have were born without them (which is perfectly fine with me). Palin/Bachmann!
“... .. The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know there’s a reaction that’s been been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it...” - Senator Barack Obama
Obviously there are a lot of folk from Asian ancestry in Hawaii, generally the teams aren’t as tall…”
– Barack Obama
It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names. - “Dreams from My Father”
The GOP has the greatest opportunity to gain voters, ever in this Health care death bill, but I am not hearing much from them.
Americans of both parties are up in arms over this thing and Republicans seem to be out to lunch.
I like this comment from Baton Rouge. “He got really close to losing the image he has as a post-racial president.”
Really close? He lost his image as a post-racial CANDIDATE long before the election with anyone who was paying attention. If Americans had pulled their heads out of the nether regions and listened to what Obamalamadingdong was saying they would have voted for either John McCain or Mickey Mouse but not this Muslim racist.
I believe you're closer to the truth the posters who say the American public has already forgotten the Gates incident. These things are cumulative, and your list shows a string of incidents that illustrate Obama's bigotry and bias.
By gaining a few additional percentages of the white vote, the Republicans can wipe out all the Dem. gains among minorities. Obama might be doing much of their work for them, but talk show hosts and writers and others can provide reminders of his record of bias.
And Republicans can still make gains among Hispanics and Asians if they ignore those who think pandering to groups is the answer. They won't gain anything among blacks as long as Obama is on the picture.
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