Posted on 03/29/2010 9:26:03 AM PDT by FreeManDC
Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.
For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38 percent -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting, but also pulled in 41 percent of white male voters.
Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.
It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation.
Pollsters regularly ask voters whether they would rather see a Democrat or Republican win their district. By February, support for Democrats among white people (male and female) was three percentage points lower than in February 1994, the year of the last Republican landslide.
Today, among whites, only 35 percent of men and 43 percent of women say they will back Democrats in the fall election. Women's preferences have remained steady since July 2009. But white men's support for a Democratic Congress has fallen eight percentage points, according to Gallup.
White men have moved away from Obama as well. The same proportion of white women approve of him -- 46 percent, according to Gallup -- as voted for him in 2008. But only 38 percent of white men approve of the President, which means that millions of white men who voted for Obama have now lost faith in him.
The migration of white men from the Democratic Party was evident in the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts. His opponent, a white woman, won 52 percent of white women. But white men favored Brown by a 60 percent to 38 percent margin, according to Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates polling.
It's no accident that the flight of white males from the Democratic Party has come as the government has assumed a bigger role, including in banking and health care. Among whites, 71 percent of men and 56 percent of women favor a smaller government with fewer services over a larger government with more services, according to ABC/Washington Post polling.
Obama's brand of liberalism is exactly the sort likely to drive such voters away. More like LBJ's than FDR's, Obama-style liberalism favors benefits over relief, a safety net over direct job programs, health care and environmental reform over financial reform and a stimulus package that has focused more on social service jobs -- health care work, teaching and the like -- than on the areas where a majority of job losses occurred: construction, manufacturing and related sectors.
This recession remains disproportionately a "he-cession." Men account for at least seven of 10 workers who lost jobs, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Nearly half of the casualties are white men, who held 46 percent of all jobs lost.
In 1994, liberals tried to explain their thinning ranks by casting aspersions on the white men who were fleeing, and the media took up the cry. The term "angry white male" or "angry white men" was mentioned 37 times in English-language news media contained in the Nexis database between 1980 and the 1994 election. In the following year, the phrases appear 2,306 times.
Tarnishing their opponents as merely "angry" was poor politics for the Democrats. Liberals know what it's like to have their views -- most recently on the war in Iraq or George W. Bush -- caricatured as merely irrational anger. Most voters vote their interests. And many white men by the 1980s had decided the Democrats were no longer interested in them.
Think about the average working man. He has already seen financial bailouts for the rich folks above him. Now he sees a health care bailout for the poor folks below him. Big government represents lots of costs and little gain.
Meanwhile, like many women, these men are simply trying to push ahead without being pushed under. Some once believed in Obama. Now they feel forgotten.
Government can only do so much. But recall the Depression. FDR's focus on the economy was single-minded and relentless. Hard times continued, but men never doubted that FDR was trying to do right by them. Democrats should think about why they aren't given that same benefit of the doubt today.
Peter Jennings isn’t around this time to spit out that “America threw a temper tantrum” again.
alternate title ... racist blacks only continue to support obama because of his matching skin color.
Herein lies the distinction between men and girlymen.
Could it be that whites are finally starting to wake up to the fact that they are widely hated by the Left? I’ll never forget years ago when a black woman told me that a lot of whites dont like black folks but almost all blacks hate white folks.
I wish these white liberal imbeciles who left the Dumocrats would stay out of the GOP which has chronic RINO problems to begin with...
That should be a platform for the Republicans for the upcoming elections. But they are a bit slow on the uptake.
Buyer’s remorse strikes again. Why do people continue voting for these people?
Hate to say it, but whites need to start considering whether bloc voting might not be in our interests, just like blacks and Latinos have.
The media’s talking point is that Americans are OK with Socialism and 1968 radicalism. It’s “purely” racism, sexism, homophobia that motivates this backlash.
Not buying it.
I’m sure at some point the Jews stopped voting Nazi too....
Straight, white males....the left’s and elite media’s favoite punching bag.
The solution is for the disgruntled Democrats to take THEIR party back and kick out the Socialists.
Liberals have their own interpretation, "Racist white men moving away from obama because of the color of his skin".
Bully for us White folk!!!!
Where are the working and elderly black women? They’re flipping in hordes.
I talk to them.
Nevermind, they’ll never print that.
And blacks are coming around too!!
Uh, newsflash . . . been happening the last 3-4+ decades
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.