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.
I stayed up watching the news till 1 am that night in 1994 amazing. 1993 and 1994 were really fun years. These past two years would be as fun, if we didnt know the country was being run down the tubes.
REMEMBER THE PUMAS
don’t forget how John McCain and Carla Fiorina were 100% SUCKERED by the fake PUMA stories.
Define success.
it is that simple.
Obama and the Obamacrat socialists define success as maximum government DEpendence.
Intelligent Men Shun Democrats
And the GOP/RINOs will also see this and say, "Why should we change our present policies, we're gonna kill 'em! in November". And the conservatives will once again be sold out.
But our last conversation had not gone well. He was shocked to hear that I had not voted for Obama and went on about how Obama was “ going to take care of his people “. On and on he went about the white presidents always taking care of white people but now it was their time to get taken care of. On and on about “ white people always getting stuff and we get the shaft “
I told him he was nuts and he told me that he wasn't alone in his feelings - he said all the blacks he knew and his family felt the same way.
None of it made any sense at all and its not like this guy is a moron. He is a good guy, hard working man ( cop )with a family that he loves and supports: your basic American male. I just don't see how he ever came to the far out conclusions
Hell, I’ve been shunning the RATS since I was able to vote!!
This is no news story as far as I am concerned.
They live in fear of the white hating blacks who will call them a “white man’s boy” or a “coconut”.
It's not just your opinion. That's dead-on accurate.
Most blacks hew toward the existent status quo, whatever it is at the time. Call it "a black thang", if you will, but it's real. There's a rigid orthodoxy of thought among American blacks that is as lemming-like as you'll ever find in a people.
I've been something of an iconoclast my whole life, and even before politics was important to me, I was taking flak from fellow blacks. That goes all the way back to childhood. I just never could follow the crowd.
Thing is, black people have been fed a steady diet of racist propaganda their whole lives. It's infectious, and is now self-perpetuating. Those who first planted the concepts of "us vs. them" in the black community don't even need to indoctrinate blacks with this message any longer. They do it to themselves.
It's hard to escape, if one lives in the black community. The only cure for it is personal experience and direct observation of the reverse, which is reality.
For myself, I was fortunate to have grown up an Army brat, in an integrated environment, so when I first began hearing all that racist crap as a kid, I knew better. I had my own experiences to rely on. Sure, I'd experienced racism before, but it was rare, and it was always just one person doing it.
The racist propaganda in the black community claims that racism is pervasive, and institutionalized, just as it was a lifetime ago (which is a complete lie).
White women are the only reason Democrats win in national elections in the suburban areas in NY/NJ/PA. The cities, of course, are a lost cause, even in white neighborhoods (although many of the white Dems in my social circle still pine for Hillary).
You have my utmost symphathy. Family gatherings must be tough.
Come here to New York City, and I will introduce you to these "men."
100 seats is the MINIMUM that Dems are going to lose between the two houses in Nov.
Whites only vote as a bloc in communities with religious/cultural uniformity and provinciality(see the Scots-Irish evangelical protestants in Mississippi). Proximity to blacks doesn't really effect this, otherwise the suburbs of Detroit and New Jersey would be solidly Republican.
I remember that! I watched him say that and thought, what an arrogant, condesending bahstid.
It is my observation that there are far more racists in the Dem party then there are in the Repub party (racists in both to be sure).
My ‘tribe’ I left a long time ago when I realised they didn’t have my best interests at heart. All I’ve wanted is the same as everyone else, a shot so I can stand on my own feet. I don’t need you to watch after me I just need you to stay out of my way and let me do what needs to be done.
Family gatherings must be tough.
Well, I moved away from California four years ago, and haven't seen any of them since then. In the meantime, a lot of bad feelings were generated between us during the '08 campaign.
I'm now the "right-wing nut" of the the family.
I've got to go back there for my dad's 80th birthday next month, so it could get interesting. Hopefully, everyone will check their politics at the door for Dad's sake.
Only 30% of all voters strongly approve... since Blacks account for about 13% of the population and nearly 100% strongly approve ... that means that only 17% of ALL voters that are not black strongly approve of this president.
hmm...
17% non black....
98% black....
Why such a big gap is strong support?
OH! I know! He has matching skin color! In other words they are racist, and are only supporting him as strongly as they are because he is black, not just because he is a democrat.
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