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OTOH - the Palin effect and the irrational zeal she engendered CLEARLY suggests that the strength of a flagrantly irrational motive remains undiminished among a significant percentage of voters. What kind of out-and-out lunatic could rationally fix their mouth to vote for that nimrod of biblical proportions?
Damping that irrational noise in the context of what for all intents and purposes remains a homestatic economic climate, i.e., there are no federal tents cities yet, no rationing of commodities, no large scale runs on banks, (though investment accounts have been hell up in harlem), may not be a sufficient test of the remaining strength of the underlying irrational animus.
So I ask you again, (because the data seem rather inconclusive to me) how much confidence do you place in your assertion that change has come within the majority electorate under conditions that will soon cease to be homeostatic, and which will profoundly stress the newly demonstrated rational plateau?
The other reason I ask this, is because hate pundit Glenn Beck is throwing down the catastrophist doctrine and his media profile is being systematically elevated in the shift from CNN to Fox. You should check him out. He sounds like an anti-Cnu barometer/catalyst of some really dark portents....,
One other possibility - or addition - that I think you may have missed is the migration of whites to the South from the North - younger whites with non-traditionally 'Southern ' white ideas. The influx of this younger more progressive generation into the Old South has also helped to dramatically change the face of that region. This is particularly true in areas like North Carolina and Virginia, as we saw.
The Northerners - Dukakis and Kerry - were symptomatic of classic white liberals whose positions may be solid on some issues, but the absence of an authentic resonance precluded the emergence of foot soldiers to carry the day. I firmly believe that if Democrats are to continue to succeed in contests for the White House, they'll have to swing two things -- one of which is entirely OUT of their control: first, they need to ensure that they have solid Black support. That's easy enough, but they'll have to deliver politically while they're in office; second, they'll have to ensure the Federal Reserve Bank loosens the money supply and averts recessions when they are the incumbent party. There is no winning when the Fed tightens and voters are concerned about their wealth.
I would assert that Americans of all stripes were more concerned about their wallets than about their daughters (weed-smoking Negro coming to dinner with a big phat engagement ring while hanging long and to the left -- feel me?) Moreover, Obama benefitted from embracing policy positions that made him indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton. His novelty was more palatable than her corruption. In other words, the potential of a Black Menace was simply not sufficiently real given the nature of the economic crisis which significantly deepened just as McCain was closing in the polls. Future Black candidates (in the short term) will need to run along similar lines and may even need high-profile White candidates with replicable positions to run interference.
I would even go so far as to say that the Republicans were fairly certain this was the Election to Nowhere. Little else can explain the selection of Sarah "Show Me Your Tits" Palin, the evacuation from Michigan; the McCain dodge pulled by men like Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal and others; or (perhaps most significantly) the Send the Wives Move that Bush and Cheney pulled during the Convention in Minnesota. There were more protesters outside than Republican hacks inside. That was all I needed to see to know the die was cast.
With all that said, I believe that a Southern Strategy is in play for both parties -- but the strategy must be strictly regional, rather than a euphemism for a Hang the Niggers Strategy, which is what I believe you're actually referring to. The Hang the Niggers Strategy is obsolete. The Southern Strategy is not. If Republicans are going to reclaim the White House (and they will since that's the only game in town), they'll need to simply extend their reach and modernize their message to focus on economics more than the culture wars which they arguably won from 1980 through 2007, save for the Clinton years. (You know I'm no fan of Slick Willie or any of his peeps.)
The economy was/is deemed to be in terrible condition (I'd argue the jury should still be out on that, but that's for another time.) Incumbent rarely win when such is the case -- particularly when they lead with half-assed efforts like McCain's campaign -- and the popular vote was STILL close. The Southern Strategy is alive and well. The Republicans fleeced the nation for all they could. All the military contractors got PAID; the judicial protections were eroded...now it's time for the Democrats to get their Rob & Steal game on.
Obama lost TN in the general election by almost 20 points compared to Ford's 3. More importantly, however, is that Obama actually underperformed Kerry in TN. This chart (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5...) offers a pretty telling overview. Obama performed substantially better than Kerry in nearly every state except for many states that constitute the "South". Alaska and Arizona had little change due to the Republican candidates representing those states, but Arkansas saw a 5+ point swing downward from Kerry's numbers for Obama.
It still seems to me like Obama won in spite of being black rather than because of it. He ran what was inarguably the best campaign in history against a terrible Republican candidate running a terrible campaign and things were far more closer than they should have been. One need only look at the huge gains that Obama made in traditional Republican states like Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, and Virginia to get a better picture of how southern states should have voted.
I don't think it makes much sense to lump all whites into one group when analyzing how they racialize blacks. For many, Obama's blackness is not a problem. For others it's a dealbreaker, and for those in the "middle" pragmatic political desires trump blackness. At least this time.
Secondly, McCain never employed the Southern Strategy. Conservatives were asking throughout the fall where is Jeremiah Wright? McCain consistently tried to temper the hatred of Obama which was expressed at many of his rallies. So we really don’t know if the Southern Strategy (as presently defined) is dying or diminished, but if Sarah Palin runs in 2012 we’ll find out.
I’ve argued that economics trumped race in the 2008 presidential election. We’ll never know whether or not the outcome would have been different if Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson had decided to bail out Lehman Brothers on September 15, when McCain was running even with Obama, in what turned out to be, the remarkably accurate polls.
It was this “economically shocked” element of the white electorate which pushed Obama ahead in the polls and onto victory. This element obviously had not been sold on Obama’s message prior to the Lehman ignited economic cataclysm.
Therefore, I think it’s a tremendous leap to say that Obama’s election signals a white attitudinal paradigmatic shift. Tim Wise says Racism 2.0 allows European Americans to still view the larger Afrikan American community negatively, while making exceptions for non-threatening, race transcending individuals who pose no threat to their hegemony. Wise calls this enlightened exceptionalism, while I would call it refined white supremacy.
But please note that I’m not making a blanket indictment of all white people.
I do however believe that Obama’s election will result in a more racially polarized society, simply because latent European American xenophobia has been awakened. I would also be extremely surprised if there is not some type of overtly racist white backlash directed towards Afrikan Americans, simply because of race.
The latest peer-reviewed research:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/08...
Dr. Spence, I believe that the Senate run-off in Georgia is a good test of your "Southern Strategy is dead theory."
I also see this run-off as a test of the sustainability of the grassroots activism Obama ignited during his campaign. Tim Wise considers these people to be “mobilized and active, and that energy is looking for an outlet.”
According to CL, “Obama's Georgia campaign infrastructure – 25 field offices and a grassroots army that mobilized many people who'd never even voted – has remained in place for Martin.”
However, Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel reports that “voter turnout among African-Americans comprised 22 percent of early voters as of Nov. 21, compared to 34 percent in early voting for the general election.”
This is think, is the real challenge for the Wise thesis, and for others who think like him. How can a “movement” that was primarily organized around a charismatic personality, which as already achieved its overarching goal sustain its momentum and be effective in other arena’s without the direct involvement of the charismatic leader.
Does your "intellectual curiosity" ever afford you to deeper inspection regarding what the WHITE VOTE and its motivations are so thoroughly talked about while THE BLACK VOTE is not?
http://withintheblackcommunity.blogspot.com/200...
Where as the drop off of support for Obama in Southern states is made to be evidence of lingering racism on a regional basis.......the across the board support for Obama by Black folks REGARDLESS of region is said by Black leftists such as Prof Manning Marable as evidence that "Blacks know who has their best interests in mind as voters".
Of course the fact that Blacks have a 90% support rate for the Democrats which grew to 96% when a Black guy was running will not be seen as any particular racial preference dynamic.
I do hope, however, that those of you who focus upon the "Right Wing apparatus" will one day make note of the absolute domination by one party over the areas where these Black voters live, their continued grievances yet their "ideologically bigoted" voting patterns which serve as VOTER NULLIFICATION between who is in office over their community resources and if this person's ideology and party is held accountable for the failed state there in.
Side note - since you are researching hip hop and politics - here is one for you to chew on:
http://withintheblackcommunity.blogspot.com/200...