Race and the 2008 Election Results

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

When Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008, he did so with almost 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes including several states that had not trended for a Democratic Party candidate in many election cycles. Many people, myself included, saw the result as a refreshing nail in the coffin of the so-called Bradley Effect, where by an African American candidate for office will poll stronger than his final vote tally. In President Obama's case, the final vote tally appeared to closely reflect the polling leading into election day. From my perspective, that was a true positive outcome, and the final popular vote tally was the result of our highly partisan electorate.



I hesitated writing this because discussions of racial prejudice underscoring some of the opposition to President Obama have a tendency to descend rapidly into an unproductive series of accusations. Critics of the President have often accused supporters of accusing them of being racist for merely opposing the President's agenda while supporters counter that the President's critics are all too quick to dismiss the possibility of racism being behind some of the more vigorous and sustained animosity aimed at his person and his administration. Rapid fire "hurr" and "durr" are quick to follow as well as signs like this one:



So let me state for the record: If you are a conservative who opposes President Obama's policies on the economy, taxes, health care and foreign policy, I do not automatically assume that you are cheering on this guy:



For that matter, I am reasonably sure that many of you on this forum properly respond to that guy with this response:



I'd also like to point out that the question of racist animosity against Barack Obama is not a simple matter of pitching Republicans as racists and Democrats as paragons of racial harmony. Lost in the story is the incredible rancor that was felt in many corners of the Democratic Party's electorate during the nominating constest of 2008. It was in that primary fight that the first of the "birther" allegations came to light when a blogger named "Texas Darlin" was among the first to let out a lifeline in the possibility that Senator Obama was Constitutionally unqualified to serve as President of the United States. The early birther movement spawned directly from the most ardent of Senator Clinton's supporters, and outrage ensued as the leadership of the Democratic Party tried to recognize the numeric inevitably of Senator Obama's final nomination. Former Vice-Presidential Nominee Geraldine Ferraro poured gasoline on that fire by insisting that Obama was only getting ahead of Clinton because of his race. Among grassroots supporters, who can forget this outburst:

A group of Clinton supporters "broke away" in the wake of Obama's nomination, calling themselves PUMAs, first for "Party Unity, My Ass" and eventually as People United Mean Action, a now defunct political action committee. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart did a post-mortem on the West Virginia primary where the struggling Clinton campaign demolished Obama and had no trouble finding interviews of white voters plainly unable to stomach voting for a black man:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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So just to be screamingly clear: racial animosity and racially charged allegations about candidate Obama began in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, so this is not a clear-cut right wing or left wing issue. As is the distressing phenomenon of accusing people of "playing the race card" even when people are making criticisms that can readily be interpretted as playing into racial animosity.

The question of what role racial prejudice played in 2008 and may play in 2012 has been given some new perspective by a recent op-ed in the New York Times last week. Written by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a doctoral student in economics at Harvard, the piece concludes that racial prejudice may have cost candidate Obama a much wider margin of victory than he finally acheived in the general election, and the data he used is interesting and fairly new: Google searches by region, using the Google Insights tool. The methodology is intriguing. Stephens-Davidowitz used John Kerry's performance in 2004 as a baseline of support for a Democratic candidate which appears sound given the deeply partisan divides in the electorate as a whole. He then used the average Democratic gain in an area as a means to determine what vote candidate Obama should have received.

Then he used Google Insights to look at the frequency of racially charged searches in any given area by looking at the portion of Google searches for the word "*igger" which his research says is searched as often as terms like "The Daily Show", "Migraine", "Lakers" and "Economist". In most cases, those searches were for jokes about African-Americans (the researcher excluded spelling variations of the word that were used mostly to find rap lyrics). Having ranked areas based upon the proportion of racially charged Google searches, he then compared the hypothetical Obama vote with the final election day vote.

The results are, in his words, striking. West Virginia, featured embarrasingly in Jon Stewart's report, had the highest proportion of racially charged Google searches, and based upon his projected vote parameters, Mr. Obama should have gotten 57% of the vote in Wheeling, but he got less than 48%. On the other hand, Denver, Colorado had the fourth lowest racially charged search tally in the country, and Mr. Obama's vote percentage precisely matched the predicted outcome. Around the country, Stephens-Davidowitz's metric demonstrates that the higher the percentage of racially charged Google searches in an area the worse candidate Obama did against the projected tally a Democractic nominee "should" have gotten. The potential loss in both the popular vote and electoral votes is striking with the candidate slightly outperforming expectations in 10% of the markets surveyed, underperforming in 90% and severely underperforming in 10%.

Obviously, this methodology is new and subject to criticism. All searches for racially charged material do not represent racial animosity, for example. I teach a college course on culture and school, and I have the often unpleasant task of examining racial prejudice on the internet to prepare for discussions and projects -- my experience, however, is probably an outlier. One must also accept the method's assumptions for what vote percentages Obama SHOULD have gotten in 2008, and there are many reasons why someone who is generally disposed to vote for Democrats may by less supportive of a specific nominee of the party -- talk to me about the time that Democrats in Massachusetts nominated John Silber for governor, for example.

The strong suggestion of this research, however, is that potentially Democratically leaning voters refused to vote for Obama because of his race as one of the most deciding factors, indicating that the heralded "Post-Racial America" has a long way to go.

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

How Obama became black (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-became-black/2012/06/14/gJQA8CnKdV_story.html)

Became? Do they think that Obama was the first Affirmative Action President?

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

How do you become black?

I find it funny how people dismiss Obama as not even being black, yet still make racial charges against him. Not to mention that multiracial children were socially treated as the minority race.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, ask Clinton how he became the first black president.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

*gets face palms ready*

The sign is racist for bringing up the topic of race for no reason I think.

But I've been thinking over the idea lately that merely disagreeing with Obama doesn't make someone any more racist then disagreeing with a Liberal makes some one any less Liberal or any more Conservative. It is possible to respect someone of a minority status while keeping your own opinions and not being a part of a hive mind. In fact it may be even more respectful because it implies listening to what someone has to say in an intelligent manner. I for the most part am satisfied with Obama's job as president compared the last president, and am not impressed with Romney, but I most certainly don't agree with all of his policies.

With that said, sometimes those disagreements can be racially motivated of course, but that's a case-by-case thing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much. There is some denial of racially motivated criticism which is questionably motivated at the same time.

I didn't RTFA's, but...

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

You think it was bad in the 2008 primary race? In 2012, the sitting POTUS 'enjoyed' a 59/41 victory over a convicted and imprisoned felon (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-texas-inmate-wins-41-of-the-vote-against-obama-in-wv-primary-20120509,0,1956772.story) in WV.

In KY, Obama lost to 'uncommitted' in more than half of the counties. In AR, an Occupy Wall Street lawyer won 42% of the vote. (source (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/05/uncommitted-beats-obama-half-kentucky/52686/))

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

"I hesitated writing this because discussions of racial prejudice underscoring some of the opposition to President Obama have a tendency to descend rapidly into an unproductive series of accusations. Critics of the President have often accused supporters of accusing them of being racist for merely opposing the President's agenda while supporters counter that the President's critics are all too quick to dismiss the possibility of racism being behind some of the more vigorous and sustained animosity aimed at his person and his administration. Rapid fire "hurr" and "durr" are quick to follow as well as signs like this one:"

I think one "shadow factor" in any assessment of racism is the continued confusion in many people's minds between biological characteristics (i.e. "race") along with origin in contrast to cultural background along with behavior ("culture"). This often makes it very, very difficult to discuss behaviors originating from "black culture" without a discussion devolving into whether the reasons are race or not. It also explains some of the difficulty some people--often from American Black culture--have in seeing Obama as being one of them while at the same time others only seeing him as "one of them".

Which may be one reason for the entire "birther" bent as a means of delegitimizing Obama: it can be argued it has nothing to do with his race, only his parent's country of origin. In other words, it's "race transparent" and focused on nationality.

So, when you look at this issue, it might be interesting to see if there's a way to separate people who think of the political actions/behaviors of Obama as being driven by his (biological) race vs. the culture of his upbringing as well as seeing how well people know whether he matches the stereotypes of both. If he doesn't match the stereotypes for (biological) race and/or culture and people can't tell the difference, that might theoretically be how you identify individual racists when they make decisions based on the stereotypes. If Obama does comply well with the stereotypes and people are basing decisions on either his behavior or the stereotypes, it may be impossible to really tell whether or not someone's demonstrating racism...

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

The president certainly must be from a different cultural background then many of the middle-class African Americans, having entered politics and raised the kind of money to eventually become president. Similarly, Bush can tote his cowboy persona all he wants, everyone knows he comes from a rich family and enjoys many privileges the common American out there does not.

It's really hard to see a politician of any nature as being "one of us", and in any case, Obama, like every African American that's ever lived - even multi-racial ones - are individuals above anything. Culture does count, and many people out there are part of a collective too, but I wouldn't go as far as to describe people by stereotypes because it's plain to see that each person is an individual.

I realize I cannot hope to speak for the African American about this, I can only go by experience and common sense that every African American is an individual - that's a no brainer really. For a personal example I could probably use the gay community, as there is no one "gay" culture out there and each one has individual characteristics first and homosexuality as a very minor trait really.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

racial animosity and racially charged allegations about candidate Obama began in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY

While I fully concede that both sides are so guilty of racism that they are largely blind to it, I do take exception with the word "began" because it didn't begin there. That racism was present before Barry came along and will be after he is gone. I would prefer "also occurred within" or something.

Well written by the way, nice read.

And the thought of being judged by ones google searches in any way just gives me the willies! hahaha!

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Too true, some of the racism that has shown up when Obama came on the scene was more then present shortly after 911 when we harassed Muslim Americans, and by Muslim Americans I mean Sikh Americans and anyone dark with a turban... because we were that hateful and stupid.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Candidly, its just a semantic issue, the main point was that Obama DID face racial discrimination from within the democratic party.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I did not intend to give the impression that racism or even racism faced y Barack Obama began in the 2008 primaries...but I tried to keep it narrow vis-a-vis CANDIDATE Obama and keep it honest because the initial racism in the campaign came from Clinton supporters who became PUMAs and Birthers.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Ah, fair enough. I got that because you pretty much said so in the rest of the post. Just a minor quibble. I guess he would have faced similar racism as a RNC or DNC candidate, just conjecture. (Michael Steel had some choice words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXHO6bA1k0k) post exit.)

But you're completely right, Obama faced racial discrimination early on from democrats. Completely acknowledged on that point.

I wonder if this sort of data will make China MORE interested in working with Google again? ;-)

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

what vote candidate Obama should have received

potentially Democratically leaning voters refused to vote for Obama because of his race

I really think this requires further proof. This goes along with the What's the Matter with Kansas theorum, some nefarious cabal or putrid false consciousness must be causing otherwise Democratic leaning citizens to vote "against their interests." Well, maybe their interests are and what you imagine they should be are two different things.

This isn't to say there aren't racist assholes who hate Obama. There are. In a country of 300,000,000 people you can be certain of it. However that racism is incidental to their voting against Obama. Basically, show me someone who hates Obama because of his race but agrees with his policies/politics. If Obama was white, would this voters be solid behind the Democratic party? The guy with the sign, for example. Does he support Obamacare? I highly doubt it. Was he clamoring for more stimulus for the Green Economy? I don't think so. Is he outraged over drone strikes, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo and the survelience state? Maybe. But that would only be true if he was a libertarian racist.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Basically, show me someone who hates Obama because of his race but agrees with his policies/politics.

I'm curious about this statement. malasadas is pointing out how racism is a bipartisan viewpoint, but your statement seems to imply that racists are more likely to not like Obama's policies. If this is so, it really says something about the racist mindset and how their prejudice affects their viewpoint. I know a few Tea Party racists and they seem to have a 'fuck you, got mine' mentality.

Is there a lack of empathy associated with racism and denouncing social programs?

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what the study shows. In areas where there were high search patterns of racial slurs, Obama did worse than Kerry, despite the fact that the rest of the country was strongly pro-Democratic.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Basically, show me someone who hates Obama because of his race but agrees with his policies/politics.

Oh! I got some of that right here:

At any rate, it goes like this: A man canvassing for Obama in western Pennsylvania asks a housewife which candidate she intends to vote for. She yells to her husband to find out. From the interior of the house, he calls back, “We’re voting for the nigger!” At which point the housewife turns to the canvasser and calmly repeats her husband’s declaration.

http://www.salon.com/2008/11/03/racists_for_obama/


So in this case at least, it seems that some people still voted for Obama, despite their racial attitudes towards him.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I'd also be surprised if the way this fellow is measuring racism is accurate and uniform across states. He could just as easily be measuring regional differences in attitudes about racist jokes as votes that Obama lost. I'm betting you can come up with a dozen other measures of racism that will provide different results.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I voted for Obama because of the color of his skin.

Does this make me a racist or an equalizer?

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you voted for a Republican president?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Which skin color, though?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

He is pretty foxy.

But, by definition.....you know what you know in your heart, right Rick?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I read about this the other day and haven't really dug in enough to have a strong opinion one way or the other, although my gut sits in the same place as policratus at first glance, but I've slowly been catching up with old Radiolab podcasts, and this story made me think of their piece on Stu Rasmussen (http://www.radiolab.org/2009/oct/19/new-stu/), a transgendered mayor out in Oregon.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Fifty three percent is a pretty good result for a presidential election. Obama got a higher percentage than Clinton or Bush Jr. were able to get in any of their victories. You’d have to look back to Bush Sr. vs Dukakis to see a similar margin. If you then add in another couple percent as the study states, you end up having to go back to Reagan vs Mondale.

Pres. Clinton was a pretty strong candidate; I’d argue that he was far stronger than Obama, a first term Senator. Maybe McCain made a bunch of mistakes, but really it’s hard for me to see that Obama should have gotten in the 56% - 58% range. Obama was no Reagan and McCain, for all of his faults, was no Mondale. I have a really hard time buying the results when you compare them to historical examples.