I’ll get the poor response out of the way. My good friend Michael Bowen posted a video response. Rather than spend much time on it, I’ll leave it to my thoughtful readers to point out the problems. In the case you don’t see them, please let me know.

Bros. Nulan and Bradley have on the other hand asked extremely good questions. And Bradley has gone above and beyond. The response below is more geared to Bradley, but I think in dealing with his comments I deal with Nulan’s as well.

Bradley argues that I need more information. Of course he is right, although I believe that Harold Ford’s close loss in 2006 rather than Obama’s victory is the first datapoint.

In fact, let’s look at a sample of electoral victories that were based on the Southern Strategy. As an aside I implied that the Southern Strategy was used solely by the GOP. This isn’t true. Bill and Hilary Clinton used it in their primaries (Bill successfully in 1992, Hilary unsuccessfully in 2008) as did Al Gore (unsuccessfully in 1988).

But I’m going to look quickly at the results from a few different races over the years:

• 1988-George Bush beat Michael Dukakis soundly in the 1988 Presidential election. Bush received 426 electoral votes, Dukakis received 110. This although Dukakis was leading in the summer up until the notorious Willie Horton ad. 
• 1990 Jesse Helms beats Harvey Gantt in North Carolina, taking 52.5% of the vote to Gantt’s 47.4%. The race was much closer until Helms ran the hands ad. 
• 1992-Clinton doesn’t use ads but makes a series of tactical moves (including making a point of returning to Arkansas to witness the execution of a mentally retarded black man on death row) designed to establish himself as a “New Democrat”.

Fast Forward…

• 2006-Bob Corker runs against Harold Ford jr. seeking (like Gantt before him) to become the first black Senator in the South since Reconstruction. Again the polls predicted a tight race. Near the end Corker runs the Playboy ad. He ends up taking 51% of the vote while Ford gets 48%. 
• 2008-John McCain runs against Barack Obama. The election was close in the summer according to polls. After Obama begins pulling away, McCain unleashes a series of ads connecting Obama to socialism and liberalism, many like this one implicitly connecting Obama to both (black) grassroots organizing and to the home mortgage crisis (a crisis conservatives attempted to pin on black homebuyers). Obama wins 365-173. 

This is far from scientific. But what I am arguing is that the Southern Strategy–which can only be deemed effective if it produces victories–is dying.

If indeed the cases I’ve selected constitute a trend the “Southern Strategy vote” is becoming smaller and smaller.

Why? I believe there are a couple of reasons:

1. Diminishing white votes as a percentage of the whole. The size of the white population relative to the non-white population is diminishing as we speak. Latino population growth is particularly impressive. The Southern Strategy seeks to do two things: play to white voter fears, and increase white voter turnout. One reason the Southern Strategy is dying is because the size of the white population relative to others is decreasing. Along these lines what is important isn’t so much what whites do, but rather what non-whites do. We are reproducing at higher rates, and are coming out to vote. 
2. White voters are less driven by racial fears. 

This is actually the controversial idea. And as brother Bradley notes, more whites still voted for McCain. Now I don’t think whites voted for McCain just because Obama was black. But let’s assume they did.

But what about the whites who voted for Obama?

Some might argue that the whites that DID vote for Obama weren’t voting for Obama as much as they were so scared they didn’t want Republicans anymore. But the Southern Strategy is at its most effective when it plays to fears. Why would fearful whites vote for the black guy if the Southern Strategy was effective? How would that work exactly? Perhaps because Obama ran on a race-neutral campaign? Perhaps…but then those people must try to figure out why exactly the race-neutral campaign strategy matters now, when it didn’t matter for Gantt, Ford, or other black candidates. 

Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that whites are attuned to social justice claims more so than they were, although I do think it interesting that whites were willing to vote for “the socialist.” But it does mean there is much more variance in white racial attitudes here than we have previously assumed. Bradley argues that what we’re looking at is a refinement of white supremacy–sustainability through refinement. It is possible. But I’m concerned that taking this particular position is not so much the radical or the common sense response as much as it is a response that reproduces the thing critiqued. And would then ask how we would know “real” change rather than “fake” change if we saw it.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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Cross posted at Blackprof.

Does your subconscious tell you that Obama is foreign?

Proposition 8 Exit Poll

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Michigan: There is no state law regarding employee time off to vote.

Missouri: An employee is given up to three hours leave to vote, unless the employee has three consecutive non-working hours in which to vote while polls are open. The employee must request leave prior to election day, and the employer may designate the time that the employee is given off from work. This time off is paid. (Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 115.639)

Maryland: An employee is allowed up to two hours to vote if the polls aren’t open two consecutive hours outside the employee’s regular shift. The time off is paid with proof that the employee voted. (Md. Code Ann. Section 10-315)

Want to know about the laws in YOUR state? Find the answer here. While you’re at it check out Why Tuesday.

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Or at least that’s what I’ve heard, directly and indirectly. 

I don’t buy this. Poking around the best I could find was this article from the United Kingdom. Homeboy interviewed the “police spokesman” (who the hell is that?) and then–get this–a “an internet columnist and black Republican candidate  for state representative in Massachusetts”. In other words, a cat with a blog and absolutely no expertise whatsoever (he’s a candidate, not a representative). The other article I found was a duplicate. I imagine this story to blow up closer to the election, to the point it becomes self-fulfilling. I wish we wouldn’t reproduce this meme ourselves but I guess it’s par for the course.

I’ve already said I think this election is a lock. So perhaps the bigger question is what types of preparations does law enforcement need to make to deal with the socialist haters?

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GOP elites have to be familiar with the same numbers I am. They show clearly that Obama has a close to $40 million more than McCain (taking the GOP and DNC contributions into account) and that he’s only a few electoral college votes away from a victory just looking at solid blue states. McCain would have to get every toss up state available even though he’s had to write off a few of them because he doesn’t have the loot.

That’s why I came up with the list remember?

So the “he’s a socialist” screed that McCain has unleashed isn’t really about McCain winning. But rather it is about something else entirely. 

I think he’s adopting a scorched earth policy. In a normal circumstance bankrupting the government would be enough to ensure that liberal policy proposals are shot down–by the Dems themselves no less. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Being in debt won’t prevent Obama from suggesting spending on infrastructure and other issues, given the state of the economy. So another set of tactics are required. Their best option here given the electoral slaughter they are looking at, is to get the population upset enough about the prospects of a liberal government that they will exert enough pressure to serve as the type of check on government that the deficit use to serve as. To the point that Obama can’t govern.

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Friday? I’m dropping the hammer.

I haven’t talked about it much but this past September we made the decision to send all of our kids to school. It was a hard decision for my wife, but the economy dictated it. Raising five kids with college tuition looming is no joke. But they’ve all been managing. Nothing but As across the board. 

I’m biased of course…but my kids are the shit. No problems claiming that here son. 

But for them to stay that way? My wife and I have to be prepared to take on all comers. To get to them, you’ve got to go through us.

So when my daughter came home a couple of hours ago with a “hypothetical” it was on.

“Daddy, let’s say hypothetically that someone–not me of course Daddy–that someone else’s American government teacher called Obama a socialist.”

Off the rip there are a couple of problems here.

First there’s the minor problem that Obama isn’t a socialist. In the least. Hell…I wish he were. The tax increases he’s suggesting? McCain as early as four years ago supported them. If he can’t get this right it’s clear to me he doesn’t belong in a classroom. 

Then there’s the issue of classroom pedagogy. There circumstances I can think of where it would be appropriate for this teacher to impose his political views on the classroom. But not this one. 

Friday? I’m dropping the hammer.

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Read this.

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The clip above is taken from the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon. I watched last night’s debate as did most of you. I thought that I’d take a moment to respond to some of the questions asked by Prof. Yolanda Pierce at The Kitchen Table before chiming in on what I thought was the most interesting and unexplored aspect of the debate. In quick order:

1. Why can’t we find a better moderator? There are more than a few young journalists (or young-ISH) who could have easily handled the debate format and the candidates better than Brokaw did. My vote goes to Farai Chideya. But the reason that she (or someone like her) didn’t get the nod has everything to do with the politics of television journalism which privileges age and “journalist credibility”. Everyone shows the debate so it isn’t about ratings here…rather it’s about the journalists who have the most credibility among their peers. They let Ifill into the club, but notice that she only works the vice-presidential debate.  They choose someone like Brokaw because of the very attributes you (rightly) critique. He’s older, he’s conservative, he won’t throw the candidates off, he conveys stability.

2. Where there no better questions submitted by the alleged millions of emails?  Yes. But the problem here is that elites chose the letters that were used, and they didn’t want to choose letters that would spook either the candidate or the moderator. The  Open Debate Coalition recently sent this letter to both candidates urging a new format, one based on a bottom-up Digg-type model. I like this idea although it’s hard to see how the views of intense minorities would get represented in such an approach. 

3. Who came up with the town hall format? McCain suggested an entire series of town hall meetings at the beginning of the campaign. He felt that he worked best in more intimate settings where he could reach out and connect with the crowd. During each election the candidates get together with the debate committee to figure out how many debates there will be, what style the debates will use, and probably the moderator too (which is another reason why someone like Farai Chideya would never be chosen). For what it is worth some argue that if this were really a town hall debate (with a real town hall) McCain would’ve been better off. I doubt it for reasons I share below.

4. Must every debate disintegrate into warmongering?  In a post-9/11 context I think that war mongering and a reference to Israel are prerequisites. Unfortunate because we have much more important issues to talk about. Unfortunate because it also promotes an America that we need to discard as soon as humanly possible.

Now back to that clip. The first thing that stands out is Kennedy’s open statement where he clearly states the difference between the Democratic and Republican theory of governance. This something that Obama hints at but never comes out and states directly, because he doesn’t believe the political climate allows him to. I disagree…but what do i know?

But the SECOND thing that stands out?

One of the things that distinguishes this series of debates with previous ones is the work of CNN. Along with the pundits, they’ve given a group of regular American citizens a device that captures their sentiments about the candidates as they speak, providing what we call “feeling thermometers” in real time. So as they speak you see two lines representing average feeling thermometer scores of the men and the women, moving up, down, or staying constant as the candidates answer questions. On a number of occasions both lines were flat while McCain spoke…FLAT. As if he weren’t even there. I didn’t see this happen with Obama at all. I do think this is because Obama is smarter, and more capable.

I also think it is because he is more photogenic, and charismatic.

The second thing that stands out about the clip above is how comfortable Kennedy looks on the screen compared with Nixon. In fact Nixon looked…well, evil. Now we can make all types of statements in hindsight about how perhaps he actually was evil, but I’m not going there. All I know is that seeing McCain on that television screen I thought of a dead man walking. To this extent it isn’t about finding a format that McCain works best in. Television, radio, print. He’s got a talent deficit that has nothing to do with his personal politics that he simply cannot overcome. 

And this is why he’ll lose, likely taking the Southern Strategy with him.

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So how blacks vote isn’t really the story. The story is really about the nature of democratic discourse within black communities now that Obama has a legitimate shot. 

Now it certainly seems as if blacks are talking about politics much more often:

“All we talk about is Obama,” said Julie Griffith, the chief executive of a Houston public relations firm who attended a recent convention of black MBAs in Washington. “We talk about the campaign. We talk about Palin. We talk about a possible assassination attempt. We can talk about Obama all day.”

When several black protesters heckled Obama during an appearance in St. Petersburg, Fla., asking what has he had done for the black community, many African Americans expressed outrage — toward the hecklers.

“We can be black all day” after the election, said Griffith, the Houston executive. “We’ve got to get there first. Obama’s not about black issues. He’s the people’s president. We are going to do what we’re going to do. If some black people aren’t with that, I say to hell with them.”

The ideal circumstance here would be vigorous debate about what types of political benefits will blacks gain from an Obama victory. Granted, we know what we’d get from McCain/Palin. Worse than nothing. Fair enough. But that’s really only part of the picture. Particularly because as we consider bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion, it appears as if in the course of making a deal that both sides could agree on, Obama tossed progressives overboard again.

“Michael Baisden and Tom [Joyner] and Tavis [Smiley] could talk about Jena all they want,” Jackson said, referring to radio and TV personalities who had pushed for large protest marches for the embattled men. “But Jena didn’t have anything to do with winning . . . what?”

“Iowa!” the audience roared back, without any dissent.

I wonder how the Jena 6 felt about that? One of the biggest criticisms of the Bush presidency is that, well, he doesn’t brook criticism. And his people impose discipline on the rank and file. 

What do we lose practically, when we do the same thing?

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