Black Voters Can't Put Obama in the White House

African-American voters will help insure that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama keeps his slight edge over Hillary Clinton -- for now. They will not help him beat John McCain if he eventually gets the Democratic nomination. Yet it's still a virtual article of political faith that a strong, united, and crusading black vote can tip the scale for a Democratic presidential candidate. This is a myth and it's risky business for Obama and the Democrats to believe that. It's easy to see why Obama might be tempted to think that. When Obama needed a surge early on in the campaign, he called on Oprah, and she delivered. She made a blatant racial pitch for blacks to in the crucial South Carolina primary to vote for him, and they did in near record numbers. That put him over the top and propelled his campaign.

With the black vote firmly in hand, that gave him the freedom to craft his hope and change message in broad, bland, and especially non-racial terms. The idea was to avoid any appearance of a Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton racial tilt. That would be the political kiss of death with many white voters.

But that didn't change the political reality that black votes still provided the decisive edge for Obama in key primary state wins. And even in his losses to Hillary Clinton in Ohio, California and Texas, black votes kept the race close. Those votes, though, will never be enough to put him over the top in the big states against Clinton, let alone against John McCain in the South and Border states.

The myth that the black vote wins presidential election has been bandied about for so long that it's taken on the proportion of a political urban legend. In 2000, black voters made up nearly 11 percent of the overall voter. They gave the Democratic presidential contender Al Gore 90 percent of their vote. In 2004, black voters made up nearly 12 percent of the vote and gave Democratic presidential contender John Kerry 88 percent of the vote. Gore and Kerry lost.

The Clinton wins in 1992 and 1996 also helped fuel the myth that black votes put Democrats in the White House. Clinton managed to pry four Southern states out of the GOP orbit but he did it by downplaying racial and social issues and stressing family values, tough defense, and a strong economy. He got lots of white votes, especially, white male votes, and that made the difference since he got the same percentage of black votes that Democrats traditionally got in prior elections.

In 2004, then presidential contender Howard Dean openly worried that Democrats could not beat Bush unless they got a bigger share of white male votes. He quipped that the Democrats had to court beer-guzzling white guys who wave the Confederate flag. That brought howls of protests from Dean's Democratic rivals and the charge that Dean was pandering to unreconstructed bigots to get more white votes in his column. A livid Sharpton called Dean a turn coat Democrat and warned that heeding Dean would be a betrayal of black voters. They could have saved their breath. Kerry made only a weak, half-hearted effort to court white male voters in the South. Bush still got nearly seventy percent of the white male vote there, a second sweep of the South and a second term.

A chastised Dean got it right. He simply crunched the numbers and recognized that white males make up more than one-third of the electorate. .

In 2000, exit polling showed that while white women backed Bush over Gore by 3 percentage points, white men backed him by 27 percentage points. Four years later the margin was 26 points for Bush over Kerry among white males.

A huge first red flag waved high for Obama and the Democrats in the recent Ohio Democratic primary that warns that they can't win without white votes. Clinton won a smash victory over Obama in large part with white votes. And even more ominously, blue collar lower income white voters roundly rejected Obama. In fact, nearly twenty percent of white voters defied political correctness and said that race would be a factor in their voting, presumably that meant they would not vote for an African-American candidate. That contrasted with national polls, which showed that more than 90 percent of whites said that race would not be a factor in determining their vote. The Ohio mini-white backlash to Obama doesn't bode well for the Democrats if he's the eventual nominee. No Republican or Democrat has won the White House in the past four decades without winning Ohio.

Black voters will cheer and dash to the polls en masse for Obama, but their votes won't be enough to put him in the White House. Despite the myth, they haven't put any other Democrat candidate in the White House either.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Comments

[PrdAmerican]

At this point with MSM I can't take any poll seriously, not with Limbaugh trying to skew numbers and create election chaos. Add to that endless "scenarios" and it's just plain ridiculous. When it comes down to the voter in the booth, knowing FULL well that it's McBush or a Democrat..­.please...­.if women are that VINDICTIVE and would rather cut off their nose to spite their face..so be it, then America truly deserves what they get.

[patrice37]

Clearly, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Virginia, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington State, Idaho, and other heavily black states have gone for Obama.

Who's Earl Hutchinson, and what makes him a political "analyst"?

[batgirl71]

Hmmm. Let's see, Obama is winning the delegate count, the popular vote count and the number of states. He has won states with big margins that have large African-American populations and states with very small AA populations. And this white woman will NEVER vote for Hillary Clinton. If Clinton receives the Dem nomination while trailing in delegates, popular vote, and states she will be the one responsible for the destruction of the Democratic Party.

[AjicNYC]

nope Obama started the destrution when he tried to Bamboozle Americans with his phony talk. He is manifested like britney spears. we need to treat politics like politics and keep the fine line in the sand between entertainment and poltical issues.

[AjicNYC]

black voters cant put Obama in the white house because they are being "BAMBOOZLED" and or "HOODWINKED" by the man ( this case is a woMAN) . He is the one playing the race card

[raskolnikov72]

First, Good luck on selling your book.
Secondly, you are failing to consider *all* of the states that he's one that are not predominantly white:

Washington
Iowa
Wyoming
Wisconsin

Good luck with your book.

[PrdAmerican]

Eh, we're just boutiques.­...worthle­ss, un-democratic trolls that dont' deserve the right to vote.

[feelfree]

Well Mr. Hutchinson you've done it again. You've inserted reason and common sense into the discussion concerning electability.

The support isn't there for him. He may not hold onto Independents and Republicans in the general and he hasn't won convincingly in the electoral rich Democratic strongholds where the Democratic support really counts.

[COwoman]

Yes, and this is why Barack Obama is winning in popular vote, elected delegates and most states won. By the way he also has significantly out-raised her in the money race.
Support has been amazing all over the country.
I don't think that it is a huge surprise that Barack Obama would not do well with a major portion of the white men and women in the deep south. But I don't think that the racial division is a stunner here.
What I find interesting is the amount of Republicans that crossed party lines and voted for Hillary Clinton. I also thought this poll was interesting in the Mississippi exits:

Is Clinton honest and trustworthy? 52 Yes, 48 No
Obama's at 70-30.

[AntonBursch]

Obama doesn't need to win over the democratic base right now. They will be there for him this fall no question. Hillary Clinton is winning them over right now, because she is the most powerful and popular establishment democrat. Obama isn't losing to a Republican for god's sake. This isn't the General Election. The very same people who are voting in the primary for Hillary Clinton are going to vote for who ever the democratic nominee is this fall. End of story.

[JXB]

Winning against your Democratic rival in the "electoral rich states" is influenced by name recognition and party establishment connection. Winning in the general against the Republican nominee is a different matter entirely. If the SurveyUSA and many other polls on the subject aren't enough for you on the "electability" question, I suggest you consider Professor Lessig's analysis:

http://lessig.org/blog/2008/02/10_minutes_on_whether_hillary.html

[wndrwrthg]

You are right Earl, blacks cannot be trusted with their vote. We must remove that temptation from them immediately.

[acanthus]

Ok, LOL. I couldn't figure out what the point of this post was, but I guess that's as good a point as any, LOL.

[LouKane]

I wonder...

What was the percentage of black voters those southern states that Clinton won in '92 and '96?

What was the margin of victory?

Now... how many of them would he have lost without black voters???

The point is... in a close election, EVERY vote counts!!! Hutchison you're being silly.

[SShaw490]

Don't worry, Earl. Jessie Jackson also won Mississippi.

[nihilon x]

So basically, all you are saying -- in a very long, drawn out manner -- is that America won't vote for a black man.

Nothing new there...it just puts you in the same league as the Klan and many other racists who still say exactly the same thing.

Meanwhile, Obama just keeps on winning....

[kempis]

He keeps winning Southern Democratic primaries with large concentrations of black votes and he keeps winning caucuses with energized young activists running the shows. He is not winning the big electoral states. If he continues to lose white men and older voters, he won't win the election. That's the point. I had thought that perhaps he was making inroads with white men after the Potomac Primaries and WI, but Ohio has given everyone who's looking at this realistically some serious pause.

The general election is completely different from the Democratic primaries. Obama may keep a nose ahead of Hillary and his young, politically naive supporters can threaten to hold their breath until the superdelegates nominate him--and they probably will. Then what.

I'll tell you what. The GOP is going to turn Barack and Michelle into even scarier monsters than the Clintons, and Barack will lose. And we'll all be depressed. I guess the opposite of love is hate, and the opposite of hope is despair.

[Donk]

McCain is much scarier than Obama. He is also hamstrung with the Bush/Cheney legacy of warmongering, crony capitalism, deciderism, trillion dollar debt and the incredibly shrinking dollar. Plus the inferior legal intellects of the Ashcroft/Gonzales DOJ. No way can this legacy be defended in a political debate. And the torture veto too!

[honeybee49]

"If he continues to lose white men and older voters, he won't win the election": nor can Obama win if he and his campaign continue to alienate women, especially older women. He has a real problem with that group.

And, Donk, you're mistaken if you think moderate voters find McCain "scarier than" Obama. Quite the opposite.

As for the war, yeah--a majority of Americans have long since decided it was a mistake. But except for a small and vocal coterie obsessed with Hillary Clinton's vote on the Iraq resolution--to the point of wanting to turn this into a single-issue campaign--voters by and large want to talk about what we do now, among many other issues, especially the economy.

Whether you like it or not, almost nobody cares that Obama gave a speech against the war in 2002. Can you say "Ned Lamont"? Obama's "superior judgment" BS is a loser against McCain in the fall.

[Xiexie]

I want to know how you conflated "black voters can't put Obama [and didn't put the other presidents] in the White House" with "America won't vote for a black man".

Those two statements don't make the same point or come to the same conclusion at all. One says, "The black vote won't 'easily' give Obama the presidency." The other says, "American citizens won't vote for Obama because he's black."

Do you see the difference?

[DRHoen]

You mean there aren't enough blacks to elect the president on their own? OMG, I hadn't thought of that! Somebody tell Obama, quick!

But seriously, you are overlooking some glaring facts, like that it would be Obama vs. McCain, not Obama vs. Clinton. Do you really think Obama has much of a chance of losing the big Democratic states to McCain? Plus, he will likely bring some Red Western (and other?) states into the Blue.

McCain's only 'strength' is his pro-war stance. And how well do you think that's going to play in 2008? There was only one way for Dems to lose this general: have a long bloody primary season and let Clinton steal the nomination. This would motivate the Repubs to actually vote (otherwise, their turnout would be abysmal) and alienate progressives and independents,.

But as of now, the only problem is that Clinton is gradually trimming Obama's coattails with every attack.

[nihilon x]

Click on Hutchinson's name above and you will quickly see that nearly every article he has posted is an attack on Obama.

It has nothing to do with "facts" and everything to do with him being obsessively hell-bent on dragging Obama down by any means necessary.

As is so commonly pointed out, who says black people can't be racist?

Much like Chris Rock, Hutchinson gets a free pass, but at least Rock is funny...and far less biased in general.

[maggieb]

What you think all blacks should fall in line with Obama? His article is factual, but you are too busy looking for something thats not there. Yes the racist blacks are the ones who said in the Mississippi exit polls that they think Clinton has a better plan for the future and then goes into the booth and vote for Obama. My state is next, whoopee!!

[nihilon x]

Don't try to put words in my mouth.

What I "think" is exactly what I said.

Period.

[nihilon x]

Add to my other statement on this thread that nearly every attack on Obama in his columns is based on RACE, and little more.

[DRHoen]

"[Oprah] made a blatant racial pitch for blacks to in the crucial South Carolina primary to vote for him, and they did in near record numbers."

Really? I missed it. Please tell us what it was.

[StephenS]

You really missed Oprah in South Carolina? He's probably talking about Oprah tying Obama to the fictional, and extremely well-written, Miss Jane Pittman asking possible male black leaders if they were "the One".

Try http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7281.html:
Winfrey also touched on Christian themes that had not been highlighted in Iowa.
"It's amazing grace that brought me here," she began, adding that she was "stepping out of my pew" - television – to engage in politics.
It isn't enough to tell the truth, Winfrey said. "We need politicians who know how to be the truth."
Winfrey also recalled a story from "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," a 1974 film based on Ernest Gaines' 1971 novel.
In Winfrey's telling, the protagonist – an old woman who had survived slavery and the Civil War – would ask every child, "Are you the one? Are you the one?"
"I do believe I do today we have the answer to Miss Pittman's question – it's a question that the entire nation is asking – is he the one?" Winfrey said. "South Carolina – I do believe he's the one."

[AjicNYC]

At this point in time its seems we are not ready for a Black man or a Woman as president Democratic party is divided, Media is biased and afraid to say thing cause the will get fired, polls are telling us how to vote, Obama and Hillary are going back and forth with each other , its so childish. I am done with the Tit-4-Tat. I feel like a 8 year old with abusive parents who are constantly arguing and I am in a closet digging deep to find my Narnia.

[JerfyT]

What about all the black people in Iowa, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota tipping the elections this way? Oh yeah, because it isnt just black people voting for Obama.

[follyeoa]

Problem is that dems are not going to win Iowa, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota

[JerfyT]

Iowa is very much in play with Obama, as he is leading in the polls there

[Zhonni]

If Obama becomes President, it won't be because of Blacks--Can't argue with that. It would be because of Whites, as they are the majority, with a push from the Blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

Obama owes EVERYTHING to the White people/state of IOWA and for that I say thank you.

God bless Iowa!

And oh, Obama is going to win Iowa in November!!!