NC GOP Voters: Who Are These People?
RALEIGH, N.C. -- With North Carolina in a dead heat, Republicans are demanding to be heard.
On Saturday, Sarah Palin delivered her final rally here to a crowd so large that the line snaked back and forth across the fair grounds, although only a few thousand were able to get inside.
"I know I'm probably not going to get to see her," said Liz Pernaciaro, who had made the event a ladies' night out with her daughters and some friends, "but we wanted to show our support."
Even though it has voted for a Democratic president only once since 1968, North Carolina has Obama and McCain in a statistical tie. However, early voting has Democrats turning out 2 to 1 over Republicans--a good, but not sure, sign for Obama.
But Saturday's Palin rally and the steady stream of other McCain campaign events here in the last two weeks have served as reminders that the race isn't yet over, and plenty of Republicans are planning to turn out to vote on Tuesday, if they haven't already.
In line at the Palin rally, voters overwhelming cited taxes and abortion as the main reasons they supported the GOP ticket. Palin herself was a bonus: She spoke in layman's terms. She was family-oriented. She was fresh. She was new. Up and down the line, red shirts gave way to pink ones with Palin's name across the chest. It could almost have been a Hillary rally, risen from the ashes. Mothers brought their daughters, daughters brought their mothers, young women spoke of how proud they were to see a female candidate on the presidential ticket ("I always wanted to be governor when I grew up," said Alana Tomlin-Denton), and both men and women acknowledged that Palin brought welcome change to the party.
For the most part, these voices represent the core of North Carolina Republican voters--committed, conscientious, visible. But over the last two weeks, I've encountered McCain voters who are not so obvious.
In Franklinton, a small, rural town an hour northeast of Durham, a group of motorcycle-riding veterans called McCain "the lesser of two evils." John Deal, the head of his Rolling Thunder chapter, said his group was "leaning Republican," but that McCain was "not a friend of MIA-POW issues." They wished Colin Powell had run--a sentiment repeated by other likely McCain voters for whom the war in Iraq was a paramount issue.
Ross Perot came up with GOP-leaning voters as well, along with a general distaste for politics and politicians, who would say almost anything to get elected. In casual conversations, it seems that McCain has lost credibility as a straight talker, but it's possible these disenchanted voters will cast their ballots for him anyway.
There are also those who are voting explicitly against Obama.
"I'll tell you who I'm not voting for," said the owner of a flea market just outside Chapel Hill. "Obama. The end of the world is coming soon enough. Electing him will just make it happen faster."
End times is a common theme among many McCain voters with whom I spoke--in a Sarah Palin rally in Asheville, one supporter referred to a prediction in the Book of Revelations that the anti-Christ would come in the form of a man from the Middle East who was part black, part white, and part yellow. (As far as I know, the Book of Revelations says no such thing.) Even if their responses are not quite so dramatic, many McCain voters express anxiety over what will happen to America's survival and safety if Obama is elected.
And, of course, there are the 20% of North Carolina Democrats who are voting for the GOP presidential ticket. I found a few--but only a few--in line at the Palin rally. One self-declared conservative preferred to vote Democratic in some local elections, and two others had a change of heart over the last few years and hadn't bothered to update their registrations.
But if you ask longtime North Carolina residents who these people are, the conventional understanding is that the bulk of this group are Dixiecrats--Democratic-inclined voters who are also concerned with preserving what might be described as a Southern heritage.
"We have a lot of Democrats around here who are what's called 'socially conservative,'" said Armenia Eaton, an Obama volunteer who has lived 59 years in Franklinton. "But we just call them racist. They'd rather die than switch."
Race is of course the wild card that has Obama supporters worried, especially in North Carolina, where many towns still have a train track running down the middle, with blacks living on one side and whites on another. When I ask people who they are voting for, race hangs on almost every answer--whether ultimately for or against Obama. ("I vote for the brown one," said a Mexican-American woman working at the flea market, touching her finger to her own forearm.)
Because race is sometimes a positive, sometimes a negative, and sometimes just another variable in a complex equation, it's impossible to say how it will play out over hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters on Tuesday. The numbers feel too big, and the electorate too complicated and too anomalous this year to predict anything.
Certainly the mood at the Palin rally on Saturday night was charged with a giddy uncertainty. Palin herself seemed almost manic, speaking especially quickly and racing through her talking points. On the floor of the arena, supporters waved American flags, stomped their feet, and hollered Sa-Rah, Sa-Rah so loudly the walls shook. The event had the feel of end-times itself. Whatever happens on Tuesday, this would be the last time the McCain campaign would come together in North Carolina in its quest for the presidency, and supporters pitched toward the stage in solidarity and a shared thirst for victory.
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"Clinging to their guns and religion was such a true statement". We can see it in McCain's base.
People who cannot believe and trust themselves always will look to guns and religion as their only salvation.
I'm sorry, but I myself believe in the bible. I truly did not want to go here, but I am so sick of this anti-christ crap. But what strikes me as funny is some folks who think O is the anti-christ or something. So what they think voting Mc/P will keep the anti-christ from coming? The anti-christ is going to come someday and there will be nothing anyone will be able to do to stop it. It's in the bible it's going to happen as will the rapture. So these folks must not have enough faith in God to be scared of the anti-christ. I'm not scared actually waiting for the day because I have faith in God. These are unfortunately the same folks who when the real anti-christ shows up won't know it. I'm so sorry but I just had to get this off my chest. It just gets under my skin.
What a beautiful and studiously fair-minded expression of a Dixie sociopolitical landscape! If we were to go beyond a 'report,' and countenance an analytical prescription, perhaps we might suggest several things.
First, some GOP supporters are 'beyond the pale.' Either their true interests lie with the likes of John McCain, or they are immune from any recognition to the contrary.
Second, some DixieDemopublicans actually understand that this age of paradox produces no clear approach to salvation. As such, they are open to incisive, intelligent, and authentically grassroots appeals to 'class consciousness,' or whatever else you might want to call this survival instinct.
Third, the progressive Southern citizen needs to prioritize the development of a strategy and pitch to this second sort of folks. Everyone decries the number of 'wingnuts,' but few are those who suggest that these people could form a part of the base for progressive politics for the rest of this century, long after the likes of me will have checked out.
As to the "End Times" thread, the one screenplay that I managed to sell, "What Would Jesus Do?" dealt with just such scenarios as these folks imagine. I sold it to a crew of Canadian Catholic media youngsters too. You can tell anyone who parrots the line that you heard that the opening lines of "The Book of Revelation" do say that those who misspeak the text's predictions are allies of Satan or the Antichrist itself.
Why don't people understand that being pro-choice is not being anti-birth? Pro-choice just means we don't want to make those decisions for others! I think all the pulpit ranting about abortion should make the churches lose their non-tax status. If they are going into politics they are no longer a religion.
North Carolina won't be a cliffhanger. Obama will win by more than a million votes.
Very well written article, we get the flavor. It is close.
The most striking thing about this state election is the extent of early voting.
In the '04 election, about 3.5 million people voted, with about 1 million + early voters.
This year, nearly 2.6 million have already voted.
Asssuming a 4% overall turnout increase, about 1 million will still vote.
The PPP poll today shows a 10% net gain for Obama from early voters. Across 2.6 million, that's 260K in the bank for Obama.
Obama needs, roughly, to exceed 37% of the remaining 1 million votes to win, based upon the above assumptions.
The PPP poll shows that those who havn't voted, 42% say they are going to vote Obama.
I obtained these statistics from RCPolitics, and 2008 early voting.
Talk about a cliff hanger. Looks like about 25K --50K votes could determine it.
My family landed in NC with Sir Walter Raleigh. My mother's family owned most of a certain county since the dawn of our Republic. But I was raised "up North" - in Washington DC.
The African American director of my children's daycare center is from my parents' hometown. I mentioned my maiden name and her face turned ashy. Upon reflection, the reasons for her discomfort were obvious. I'm so distant from those NC roots that I had no idea what crimes I stood accused of.
This summer, I understood. As we lumbered to the NC beaches in our mini-van, we saw a lone Obama sign. My great uncle said "that house will be torched by nightfall.
My Southern kin are FIGHTING MAD that a Muslim socialist who is going to put a mosque on every corner is a contender. They are PRAYING FOR MY SOUL that I am a Democrat. It makes perfect sense to them that a black man with a funny name is a terrorist and a communist.
They have joined a giant prayer chain: "We may not win at the ballot box, but we can become an army of prayer warriors."
Yes, I tell my family. Let's agree to disagree politically. Let's agree to all be mighty prayer warriors that whosoever wins, we can make it through our terrible national and international trials.
Great post.
The "warrior" thing is apparently also a special attribute of the "radical" sect of the Pentacostal church to which Palin belongs in Alaska.
As I posted below, this state election is the definition of a cliff hanger.
There are going to be a lot of post mortems on Obama's choice today to visit NC.
Funny, I didn't hear or see anything on the raleigh news about this huge crowd snaking across the Fairgrounds and it's intersting that only a few thousand could make their way into Dorton Arena which Obama jammed full of 9,000 twice this year.
"...Dixiec
southern states have the lowest scores in national education rankings, lowest per capita incomes, worst rankings in terms of health and fitness, poorest water quality, the most out dated infrastructure and yet they want to cling to their southern heritage of bigotry, intolerence and racism ?? WHY??
I find it amazing that he's even competitive anywhere in the south. Imagine 20 years ago - would this happen? Absolutely not. A dead heat in a southern state is something to be proud of and we should all remember this is history happening before our eyes.
One word: Katrina
This campaign has been nothing but amazing for me. I am a 66-year-old Caucasian female from California. And in all of my adult life I have never gotten involved in politics. For the first time since JFK, I have a hero, a champion, OB. Someone said it's the religious, evangelicals, and racists who comprise a lot of die-hard Republicans. How sad that they are so narrow-minded and unwilling to step outside their box to look at the better good for all of us, our country and the world. If McCain were to somehow win by his fraudulent tactics and his outrageous strategic attacks on his opponent on a repeated basis (over and over and over again) to brainwash voters, these people will dearly pay for their vote and so will the rest of us.
I'm not at all surprised by the priorities of the people in NC. #1 - Abortion and #2 - a complete lack of understanding of Obama's tax proposals. Of course, McCain keeps saying, "Obama will raise your taxes" and the uninformed keep believing him. But I think the whole thing comes down to what the Obama volunteer said about the "social conservati
oh yes...abor
the republican party doesn't give a damn about middle class america and these people are too stupid and ignorant to see that. as long as they have their guns by god, and an amendment so those damn gays and homo-sexuals can't marry, and ban abortion..
these people are pathetic.
And the right still doesn't seem to get that their best chance of ever getting R V Wade overturned was in about 2003, when Bush was riding high in approval ratings, both houses of Congress were theirs and there was a conservative 5-4 Supreme Court. Yet, their beloved Republican party did nothing...
Why should they. Then their daughters and girlfriends with unwanted pregnancies would be inconvenienced, to say nothing of the fact that they would lose all kids of politcal contributions and re-election volunteering if this issue was no longer their big drawing card. Totally hyp o cri tic a l.
And of course, if you do overturn it you remove it as a rallying cry for when you're going to really need it to rally the right and get a third term.
It's also not clear that you won't stir up more on the other side to campaign against you on that basis than you can raise. The status quo served the Republicans better.
IIRC, the majority of those who passed Roe V Wade were Republican appointees ...
Rule #1: Always live by what the Bible says.
Rule #2: If the Bible doesn't back you up on what you want to do, just make up something up and pretend it's in the Bible.
taxes and abortion, huh?
wow.
those rich people sure do get out for a Palin rally.
and abortion..
what a combination considering that their religious vote is going to contradict their tax vote if they make less than $200,000 per year.
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