Dog Whistle Politics: What if Only White People Voted?
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/54537/dog-whistle-politics-what-if-only-white-people-voted
Dog Whistle Politics: What if Only White People Voted?
Elections
by Joshua Holland | March 1, 2014 - 10:42am
from Moyers & Company
After the 2012 election, Buzzfeed put together a series of electoral maps that showed what the results would have looked like if we didnt have universal suffrage. A couple of them went viral, including this one, which depicts the election results if only white men voted, which was the case before the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870:
and this one, which depicts the outcome if only white men and women voted:
Some people looked at these maps and concluded that they proved white America unwilling to vote for a black president, but that conclusion was far too simplistic. The reality is that the Democratic Party has had a structural disadvantage among white voters that is, at least in part, a result of the success of Republicans Southern Strategy dog whistle politics. While Obama got 39 percent of the white vote in 2012, in 2008 he grabbed 43 percent which was two points higher than John Kerrys share in a losing effort in 2004 and just one point less than Al Gores share when he won the popular vote in 2000.
Ultimately, race is just a single variable. Just as Democrats struggle with the white vote, Republicans have been burdened with a longstanding gender gap. Fifty-five percent of women voted for Obama in 2012, a point less than he garnered in his first election. Kerry won 51 percent of women voters in 2004 a big reason he lost the election and Gore got 55 percent in 2000.