This poll has value for large numbers of undecided Dems.
Here they see a lot of their party members going to throw their support to McCain/Palin. Thats a clear signal to them that its acceptable for them to vote the Republican ticket. Gender trumps race in their eyes and vote.
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them “lazy,” “violent” or responsible for their own troubles.”
This same poll also reveals that anti-black racism is significantly higher among white Republicans than among white Democrats, as I’ve always suspected.
Interesting spinn, certainly goes to support a lot of pre-conceived images promoted by some…however the thread topic is in the title of the article. And the poll, the poll that is the subject of this thread, was taken by “white Democrats,” so the results are an indication of their opinions.
So, the white Dems are the racists. But the Blacks who express a vote vote >85% for Obama are not? Interesting.
IMO, there are a number of reasons for this shift away from Obama by Dems, of both colors, such as they are not thrilled with Obama because besides the inexperience factor, he’s too much tied to the Chicago political machine (which a lot of non-Chicago Democrats don’t like) and Obama’s friends that have a terribly unattractive past…and present.
I also view this article as a manipulative trip trying to shame white Democrats into voting for Obama by laying a guilt trip on them and calling them racists. Makes as much sense as any other interpretation.
Right now Obama is hurting…and hurting bad. Its dirt time for the Obama attack machine. And they are seeing all their attacks come back and bite them where the sun don’t shine. All of the major issues of Obama are counter to the mainstream digestive tract. America ain’t eating what he’s cooking. Biden isn’t helping much either…I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s thrown under the bus before 5 Nov.
“Surveys like this one appear designed to elicit the types of responses that can most easily be characterized as racism. In these surveys, respondents are forced to generalize about race and to reduce complicated subjects to simplistic black/white answers. And then the liberal media uses these induced generalizations as b proof of racism.[/b]”
Obama is back up in the polls, after the “Palin bounce” came to a screeching end with the reality of the economic situation.
But yes, the machine that attacks Democrats is in full swing, with Rove clearly behind the smears. “Obama supports sex ed in kindergartens!” Ha! That lie was exposed and shot down, along with many other recent lies from the right. Obama, on the other hand, campaigns on the high road. Why can’t Republican campaigners ever tell the truth? They could conceivably get McCain campaigner Tucker Eskew to repackage his 2000 anti-McCain whisper campaign by saying “Obama fathered TWO black babies!”
As for the handful of Dems who happen to be racists, I say this to them: get your asses out of our party - our platform is anti-racist. (A statistic I heard recently is that those Dems who have a problem with minorities are mostly over 65. This means they will be dying off soon, replaced by young voters who have no room for racism in their worldviews.)
Looking at that graph and where the red & blue sits, without fail, any opportunity to show a positive stance towards blacks, the dems are more positive than the reps.
Likewise, any opportunity to show a negative stance towards blacks, the reps are more negative than the dems.
How on earth can YOU deduce Dems are more racist from that? I mean you, not a quoted source.
[quote=“Chris”]This same poll also reveals that anti-black racism is significantly higher among white Republicans than among white Democrats, as I’ve always suspected.
[/quote]
I’d be really careful about the conclusions made about this particular poll. For most questions, white Republicans and white Democrats appear to be within 5 percentage points of the mean. So it seems to me that the variance isn’t great – meaning most responses don’t vary wildly from the mean. So it’s possible that for most questions the percentage of white Democrats and white Republicans describing blacks with a particular adjective is not statistically different.
Sure, you can see a trend where white Democrats are score higher than white Republicans on positive descriptions and lower on negative descriptions. But it may be that, with anything you ask, white Republicans will be more conservative in their praise than white Democrats and that they will be more liberal in their criticism. But you’d have to do another study to establish that.
[quote=“Truant”]Looking at that graph and where the red & blue sits, without fail, any opportunity to show a positive stance towards blacks, the dems are more positive than the reps.
Likewise, any opportunity to show a negative stance towards blacks, the reps are more negative than the dems.
How on earth can YOU deduce Dems are more racist from that? I mean you, not a quoted source.[/quote]
IMO, the poll dosn’t indicate anything about racism of either Democrats or Republicans. The fact, as portrayed by the poll, that Republicans generally view blacks in a more negative light than do Democrats doesn’t mean much at all.
Bill Cosby, the very famous black comedian and movie and television star has in the past decade come out and been very criticial of so-called “black culture” in the US. I would imagine that Bill Cosby would answer that poll in a way very similar to the average Republican. Even Jesse Jackson stated that he would be frightened in he were walking alone on a dark street and saw a group of young black men approaching him. These men are not racists for having these feelings and thoughts, and neither are Republicans who state their opinions regarding blacks in general.
Republicans, Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson could only be regarded as racists if they believe that black people act a certain way because they are black. Obviously, most Republicans, Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson do not believe that black people in general act a certain way because they are black… actions are deemed instead to be motivated or attributed otherwise to culture. That isn’t racism.
So, while the poll TC cited might not tell us anything about racism in the USA, the fact that Union member democrats are loathe to vote for a black man is illustrative of racism in the Democratic party.
If Obama loses this election due to racism… it will be Democratic racism rather than any Republican racism. You can bet that if Condi Rice were on the Republican ticket, Republicans would support her very much. I know many Republicans who hope that Condi will one day be on the GOP ticket… and you can bet that the Democrats will make ugly, racist remarks and slogans and posters and cartoons directed at her… we know this because they have already done so.
Yeah, so what? A group of men approaching one when one is walking alone on a dark street is going to be scary regardless of ethnicity. That is not the same thing as having a general prejudice toward a group.
Nice try, but stating negative opinions about blacks in general is a clear sign of racism to anyone with a functioning cerebrum.
You can spout such absurdities all you want, TM, but let’s look at the facts. Let’s look at membership and the number of officeholders to gauge that “support”, eh?
Tell me how many African-Americans there were on the Republican National Committee in, say, 2004? My source says two. Out of 165. How many Dems? 97, or over 20%.
And officeholders? According to the CRS Report for Congress, Membership of the 109th Congress (November 29, 2006):
[quote]A record number (43) of black Members are serving, 42 in the
House, one in the Senate. All are Democrats.
[/quote]
You’ll have to ask Jesse Jackson, then, why he felt it necessary to specify that he would be frightened by a group of [color=#000000]black[/color] youths.
Having a general opinion of a certain group is not necessarily the result of any prejudice.
Nonsense. And your reply above is an example of a logical fallacy.
I’m not spouting “absurdities”.
[quote=“Dragonbones”]Tell me how many African-Americans there were on the Republican National Committee in, say, 2004? My source says two. Out of 165. How many Dems? 97, or over 20%.
And officeholders? According to the CRS Report for Congress, Membership of the 109th Congress (November 29, 2006):
[quote]A record number (43) of black Members are serving, 42 in the
House, one in the Senate. All are Democrats.
[/quote]
ALL.
Not much ambiguity there, is there?[/quote]
None at all. But, so what?
The point of my post was clearly that the racism that could well defeat Obama in the coming election will not be Republican racism, but will instead be racism from white Democrats.
How could it be otherwise? If the GOP is full of racists as some of you apparently believe, then we could expext that no Republicans will vote for Obama. But, if the democratic party is comprised of so many enlightened voters of all races, then we should expect that Obama’s race will not be a factor in the decisions of democratic voters.
But, race is most definitely a factor in this election. I’ve been stating for years that the first black POTUS will be a Republican. If I’m right, Obabma will be defeated because whites who normally vote democrat will refuse to vote for Obama because of his race.
[quote=“Tigerman”][quote][quote]A record number (43) of black Members are serving, 42 in the
House, one in the Senate. All are Democrats.
[/quote]
ALL.
Not much ambiguity there, is there?[/quote]
None at all. But, so what?[/quote]
So what? So, your statement that “By contrast, many Democrats have traditionally demonstrated an unwillingness to accept black candidates. Republicans have no problem supporting black conservatives” is clearly not supported by the evidence.
I don’t dispute that there is some racism in both parties (although all the evidence puts most of it in the 'Pubs), and I don’t dispute that the racism which does exist among a minority of white Dems may be enough to tip what is a very tight race. However, after eight years of an abysmal administration, you normally get some crossover voting, and the racism which does exist among a larger number of 'Pubs is likely to minimize that crossover in this particular instance. The same is true of the independent voters, who are likely to swing the race. Therefore, the racism that could well defeat Obama is likely to be racism from all three groups.
The Democratic Party gave us the Ku Klux Klan, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws and other repressive legislation which resulted in the multitude of murders, lynchings, mutilations, and intimidations of thousands of black and white Republicans. The Democrats gave their lives to expand it, the Republicans gave their lives to ban it.
Bob Byrd and Democrats can be seen as a modern KKK in their mob rule democracy. It is Bob Byrd and Democrats who "bought black people’s votes by sticking them on welfare and enslaving them for generations.
So what? We all know that the Republican party was the “liberal” party in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was conservatives who “gave us the Ku Klux Klan, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws and other repressive legislation which resulted in the multitude of murders, lynchings, mutilations, and intimidations of thousands of black and white Republicans.”
[quote][quote]A record number (43) of black Members are serving, 42 in the
House, one in the Senate. All are Democrats.
[/quote]
ALL.
Not much ambiguity there, is there?[/quote]
How many of those black Democrats were elected in districts where whites are the majority of all voters in the district?
Yes, of course black candidates are often elected by black voters in districts where the voters are by majority black (see New Orleans and Detroit).
Really? If you are referring to the poll cited in this thread or others of a similar nature, then I think you are on very shaky ground.
You haven’t any clue as to what percenatges of Dems or Republicans are actually racist. So, why do you post such opinion a fact?
I could be wrong, but I predict that the racist element of the Democratic party will give this election to Mccain. We’ll see.
But apparently not this year. So, to what reason would you attribute the tight race? IMO, it is a tight race only because a large (substantial) number of white Democrats are racist.
You’re just pulling this out of your butt, aren’t you? I mean, we know that the race is close, and we know that Union Bosses (who are all Democrats) are pleading with and begging their white union members to disregard Obama’s blackness and vote for him.
Obama’s blackness is not an issue for Republicans. Obama is measuarbly the most liberal member of Congress. Republicans do not generally vote for candidates who have the most liberal record in Congress. Democrats, on the other hand, do generally vote for democratic candidates with liberal records… except in instances such as the present election where the voters are white working Democrats… many white union members who normally would vote Democrat will not be able to bring themselves to vote for a black candidate, even if he is a Democrat.
Again, Republicans who believe that Bush’s presidency has been a catastrophie likely believe so because Bush has increased the size of the Government… These Republicans are not going to vote for the most liberal of all Congressmen because Bush wasn’t conservative enough!
You have nothing but a feeling on which to base this statement. We know for a fact, however, that the democratic party is scared shitless that white union members will refuse to vote for Obama because he is black. What evidence have you that supports your assertion above regarding independent voters?
Not likely. Obama’s race is not important to Republican voters… his liberal record is what Republicans oppose. Racist white Democrats are simply opposed to Obama’s blackness.
