Political reporters love the concept of political "mandates" even though political scientists are skeptical that mandates even exist. On Monday, Politico's Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen penned the latest entry in this genre, arguing that Barack Obama, if he wins, won't have a mandate because he won't have won a majority of white voters:
"If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.
A broad mandate this is not."
This pseudo-Buchananite argument—that the white vote is important for symbolic and totemic purposes beyond the actual tally—is a favorite of the political press. At best, VandeHei and Allen are regurgitating the Republican argument that there are "real Americans" who vote Republican and then there is everyone else. The converse argument—that the Republican Party's overwhelming reliance on white votes while the Democrats represent a broader cross-section of the country means that the GOP would lack a mandate—is rarely made. When VandeHei and Allen address the GOP's growing demographic problem, it's merely a matter of numbers and winning elections. They do not question whether a party whose supporters are 91 percent white would have a mandate to govern an increasingly diverse nation.Mother Jones
Politico: Only White Voters Give a President a "Mandate"
Adam Serwer
Adam Serwer would do well to remember CS Lewis' sage advice:
ReplyDelete“The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”
"When you look at the white working-class vote by region, for example, Democrats remain competitive everywhere but in the South, where they get crushed. "
ReplyDeleteRight they get the socio-economic Christian vote (which does not reside in the south) to swing their way.... if one wanted to compete for this segment of Christendom's vote, one would NOT choose the social Darwinist Paul Ryan....
rsp,