Legal Commentary

Unifying "Real" America

By Big Tent Democrat

Matt Yglesias writes:

When you listen to white people talk about Barack Obama, talk of “uniting the country” is almost universally taken to mean some kind of gesture toward bipartisanship or postpartisanship. . . . But when I’ve heard Obama’s black supporters, the ones from the grassroots like the man in the video rather than the “official” black political leadership, it always sounds to me like they’re hearing a very different message. Uniting the country means, to them, something more like bringing African-Americans into the mainstream of American politics. An Obama presidency would be a stark contrast to the rhetoric of the “real” America — which is basically defined as the part where everyone is white — versus the unreal America comprised of non-whites and the white people who deign to live near them. Of course to some extent any Democratic Party electoral coalition represents a rebuke to that way of thinking.

(Emphasis supplied.) More than "to some extent." The coming landslide for the Democratic Party coalition is indeed a rebuke of the racist notion of the "real" America. It is the manifestation of the Emerging Democratic Majority Texeira and Judis predicted 8 years ago. More . . .

I refer again to the DKos/R2000 poll internals and compare them to Kerry in 2004.

Barack Obama holds a 5 point lead while winning 39% of white votes according to DKos/R2000. John Kerry lost by 2.5% while winning 41% of the white vote in 2004. How is this possible? In part, because whites will be a smaller portion of the electorate in 2008 than they were in 2004. The other reasons are Obama will garner a larger share of the African American (95% compared to Kerry's 88%) and Latino (63% to Kerry's 53%) vote than Kerry did.

This is Pat Buchanan's nightmare. Remember, whenever a Democrat wins, it means the choice of the majority of white Americans lost. Or as Buchanan might put it, "real" America lost. Of course, in our view, real America includes ALL Americans.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 30, 2008 (boomark / email).