Debunking the Myth that Latinos Elected Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The voluntary withdrawal by scandal plagued New Mexico governor Bill Richardson from the Commerce Secretary post drew instant and angry demands from some Latino leaders for Obama to pick another Latino to replace Richardson. In making the demand they fanned two myths. One is that Obama hasn’t appointed enough Latinos to his staff and cabinet posts. The other is that Latino votes are mainly why he bagged the White House. Obama transition officials quickly and correctly noted that Obama has appointed more Latinos to senior positions than Bush or Clinton. And that’s even before he’s taken office.
But it’s the myth that Latinos tipped the victory scale for him that’s even more self-serving. Latinos did vote in bigger numbers and in a higher percentage for Obama than Democratic presidential loser John Kerry in 2004. Their vote did help seal the win for Obama in Florida, New Mexico and Colorado. Bush won Colorado and Florida in 2000 and all three states in 2004. But the electoral math shows that even if Obama had lost both states he still would have beaten Republican rival John McCain.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and arguably North Carolina were the must win states. Bush won two of the three states in 2000 and 2004 and cinched the White House. This time Obama won all three. If he had lost Pennsylvania and/or Ohio the outcome might have been far different. Blacks make up twenty to thirty percent of the vote in these three states. They gave Obama the crucial edge there. The more than 15 million black voters made up more than twenty percent of the overall Democratic vote in 2008. They gave Obama 96 percent of their vote. This was an all-time percentage high for a Democratic presidential candidate. If black voters had not turned the Democratic primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama and if Obama had not openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter stoked the black vote, he would have been just another failed Democratic also ran presidential candidate. The fight for the White House would have been between McCain and Hillary Clinton.
In the 2008 election Latino voters increased their vote total by a modest one percent from nine to ten million votes from 2004. Even then Latino leaders and voters were glacially slow to warm up to Obama. In the Democratic primaries they overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton. In the general election many Latino voters still expressed deep ambivalence and doubt about Obama. McCain got nearly one third of the Latino vote. This is pretty much what other GOP presidential candidates typically get from Latino voters. Bush’s top heavy Latino vote total in 2004 was a political aberration.

The Latino leaders that pump the myth that they elected Obama do it in part to leverage more numbers and influence in the Obama administration, and in part to puff up the notion that Latinos are now the major ethnic power broker in national politics. Latinos certainly deserve their fair share of Obama appointments and cabinet posts; they need a big voice in his administration on issues from health care to immigration to Latin American relations. But that’s far different than turning the quest for Obama appointments into a numbers game, a quota game. Then inferring that if Obama doesn’t play ball call him a disappointment or that he’s ignoring Latino interests. Obama must not listen to that talk. It does him, his administration and Latinos a disservice.

Latinos certainly are well on the path to becoming major players in national politics, but blacks have been major political players for many years. The black vote has been the Democrats trump card in every election for the past half century, win or lose. They gave Kerry 85 percent of their vote. Latinos by contrast gave Kerry only 53 percent of their vote. Black voters have been so reliable, maybe too reliable, that Democrats have been repeatedly rapped for plantationism; that is for taking the black vote for granted and offering little tangible benefits in return for their unyielding support. Obama didn’t change that. He said little during the campaign about failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS plague, criminal justice racial disparities, and the lack of minority business initiatives and funding
Black voters and elected officials, though, wisely did not demand that he say and do more about these issues as the price for their game changing vote turnout. The Congressional Black Caucus, local and state black Democrats, and civil rights organizations passionately backed Obama in the general election. They pulled out all stops to get out the vote. If any group deserved bragging rights for the Obama win they do. They would be right to demand even more staff and cabinet appointments from Obama. They haven’t demanded that. The Latino leaders that are sweating Obama to appoint more Latinos solely because they are Latinos should do the same.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

White Democrats are Bigger Threat to Obama than McCain

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The much talked about recent AP-Yahoo poll found that many whites harbor vicious and vile stereotypes about blacks. This is hardly the revelation of the ages. Nor is its finding that hidden and not so hidden bias toward blacks can potentially torpedo Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s White House run. What is eye catching in the poll is the finding that many white Democrats are just as biased if not more so than many Republicans. If Obama sinks, they, not Republican rival John McCain will sink him.

Vote and party jumping based solely on race is nothing new. In a 2006 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a Yale political economist found that white Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to cross over and vote for a Democratic senatorial candidate against a black Republican foe. The study also found that in the near twenty year stretch from 1982 to 2000, when the GOP candidate was black, the greater majority of white independent voters backed the white candidate. There’s nothing especially surprising about that since it’s virtually an article of racial faith among blacks, liberal Democrats, and political pundits that overt and subtle racial bias is almost exclusively the monopoly of Republicans. That’s a politically correct delusion.
The study found that many Democrats were just as guilty of dubious Election Day color-blindness as Republicans and independents; maybe even more so. In House races, the study found that Democrats were nearly 40 percent less likely to back a black Democratic candidate than a white Democrat. The shift by conservative-centrist white Democrats to like politic GOP presidential contenders is a staple in recent American politics. The GOP scorecard in White House wins would not be seven to three over the Democrats since Richard Nixon’s win in 1968 if conservative white Democrats had not consistently shifted their vote to the GOP. Democrats have always had a gaping disparity in registered voters over Republicans. In 2004 there were ten million more registered Democrats than Republicans. On paper, the gaping disparity in numbers should guarantee a cake to the White House by any Democrat. Obviously, that hasn’t been the case.
1964 GOP presidential contender Barry Goldwater was the first to spot the opening for the GOP among disaffected white conservative Democrats. His naked states rights pitch and rail against big government and welfare sparked the first wave of white Southern Democrats to the GOP. Nixon exploited the opening even more in 1968. His appeal for law and order, bash of permissiveness, and crackdown on ghetto rioters sparked more flight from the Democrats by blue-collar ethnics. Reagan widened the breach even more among Democrats. Fed up with bussing, affirmative action, and crime (always seen as committed by African-Americans) droves of white Democrats flocked to the GOP in even bigger numbers.

The first big hint that conservative white Democrats could cause problems for Obama came in the Democratic primary in Ohio. Hillary Clinton beat out Obama in the primary and she did it mainly with white votes. But that wasn't the whole story. Nearly one quarter of whites in Ohio flatly said race did matter in voting. Presumably that meant that they would not vote for a black candidate no matter how politically attractive or competent he was.
An even bigger hint of Obama’s race problem came in Pennsylvania's primary. The voter demographics in the state perfectly matched those in Ohio. A huge percent of Pennsylvania voters are blue collar, anti-big government, socially conservative, pro defense, and intently patriotic, and there's a tormenting history of a racial polarization in the state. Take the state's two big, racially diverse cities out of the vote equation, and Pennsylvania would be rock solid red state Republican. Clinton, of course, trounced Obama in the state. The same percent of white Democrats as in Ohio told exit poll interviewers that they would not back Obama. Race was the prime reason. Clinton racked up victories in the West Virginia, Kentucky and South Dakota primaries. Again, a significant percent of white Democrats said they would not back Obama, and the reason was race. This time many white Democrats made no effort to hide their racial animus toward Obama.

In the AP-Yahoo poll one third of white Democrats said they had negative views of blacks. “Violent,” “lazy,” “boastful,” “complaining” and “irresponsible” were the terms many used to describe blacks. More than 40 percent of them said they would not back Obama. This is nearly identical to the number who say they will not back him in the key Democratic primaries.

Just how many of them actually mean what they say is a big question mark. But if past history of party switching by white Democrats holds up the odds are that more than a few mean it. They’d jump the Democratic Party ship even if race wasn’t the obvious issue. But it is, and that could spell trouble for Obama on Election Day.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Obama Never, Ever Said No to Bush on Iraq
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now."
Senator Barack Obama said that on December 12, 2007 in a speech in Clinton, Iowa. At the time he was still one of the pack of Democratic presidential candidates jostling and elbowing trying to get a knock out edge over the others for the Democratic presidential nomination. That included first and foremost Hillary Clinton. He mercilessly pounded her then and afterwards in speeches for backing the war and dutifully voting for war appropriations.
Nine months later things had radically changed. Obama was no longer jostling with Hillary and the others for the top Democratic presidential nominee spot. He was now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and he said this: "I have always said I would listen to the commanders on the ground. I have always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed.
His very public record of his very public pledge to end the war NOW in stump speeches the year before he said that had changed, and his words and voting record on the war had changed too. This has caused much grief, anguish and disappointment among fervent Obama backers. The war was the single biggest reason why many of them bought his sale that as president he would do what no other Democrat or Republican in the White House would do and that was to immediately end the war. That was more than enough for them to flock to his banner, lustily cheer him on, and furiously hector anyone who dared poke at his twists, turns, shifts, and deep knee bends on Iraq.
But even the most cursory look at Obama’s words, votes, and campaign pirouettes on Iraq paint a far different picture of a candidate for which Iraq was never the clear cut issue that many believed, or maybe wanted to believe. The Iraq flips started long before his Iowa pledge to get out now. It started even before he was in the Senate. At a Democratic forum outside Chicago during his Senate campaign in 2003 and 2004, Obama lambasted Bush for waging the war. He flatly said that if he had been in the Senate he would not have voted for $87 billion more to bankroll the war. Or, as he put it in an earlier speech, we have to say 'no' to George Bush." Once in the Senate that no quickly became yes.
He promptly voted for four separate war appropriations that totaled more than $300 billion. A year before he pledged in Iowa to get the troops out now, he opposed a proposal by Senator John F. Kerry to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by July 2007. Obama didn’t just cast a quiet vote against Kerry’s troop removal proposal he added the veiled chastisement that an "arbitrary deadline" could "compound" the Bush administration's mistake. A year later he joined with Republicans and backed their resolution that the Senate would not cut off funding for troops in Iraq.
But money and votes aren’t the only issue in which Obama sent a different message then the impassioned get out of Iraq now speeches he still thundered before audiences. The other issue was when to withdraw. Obama backed up his end the war now rhetoric with another public demand that a firm timetable be set for withdrawal. In fact, a timetable with a specific withdrawal date was set by a Democratic senator. But that senator wasn’t Obama. It was Kerry. His bill set the goal of withdrawing combat troops from Iraq by the end of March 2008. In contrast, Obama’s withdrawal plan did not set firm deadlines and would keep troops in Iraq if the Bush administration and the Iraqi government met a laundry list of benchmarks.
March has long since passed, the troops are still there and big buck spending with the Senate’s approval continues with no visible end in sight to it.
Meanwhile Obama has added yet another wrinkle to his Iraq drama and that’s that he’ll go to Iraq and listen to what the commanders on the ground and military brass there have to say about where we need to go with the war.
This sounds less like the hard line one time verbal antiwar advocate named Obama speaking then a certain Republican presidential rival named McCain speaking. But then again Obama has been consistent from the start on one thing on Iraq and that’s political expediency.
Incidentally, some things at least rhetorically don’t change. An excerpt of Obama’s Iraq antiwar speech (cleansed of his Iraq war removal now call) is still on his official website. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How the GOP Can Keep the White House, How the Democrats Can Take it Back (Middle Passage Press, August 2008).