Arkansas Blog

Nope, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the routinely purple Arkansas showed his very red mindset when confronted with a black candidate for POTUS. Shame, shame!

I'm glad he's holding fire to the issue. It'll make readers mad, but it needs to be said.

But what did Mississippi do?

Are they less stupid than we are? I sure hope not cause that would crown us the most of the most.

Here goes, pointing out a fact which is the real elephant in the room will probably get me labled and tarred but who cares.

Two reasons, 1) I know I am very open minded and tolerant be it race, gender, age, economic status, etc. And 2) no one knows my identity on this blog.

70% of whites voted for the white.

90% of blacks voted for the black.

Which group appears more biased toward people of their race?

Statistics comparing change can be excessively misleading. Little effects can have giant swings.

Here is a nuggut for thought.

Kerry ran against Bush after it was obvious Bush was a freaking idiot. I am a Democrat ever since Reagan's bs yet it was difficult to vote for Kerry. I was deffinately voting against Bush.

McCain (before his sell out of late) would have been an easy vote to cast 4 years ago against Kerry.

So any Republicans that voted AGAINST Bush in 04 could easily vote FOR McCain in 08. That alone would cause a shift toward Republicans (Thus be misconstrued as racist)

Now I am extremely aware of the white racism around here. For christ's sake I have spent 50 years in it. I graduated LR Central back in 77.

But let's be fair.

Given the 70% voting for McCain sounds less biased thna the 90% voting for Obama.

ps. Happy days are here again because my man Obama is president elect. January 20 is a red letter day for me. McCain would have been an improvement over Bush as would Sponge Bob Square Pants but we get two prayers answered now. Bush out Obama in!

70% of whites voted for the stupid guy.

90% of blacks voted for the smart guy.

Which group group appears more biased toward intelligence?

I used to call Arkansas the buckle of the Bible Belt. Now I call it the buckle of the Irrelevance Belt. The election proves that the Democratic Party, after the 40 years in the wilderness where Lyndon Johnson sent us, no longer depends on the votes of white racists to govern. The rest of the country has moved on. We no longer matter.

The problem Citizen1 is that you're comparing apples to oranges and acting as if the black experience in America is fungible to the white experience in America.

Here are some points on how voting for race affected the electorate:

1. White people (who voted based on race) voted AGAINST the black candidate, not necessarily FOR the white candidate. They voted AGAINST Barack Obama, not FOR McCain. The mindset behind this manifested itself in a sign I saw in rural Missouri: "Americans against Obama." It was not "Americans for McCain." It implied an otherness, a non-AMERICANNESS to Obama.

2. Black people voted FOR the black candidate, not necessarily AGAINST the white candidate. As a race that has been more maligned than any other, that has (as a former Nigerian foreign affairs minister said) the burden of slavery polluting its self-perception, that came to America largely by force (the obvious exception being Africans, like Obama's father, who studied here by choice), whose knowledge of ancestry and ties (and hence identity) to Africa was largely erased, whose historical narrative basically starts wholly in America.

Let's also look at it from a common sense perspective. If you came from these roots, would you not too vote for the candidate that tells you and members of your race that anything is possible, that you can reach higher--to the highest office in the land? Would it not be in your best, even selfish interest to vote for a candidate that does more to repair racial antagonism than any other candidate (and gives your children hope), just like it would be in the selfish interest of a rich businessman to vote Republican for low taxes?

3. Black people also voted for John Kerry 90-10, so the increase for Obama was 5%. The change was 5%, which is actually similar to white people, more of whom voted for Obama as well. The difference is that black voter turnout increased quite a bit this election. But it's not like blacks were voting 50-50 before and then all of a sudden became Democrats when Obama was nominated.

You and John got a scoop. Good Work!!

Who knew?

Both are technically racism, but one is motivated by hate and the other is motivated by pride.

JD

Thsoe are some the most sweeping generalizatons and claims of mind reading I have probably ever seen. You have a window into the mind of all voters? I doubt it.

Define racist.

Preference for one's own race over others. This is mine, I didn't look it up.

Stick to facts that aren't guesses and suppositions.

Jesus against the devil would not get 95%. Hell Stalin probably never tried to fake election wins in their sham elections that lopsided.

Claim all the motivations you are privy too in knowing why each voter made their individual choice but look at the facts.

That Whites are 70% rsacist and Blacks are 95% racist is a vast leap no matter how justifiable the racism is.

Blacks have many justifiable reasons to be racist and to be wary of whites. Whites have given many many many verifiable reasons for balcks to not trust whites.

Justifiable or not racism is racism.

70% is lower and less statistically significant than 95%.

I'm with JD - EXCELLENT analysis!!!

Up here, where you can count actual Republicans on your family's fingers & toes, the McPain/Failin' vote was 2:1 FOR. In 1990 the vote to repeal Amendment 44 to the AR Constitution (mandating "resistance to racial integration," voted in by "Jim Crow" Johnson and fellow travelers in 1956) was 2:1.

While nationally, haters are dying out in large numbers (even "young" evangelical Christians favored Obama AND same-sex marriage) here (Van Buren County) they're being replaced 1:1 and it will NEVER change. I posted Mark Morford's pre-election column on my blog, and was immediately admonished by a 30-year-old high school friend of our daughter, relatively intelligent female, that "Their will always be true Christians to stand up..." blah, blah. I questioned her if that was the same as Caribou Barbie's "real" Americans, and if her purview applied to both Gays & O'Bama - of course there was NO reply, which was deafening!)

It also helps explain the anti-eduction, anti-intellectual bias - Blue states are educated (% of college grads), Red states, not so much...
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Both are technically racism, but one is motivated by hate and the other is motivated by pride.

So, Arkansas is on par with West Virginia and Mississippi?

I'm not exactly proud of that.

Citizen1, there's no need for you to get all defensive.

"Define racist. Preference for one's own race over others. This is mine, I didn't look it up. Stick to facts that aren't guesses and suppositions. " -Citizen1

Here's a fact that partially refutes your perspective that blacks massively more for Obama than any other Democrat:

Percentage of whites who voted for Kerry: 41%
Percentage of whites who voted for Obama: 43%
NET CHANGE: +2%

Percentage of blacks who voted John Kerry: 88%
Percentage of blacks who voted Obama: 95%
NET CHANGE: +7%

So what's the main point I'm trying to make here? It's not like blacks became democrats overnight when there was a black guy running. They loved Kerry, a white guy, way more than Bush. They didn't vote against the white guy (there was no alternative).

[SOURCES: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7709852.stm]

Second of all, notice that I said "WHITES WHO VOTE BASED ON RACE." I know whites who voted McCain based on policy not race. I wanted to make the distinction between the two, because I truly don't think most of them are racist. Just that a decent percentage are.

And yes, blacks can be racist too, but I think it's harder to say "black people voted for Obama because they think they're better than white people" considering they voted for Kerry 88-10. Some is undoubtedly a racist vote, but it's much, much harder to discern the motives based on that Kerry figure, and based on the following point I'm going to make.

Third, just to repeat myself, the black experience in America is not fungible or interchangeable to the white experience--there's nuance involved. Voting FOR someone is different than voting AGAINST someone. (Similarly, many people voted AGAINST Bush in 2004, not FOR John Kerry. They weren't particularly enthused with Kerry, just moreso angered at Bush that any alternative was better.)

"The state's most Republican County, Benton, is actually blue on this map for having given Obama a slightly higher percentage of its vote Tuesday than it gave Kerry in 2004. So let us make clear that Benton County is simply very, very Republican, but, it seems, not at all racial in its attitudes."

No. The racists in Benton County always vote Republican. The other areas of the state have whites that usually vote Democrat but would not vote for a black man.

Those areas that went more for McCain, were areas where racist Democrats exist and minority populations are low.

Don't forget all the Hillary supporters who rightly or wrongly got their feathers mightily ruffled over how Hillary was treated by the Obama campaign/some of his supporters. She has a LOT of Arkansas supporters. No, I'm not arguing they were right to vote for McSame...I'll NEVER understand that stupidity. I'm saying it affected the vote. I know two women who are ardent Hillary fans and who stayed home election day. (Toward the end of my pleading/arguing, I settled for them NOT voting for McSame.) But then again...maybe I'm trying too hard to 'think' away the sheer volume of right-wing racists who evidently surround me.

Love your tattered Constitution cartoon, bejeeus (other thread)...looks like classic cato!

Focus for a while on one word in Citizen1's original post: "appears". After a long meditation on this point, things may become clear.

I think it's presumptuous as hell for Brummett or any other self-appointed mind reader to tell us "why" others voted the way they did.

At a time when the Republican brand wouldn't work on dog food, Arkansans who in the past have not been so determinedly red in their voting pattern, suddenly boost their support for a republican who lost in some Republican states and lost ground for Republicans in many other Republican states??? We can wonder why.....some preferred Hillary, but as Zelda pointed out most of those people either voted for Obama or stayed home......there hasn't been a 'terror' threat to scare them into voting for McCain, and the war isn't that strong an issue momentarily........ you finally come back to the very thing that most everyone I know has been saying for a year anyway, and accept that they meant it when they said they wouldn't vote for a black man.

But Ci.Ci, don't forget the people like my little 84-year-old eastern Arkansas plantation owner friend who said to me, "Well, he may be a You-Know-What, but I'm voting for him, anyway." I encountered many other elderly Arkansas whites who expressed sentiments precisely like hers.

Hooray for those who did, Durango, but I can't explain the increase in the Republican vote by anything other than racism. I've tried to excuse it by saying Obama didn't campaign in Arkansas, which is true. But, Arkansans aren't stupid and they vote based on what they think is good for them and for some reason, they thought an aged Republican with one foot in the grave and a side-kick without the sense to empty a boot with directions on the heel, was better than an intelligent 47 yr old man with skill and charisma. Some who make more than 250,000 a year may have feared increased taxes, but that doesn't explain the poor folks all around me. They did, however, declare almost daily they weren't about to vote for a black man, so I have to finally take them at their word. Those who wouldn't vote for a 'you-know-what' outweighed those of decided they could and would - or at least that's how it looks to me.

I will add this caveat, I do not believe that every Arkansan who voted for McCain did so out of racism, I know some who fall in that category - but they won't vote Democrat no matter what. For those who often vote Democrat, however, I can't think of another explanation.

Now, I've seen the map of counties that voted more Republican or more Democratic than they did the last time. If I recall correctly, it is a streak that pretty much covers the entire state of Arkansas and Oklahoma and spreads right through Tennessee and up into Kentucky and West Virginia.

So everyone who voted more for Republicans is a racist in this election? I was a strong Obama supporter and I'm not buying that one. Sure, it played a part in some people's decision making, but looking at that map and trying to tell me that Arkansas is more racist than Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia? You really have to be kidding.

The strange situation we have in Arkansas is that many of those whose decisions were based on race usually vote Democratic here instead of Republican. All it took was a handful of those to vote differently than they normally do to change the percentage voting for the Democrat to the Republican.

I don't know why whites voted as they did. I know that back in the primary season a lot of posters here and elsewhere predicted disaster for the Dems precisely because of the fear that, when it came down to it, a great many whites wouldn't cast a ballot for a black man to lead the country. Maybe they were (partially) right back then.

I do do know this: you can compare Barack Obama to a Favorite Son, one whose supporters took pride in him for reasons deeper than regional association or the metes and bounds of state lines.

In a country where most of us black folk can't claim pride in a specific country of origin (you know, like our white brothers and sisters who say they are "Italian" or "Irish" or "German" and sometimes don't bother with the hyphen and -American at the end) there is a common bond of color for those of us who can only look to a huge continent for ancestry.

We are , as the Supreme Court famously said, "a discrete and insular minority," marked by "immutable characteristics." You can take an Arkansan out of Arkansas, but I'll be black wherever I go.

So Barack Obama got a few percentage points more of the black vote than Democratic candidates usually get. You can look at it as racism, and I won't argue with you. I will, however, suggest that you consider looking at it as Favorite Son-ism, on a ground much deeper than home state pride. I say that even though I voted for Hillary in the primary.

And if you call that racism, you're saying its on a par with the Facebook comment that got the Texas Longhorn backup center kicked off the football team this week: "All the hunters gather up; there a n*gger in the White House." (Link at blue name) Predictably, his apology included the plea that "I am not a racist."

Anyone wants to put that in the same pot with voting for a man who makes you proud, be my guest.

we who nGsirtie n g

I think you may be right about the Favorite Son thing, TAP.
(Just so ya know, though, my Obama vote cancelled yours for Hillary in the primary!)

For those who voted with race as a motivator in part or in full... one race was trying to pull itself up in the world... just for an even/level playing field.

The other race, not so much.

Republican votes in AR, rich or racists, went for the party which used sweeping accusations of Anti American so loud and repeatedly... because they knew in fact.. their American dream can only work while destroying or denying what the real American dream is... liberty, justice.. and a fair shake at the pursuit of happiness for all.

The sad thing is, that 97 percent of those who cast a vote for a republican.. clearly voted against their own best interests on a myriad of issues. Unfortunately, considering the makeup of the Dem party (especially the AR Dem party), most Democrats did as well.

As long as folks allow race to divide them.. their politicians will play them like a two dollar banjo.. I'm just sorry they are taking so many others down that path with them. Much could be said for the lack of a strong labor front in AR, the South and much of America today.

So you working whites who cast a vote for McCain, remember what I said when you can't get health care at all or are denied half or more of the insurance benefits you thought you've been paying for individually or through your job.

When you, a friend, or family member are suffering needlessly or selling assets to keep from doing so... it's directly related to your racist and or greedy vote last week.

"So everyone who voted more for Republicans is a racist in this election? I was a strong Obama supporter and I'm not buying that one."

No one argued that. In fact, Brummett and I specifically wrote that's not the case for most people who voted Republican. Like you said, southern Democrats in places like Arkansas voted McCain over Obama, which suggests there's another factor at play.

As for the reason why states like AL and MS didn't vote more McCain too, I defer to eark's explanation, which is dead-on: "Those areas that went more for McCain, were areas where racist Democrats exist and minority populations are low." In other words, the high percentage of black population offset the white McCain vote.

"Sure, it played a part in some people's decision making, but looking at that map and trying to tell me that Arkansas is more racist than Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia? You really have to be kidding."

As pointed out already, those areas have a much higher minority population which countered the racist Dem/Ind effect. Some of you should really try reading other comments before chiming in.

No, Max. It's the Socialists, stupid. Dukakis didn't have Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Dr. Khalidi, a wife who was never, ever, proud of her country until her radical husband started pulling in votes. Dukakis did not abuse cocaine in the past (a drug that only concerned you when President Bush was alleged to have done it), vote present 137 times instead of having the courage to make his position known, talk of implementing a confiscatory tax policy, or advocating infanticide. You attribute Arkansans' failure to leap off the cliff with you to racism, when Obama's race had nothing to do with it. There are a great number of conservative African Americans I would love to vote for, including J.C. Watts, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, and Ward Connerly. Darn shame it isn't one of these fine gentleman breaking the color barrier last Tuesday instead of the terrorist sympathizer that was elected.

reallawyer, I've never seen any requirement about responding to all of the posts, or even to consider them in responding. I was responding directly to the original thread post.

You really should reconsider your narrow view of how to respond to a blog.