Racists? Sexists?

If you’ve read last earlier post, you’d know I shouldn’t be taking time to post anything, but here I go. Consider this merely a snapshot, an impression, for a number of reasons, the three most important being that I spent about fifteen minutes on it, I know almost nothing about the immense variables of polling, and there are only two polls represented by one company, of whose reputation I know little. That said, I’ve read what Jim Geraghty and Byron York have had to say about the racial fissures along which the Democratic race is dividing. James Taranto, who’s been reading the same stuff, has been predicting that if Obama loses the primary, Dems could lose black votes for the first time since the New Deal, and if he loses the general, Republicans will again be sealed off from black votes, for who knows how many more years, by their supposed racism in voting against a black man for president. This seems to me to be unsurprising; it’s de rigueur to hear that whites, especially conservative whites, are the racists, the big meanies who want to see anyone not of their tribe go down, apparently just for the sheer joy of it. But, if Quinnipiac University Polls from April 2 and March 27 of this year are any indication, it’s not the whites who are the racists, or the men who are the sexists.

The first I have listed shows which members of which races (self-identified, I assume) would vote for which Democratic candidate (here is a link to the source page for the first, and here for the second – both are near the bottom of their respective pages, and both have been formatted into tables for (relative) ease of posting). A plurality, but not quite a majority, of all voters would vote for Clinton: 50%. Of whites, 59% of them would vote for Clinton, with only 34% of them voting for Obama. Given the trouble the two have had distinguishing their platforms from each other’s, that argues that there is some race identification in the aggregate white vote. But the black vote is a staggering 73% for Obama, with only 11% of likely Democratic primary voters planning to vote for Clinton, arguing a much greater race identification in the aggregate black vote. Similarly, in the sex divide, men are more likely, by 12%, to vote for the member of the opposite sex (auguring no sex identification at all), whereas women are more likely to vote for their own sex by 34%.

Now, I’m sure there are many, many problems with my analysis. Let’s see if I can count the ways:

1. Tribe-identification doesn’t necessarily require tribalism (racism, sexism,
etc.).
2. I’ve ignored the convict gap: because a much greater proportion of black men than white men are current or ex-felons who would be voting at a 73% clip for Obama, the male vote for Clinton may be skewed higher than it should be; that might also imply that the Black sentiment for Obama is not accurately represented, as at least 73% of all current and ex-felons who are black are statistically likely to be Obama supporters, if they follow the pattern of their fellow race-members. That said, how many former convicts are “likely primary voters”?
3. I’ve ignored the Bradley Effect and the Reverse Bradley Effect – they essentially posit that those who answer exit polls tend to answer dishonestly in the direction of social pressure, with the result, for instance, that whites who would never vote for any black candidate would also never admit that to anyone, including the taker of an anonymous exit poll

But in favor of my analysis:

1. a lack of tribal-identification in voting implies a lack of tribalism, as
tribalism would prevent those voting patterns (though it wouldn’t necessarily
prevent the Bradley Effect)

The second poll is interesting as well, as it assesses the opinions of registered Democrats in Connecticut (as of March 27, 2008) regarding the so-called Dream Ticket, the black man/white woman or white woman/black man ticket. But therein is felt the friction of the rub: who goes first? One would suppose that, statistically, the question would be a wash, that Obama voters would want Obama at the head of the ticket about as often as Clinton voters would want Clinton at the head of the ticket, and that they would be about equal in their willingness to see a divided ticket. But that is not what we see:

Conn Registered Democrats (March 27, 2008):
42.(If registered Democrat) Some people have suggested that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton should run together in the general election for President in November. It could be a Clinton-Obama ticket, with Clinton running for President and Obama for Vice-President, OR It could be an Obama-Clinton ticket, with Obama running for President and Clinton for Vice-President. Which would you rather see - A Clinton-Obama ticket or an Obama-Clinton ticket, or would you rather they not run together?

As we might have expected, the totals break down evenly: just under a third of all registered Democrats in Connecticut reportedly want a Clinton-Obama ticket; just under a third want an Obama-Clinton ticket; just over a third do not want them to run together. Well, that last was unexpected, for me, until I looked at the columns to the right. As we find, Clinton voters are slightly more favorable to a ticket headed by Obama than Obama voters are to the opposite. That difference of two percent is probably within the margin of error. (The only surprise here is that these numbers aren't both zero.) What isn’t likely to be in the margin of error is that 20% fewer Obama voters want to see Obama on a ticket with Clinton, because 42% of them don’t want him joining her at all, in any combination! Only 19% of Clinton voters feel this way. Why would Obama voters be so antipathetic to having Clinton anywhere on the ticket?

Do they dislike her politically or personally?
Are they paranoid about her politically or personally?
Do they dislike her because she is white?
Do they desire the black candidate to score a thorough victory over his white primary opponent (with another candidate of his choosing, white or black, being an acceptable running mate) ?
Are they sexist?

The third and fourth questions assume the black-heavy nature of Obama’s support, though the other ones do not.

There is ultimately no real way to answer these questions, certainly not without extensive studies, and even then perhaps not if the Bradley and similar Effects have any validity. I am not the one to undertake those, as it is about this point of quickly multiplying theories and counter-theories that my head begins to spin. But the first poll somewhat directly, and the second poll somewhat obliquely, seem to give credence to what we’ve seen in the Rev. Wright’s speech and much of the black response to it: that black anger towards and disdain for whites is widespread and encouraged, certainly far more so than white anger and disdain are with regard to blacks. I heard the claim when I was younger that blacks could not be racist, that it was a purely white phenomenon. But we all know, whether we want to admit it or not, that sin is a universal human phenomenon; and racism certainly falls under that rubric.