I know there’s got to be a study out there showing a statistical difference between white voting patterns in the south & rest of the country, adjusted for politics of the candidates, but I’ll be damned if I can find it. Pah.
I hope we get a chance to find out. I’d bet that at least one “southern” state would vote for a black conservative candidate as strong as Powell would be.
The only way a true study could be done is tracking actual votes on election day. A white man or woman from Indiana is asked, “Would you vote for a person from a non-white race for president?” I would wager many would not even dare to color in the “No” bubble. If you catch them on election day, it could very well be a different story. It is such a touchy issue that I do not think people would answer honestly even under anonymous circumstances.
Well, yeah, you have to build “revealed preferences” by analyzing election results, because even the most die-hard racists are loathe to admit it to an exit poller.
One thing to keep in mind is that the population on both coasts (not including the southern part of the eastern seaboard) pretty much equals the rest of the country as a whole. I saw a map that showed a county by county breakdown of who won what during the last election. It was overwhelmingly red for the republicans. The blues dotted here and there but were heavily concentrated along the coasts, and Gore won the popular election.
Now say Colin Powell runs as a democrat. The south used to be called the Democratic South, not sure if that still applies. Anyway, he’s a big war hero type guy, everyone knows his as a general that kicked ass in the past, he looks almost white… I bet more people would vote for him than some realize. I think he has enough to overcome whatever prejudices he might face to give it a legitimate shot. He might not win, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he came damn close regardless of race.
…except that a black Democratic candidate opens up a whole other can of worms. I guess we’d see if its possible to win without any southern states at all.
It would be as a Republican Powell would win, I think. If he wins the primaries that is. Likely gets a large part of the “black vote” from the Democrats, and while the right-wing nuts among Republicans might avoid voting for him, I don’t think they’d turn to the Democrats in response, while most Republicans would probably only hesitate a little, at most, at him being black. Thereby the gains from the minority votes would outweigh the loss of the racist fucks, and that’d be enough.
The article said “would step down EVEN if Bush wins reelection.” There’s no particular dis to that.
H.
p.s. I’m left of center, so Dems don’t dogpile me.
There’s a NY Times article on this that basically says that Powell has reported that the conversation was a fabrication, but then goes on to say that Powell has always planned to be Secretary of State for only one term and everyone knows it:
Since it is the nearly universal expectation of those in the government that Mr. Powell, who is 66, will not serve a second term, speculation about his future was discussed all day on cable television and in offices throughout the capital.
Though people close to Mr. Powell say they expect him to leave at the end of Mr. Bush’s term, they do not rule out his staying if events like Middle East peace talks compel it.
So it looks like, yes the original story was either a fabrication or someone’s source may have lied to them. But we’re still probably going to get a new Secretary of State and odds are it’s not going to be one as moderate as Powell.
Have you ever even been to ‘the South’? Cities like Houston, or Atlanta? I will grant you that there are racists in the southern US, and even that there are a greater number of racists there (even though the population is much more heterogenous ethnically speaking), which frankly I have no idea how you would prove or even state an intelligent case for. But do you really believe that ‘the South’ is what’s holding back the first black President? Come on man.
This board is full of left wing horseshit.
olaf
I grew up in the South, you numbnut. Geez. The stories I could tell…
I went to college in Houston. I was talking to a cute coed one day, and she said, “I’m not going to come back next semester.” I asked “why not”, and her whispered response was, after a furtive look around, was “I’m not racist, I just don’t know how to deal with these black people.”
Uhh yeah.
Hahahaha. That’s priceless.
So were those black people that she “couldn’t deal with” all friendly mellow saints, or did they perchance come to college with a preconception that all whites were vile racists and that all blacks had to dress and act like MTV rappers?
I don’t know the situtation in the southern states but I’ve seen such deliberately exclusive and offensive behaviour with other minorities, ethnic or social. It is possible for a group to make outsiders feel uncomfortable even if the outsider is not prejudiced against the group, and the accusation of racism is way too fashionable to accept it without question.
Like saying “I’m not a racist, but…” didn’t peg her as one straight away.
I went to college in Houston. I was talking to a cute coed one day, and she said, “I’m not going to come back next semester.” I asked “why not”, and her whispered response was, after a furtive look around, was “I’m not racist, I just don’t know how to deal with these black people.”
Uhh yeah.[/quote]
My sensitivity is hearing folks from the North looking down their nose at the South and acting superior in terms of racism. For every story of racism I could tell you about from when I live in the South, I can tell you an equal story from when I’ve lived up North. For example, there’s the story just told about the U of Houston. When I first moved up to go to grad school in Ohio, I was looking for a cheap student house to rent. The student advising me told me of several areas in which to look; I asked about an address where I’d seen a nice (for a student rental) house, and his response was to laugh and say “well, sure, if you want to live in n----- town!” I was at a University in Mass. when the Supreme Court ruling on quotas came down, eating with a faculty member in the faculty dining room. Two profs were at the table next to us, and they were quietly (but not quietly enough) talking about the ruling, and one of them said “Well, I don’t know why the white students were complaining - this certainly keeps the grade curve lower for them!” and they both laughed.
I remember going through busing in what was basically a suburb of Montgomery Alabama. Yeah, there was a lot of grumbling and racist comments from some people. But I remember it being a very smooth transition (I also remember how crappy the supplies and books were in the previously all Black school that I was moved to, and realizing at that young age that something was wrong that this school had been forced to use these subpar supplies and books.) I also remember all of the reports on the news where people from the North talked about how the South was finally being forced to do what was right and proper (and I remember agreeing with them.) Which is why I thought it the height of hypocracy when I was in the Boston area when a judge forced them to do busing, years later, and they turned over buses, burned buses, and I heard racism expressed in as explicit language as I’ve ever heard.
Yes, there’s racism in the South. But there’s nowhere in the country where people can smugly stand and throw stones.
Maybe its an east coast thing; in Seattle you have to look pretty hard for overt racism. There’s still that thing where the black areas of town on the south side are missing sidewalks in places and get ignored by the downtown money people, but there’s no “stories.”
Must be nice to live in a world where everything’s so clear-cut and simple. Especially considering that you know neither the general nor the particular situation.
The black people in question (as well as the white girl in question and myself) were all members of the honors program.
I’m telling you here Christoph, that any “problems” were entirely in her head, as everyone else seemed to have no problem in our small (15 or so) discussion groups that covered the range of background and ethnicities from North Dakooota to California to Texas to New Yawk.
She was just completely unable to figure out to deal with “those people”, where most people in the same area just deal with them as they would anyone else.
Okay, thanks for the clarification. That does sound pretty… weird. :?