A fellow southerner sent me this Washington Post article about how southerners view the Presidency of Barack Obama.
While he was jokingly incredulous about the actual existence of the article’s main protagonist, it roughly encapsulates the feelings of the white south. A range of emotions, from blaming general (but not specific) racism, to a general belief that Obama doesn’t “understand” the south.
I was sent an article in today’s New York Times (I know, NOT a Southern paper) describing potential ramifications of the Southern voting patterns we’ve been talking about here at The Panhandler’s Guide. Assuming a normal amount of political backlash, the article reads:
“What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCainover Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say . . .
. . .Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally. By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say. . .
“Merle Black, an expert on the region’s politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said theRepublican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere.”
As we’ve pointed out on this blog before, the question of race always goes hand-in-hand with analyses of voting in the South. One thing I think is interesting, bases on my research regarding race, is how the authors note the 5% increase in white voter support for McCain compared to Bush, yet what if it had been a 2% increase, or 10%? How much of an increase is needed to constitute the implied proof of growing racism? More importantly, how much did religious intolerance play into this increase in white pro-McCain voters? The article give a revealing quote: “I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things,” George W. Newman, a director at a local bank and the former owner of a trucking business, said over lunch at Yellow Creek Fish and Steak.” I think this is a research project in need of pursuit: religious versus racial fears in the South.
To read the whole article, click here.
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