Why White Liberals are Abandoning Obama

[Kurmudgeon]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/26/opinion/main20111553.shtml

"(The Nation)

The 2004 Illinois Senate race between Obama and Alan Keyes, two African-Americans, was a unique test of the persistence of old-fashioned electoral racism. For a truly committed electoral racist, neither Obama nor Keyes would have been acceptable--regardless of policy positions, biography or qualification--because both were black.

One way to determine how many people felt this way is to measure the "roll-off." In presidential election years, a small percentage vote for the president, but then "roll off" by not casting ballots for state and local offices. A substantial increase in roll-off--larger than usual numbers of voters who picked John Kerry or George Bush but declined to choose between Obama and Keyes--would have been a measure of the unwillingness of some to vote for any black candidate. I tested this in 2004 and found no increase, statistical or substantive, in roll-off in Illinois. Faced with two black candidates, white voters were willing to choose one of them"

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Sorry, she's wrong.

What she is ignoring is that at the time of the Clinton re-election we did not have the information about his policies in the long term that would have colored many of them differently.

DADT turned out to be a disaster, but it was formulated as a way of expressly saying that gays had a right to serve, albeit, in the closet. Prior to DADT, it was a given that gays had no such right, and commanders were encouraged to out them and weed them from the ranks.

NAFTA still held some promise, as the 'side agreements' which would protect workers' rights and the environment were still to be worked out - the fact that they would NOT be worked out was not clear, so "free trade" was not perceived to be the threat it was later revealed to be.

Clinton failed to pass health care legislation. Correct. Then again, Obama passed a REPUBLICAN HCR plan that protected the predatory health insurance industry. I think that's a wash.

If Obama loses, it will not be because of some subtle white racism, but because he is marching forward with Republican policies with his eyes wide shut to their consequences.

Clinton LOOKED more liberal than he was - his mistakes did not manifest until his second term and beyond. Obama is dead set on continuing those mistakes while SOUNDING more liberal than he is, but the difference is, we know those policies don't work now, BEFORE his second term.

It's not the color of his skin, it's the deficiencies of his policies that are losing him the liberal white votes. Really, does ANYBODY remember his saying that NAFTA needs to be 'renegotiated'? Has it been? Is he pushing MORE free trade?

Inducing 'white guilt' is not going to improve the results of bad policy.

[NorthCarolina]

2. Exactly.

I am surprised that this is coming from The Nation though.

[Doctor_J]

3. CLinton also rallied the Dem voters by facing down Gingrinch over the budget

Obama hasn't yet demonstrated that he's willing to draw a line in the sand on ANY issue important to liberals. He also doesn't seem to have Clinton's political sense. If the Repukes had rolled out a budget like Paul Ryan's when Clinton was in office, Clinton and his peeps would have made sure that travesty NEVER left the minds of the voters until the next election. For reasons unknown this president does not exhibit that killer instinct.

[Doctor_J]

5. The writer also claims that we're holding Obama to a higher standard

if that were true, wouldn't Hillary have been the nominee?

[n2doc]

6. More important than anything is the state of the economy

If we were looking at rapidly increasing employment and wages, Obama would a shoo-in. Even slow but steady improvement would lead to an easy victory over the bozos running against him. But He is looking at a second recession, decreasing/stagnant employment, and no hope in sight for a recovery. One can argue about how much of a role he has in this, but the plain truth is that the average voter expects things to get better, and if they don't they blame the man in charge.

[txlibdem]

10. Sorry to say it: Obama is a right winger, lied about everything during campaign

In office, he's given more tax cuts to the rich than any Republican could have gotten away with.

[TygrBright]

4. This white liberal is NO WAY abandoning Obama. n/t

[RyanPsych]

7. Abandoning Obama for whom?

Rick Perry? Michele Bachmann? Herman Cain? Mitt Romney?

Which uuber conservative do white liberals want instead of Obama?

I don't get it- they are angry that Obama isn't liberal enough (or rather, too centrist) so they are abandoning him for someone the polar opposite of their political ideology? That's just plain stupid.

[bhikkhu]

8. If you start with an assumption...

how likely that assumption is to be true might be judged by how far you have to reach, bend and twist, to concoct supporting evidence.

[Kurmudgeon]

9. I felt when I first read this that the writer was projecting their wishes.

Glad to see I'm not the only one not willing to abandon Mr. Obama for the circus of crazy that is the modern GOP these days.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Nonsense. It is not a matter of liberals of ANY stripe abandoning Obama,

but of them acknowledging that Obama has abandoned THEM.

There is a difference between Obama and the republicans, but that difference is considerably smaller than the administration would have us believe.

Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich.
MORE free trade agreements.
Expanded wars across the globe (made possible by a drawdown of forces in Iraq).

I swear, the ONLY reason DADT passed was it expanded the recruitment pool.