Comments on: Voting for a Black President: 2008 and Tomorrow

By: Tengalaxies

Tengalaxies — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 02:18:00 +0000

How about voters who are neither white nor black? In my experience it’s still more socially acceptable within some other minority communities to express overt racism.

By: decius

decius — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:03:00 +0000

The survey results are clearly the result of people misrepresenting themselves. More than 4% of Americans vote for unqualified candidates for president in every election.

By: Ernest Valdemar

Ernest Valdemar — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 20:56:00 +0000

Now I’m imagining a science-fiction/social-satire scenario in which African Americans have come to dominate federal electoral politics, and this is widely attributed to having “natural political instincts.”

By: Birdseed

Birdseed — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 20:45:00 +0000

That last statement is quite surprising. Of course there is, FWIW, polling on whether Americans would vote for a Mormon candidate, with a similar time comparison that is much flatter: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155273/bias-against-mormon-presidential-candidate-1967.aspx

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:03:00 +0000

He was a first term junior senator with no executive or foreign policy experience… he was by far the least experienced candidate for the Democratic party nomination. He also looked pretty young four years ago, and his rhetoric was strongly based on idealism rather than political pragmatism. It’s a bit of a stretch to blame the ‘inexperienced’ line on President Obama’s race rather than his resume, in this particular situation. Whether he could be considered experience “enough” or not, he was definitely inexperienced compared to the other options.

By: D. Matthew Ray

D. Matthew Ray — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:46:00 +0000

It is a difficult thing to determine, how race will affect this vote. I also wonder how much novelty may play a role. The 08 election presented the chance to finally have our first black president. Whereas now, neither outcome brings that novelty.
D. Matthew Ray
Sociological Life

http://sociologicallife.blogspot.com/

By: Gman E Willikers

Gman E Willikers — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Another interesting thing to attempt to quantify is how many white people who are “moderates” and were not strongly decided based on Republican v. Democratic differences voted against Obama because the deciding factor was his race and how many voted for him because of his race.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:17:00 +0000

I suspect an additional issue is that many people hold “softer” racist beliefs – in effect it is a higher bar for a black politician to be considered qualified. I expect this is in part a source of a lot of the comments about how Obama was “inexperienced” in 2008. Such beliefs may not show up as results in this type of poll.