The Race Vote

Roger Simon at The Politico has a piece on the effect race could have in the general election:

I was talking the other day to a prominent Republican who asked me what I thought John McCain’s strongest issues would be in the general election.

Lower taxes and the argument he will be better able to protect America from its enemies, I said.

Republicans have a pretty good track record with those two.

The Republican shook his head. “You’re missing the most important one,” he said. “Race. McCain runs against Barack Obama and the race vote is worth maybe 15 percent to McCain.”

The man I was talking to is not a racist; he was just stating what he believes to be a fact: There is a percentage of the American electorate who will simply not vote for a black person no matter what his qualities or qualifications.

How big is that percentage? An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that “about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.”

I don’t know if 8 percent sounds high or low to you, but I was amazed that 8 percent of respondents were willing to admit this to a pollster. And I figure that the true figure is much higher.

The same poll, by the way, found that 15 percent of voters think Obama is a Muslim. He is, in fact, a Christian. But thinking a person is a Muslim probably does not encourage you to vote for him in America today.

And consider this little nugget from Monday’s Washington Post, in a story by Kevin Merida and Jose Antonio Vargas datelined Scranton, Pa.:

“Barack Obama’s campaign opened a downtown office here on March 15, just in time for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was not a glorious day for Team Obama. Some of the green signs the campaign had trucked in by the thousands were burned during the parade, and campaign volunteers — white volunteers — were greeted with racial slurs.”

Signs burned? Racial slurs shouted out loud? In this day and age? Maybe that 15 percent estimate is low.

I remember in 2004 the head of CNN said that media bias could be worth as much as 15% to John Kerry, so maybe we're even.

Of course, the implication from this article is that it's Republicans who are the racists, but I think the race issue could be largely responsible for the 28% of Clinton voters who say they won't vote for Obama in the general election. I'm not sure how Simon missed that connection.

Granted, there are some Clinton voters who won't vote for Obama because of qualifications, and some will rebel because a woman was rejected by their party, but I just have to think there are more than a few working class Democrats that just can't flip the lever for a black guy no matter who he is.