Brian–
I read the Free Press article, and it is pretty depressing. The woman in the article doesn’t like educated blacks because they look down on her, and she doesn’t like poor blacks because of their bling or they’re lazy. She might be educated, but she’s just an out and out bigot. I just can’t believe that a majority of Americans share her pathology. But if I’m wrong we’ll see in November.
The point of my previous post about “How Liberalism Got Its Bad Name” is that Perlstein’s Nixonland made me see more clearly that Liberalism is a problem for blue collars not because of McGorvern or even abortion or gay rights, but because of its support of the civil rights agenda in the sixties. That’s when the Liberal brand lost its luster and the Dems lost the undying loyalty of blue collars.
Lots of people of a certain age who lived through the racial turmoil of that era still harbor their fears and resentments. There is no question in my mind that it will be very hard for them to vote for a black man. There is no question in my mind that this was the principal reason for Clinton’s longevity in the primaries. Sure, some people voted for her because she was a woman or becaue of name recognition, but for many she was the non-black candidate.
So I recognize that this residual racism is going to be a factor among people who would otherwise vote Democratic. But the question is whether there are enough of them to matter and whether some of them when confronted with how awful McCain is won’t be pushed toward Obama.