> Nathan Newman wrote:
At worst, the white working class
> >is divided between the parties, while the white elite goes
> >overwhelmingly for the GOP, given the fact that rich blacks and
> >Jews vote Dem understate the general white elite GOP voting
> >patterns.
>
> The "worst" seems to be true.
>
> Hacking together some Census numbers with the VNS exit poll
numbers
> shows that low-income whites went for Gore by just 3
percentage
> points. Since they derive no discernible material benefits from
> Republican administration, it's probably all about Jesus and
>race.
It's a bit too materialist to dismiss all social beliefs as "Jesus"-- abortion is a serious moral issue for some people and more broadly, it represents a whole series of values for married religious people for whom modern gender relations are not wanted. I don't agree with them, but the idea that social values have no legitimate pull is a delusion that progressives make at their peril.
As I emphasized, if you do voting by race, class AND gender, you will find a far more dramatically class-stratified voting pattern among men, with the flattening in income-based voting happening because of upper-income women being pulled left on abortion and other issues.
And I will be the first to say that it's amazing how class-stratified the vote was, given how weak-ass the economic appeal was by Gore in 2000. Hopefully, with the conventional wisdom among Dem leaders being to attack Bush more aggressively on class war issues, those numbers will be pulled harder left among the working class voters.
-- Nathan