Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social
issues? Yes, but less than other voters do.
^^^^ CB: O didn't say that metropolitan and suburban weren't bitter and not casting votes based on the same bitterness that rural voters do . Obama's claim is very general
not limited to "small town" folks. He didn't say
his generalization at the level of the bitterness observation doesn't apply to Black folk.
Black folk are bitter, and they go to church (smile). Remember Rev. Wright ?
^^^
^^^^
Among these voters, those
who are anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than
those who favor abortion rights to vote fo r President Bush in 2004. The
corresponding difference for the rest of the electorate was 27 points,
and for cosmopolitan voters it was a remarkable
58 points. Similarly,
the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 2004 were much more likely
to reflect voters' positions on gun control and gay marriage.
Small-town, working-class voters were also less likely to connect
religion and politics.
^^^^ CB: That's one of Obama's implied points, no ?
Religion is an escape from politics ? And what
is the psychic function of gun sports. Is it not
an escape from the cares of the world.
And then some people escape to guns to remedy their economic distress ( in both the city and the country)
^^^^
Support for President Bush was only
5 percentage
points higher among the 39 percent of small-town voters who said they
attended religious services every week or almost every week than among
those who seldom or never attended religious services. The
corresponding difference among cosmopolitan voters (34 percent of whom
said they attended religious services regularly) was 29 percentage
points.
It is true that American voters attach significantly
more weight to
social issues than they did 20 years ago.
It is also true that church
attendance has become a stronger predictor of
voting behavior. But both
of those changes are concentrated primarily
among people who are
affluent and well educated, not among
the working class.
^^^^^ CB: If they are affluent, how are they
economically distressed ? Obama's observation
is concerning the economically distressed, made
bitter and suspicious, angry and leading lives of quiet desparation due to the ups and downs of the
capitalist business cycle and the secular capitalist trend of mass immiseration, "permanent" poverty.
^^^^^
Mr. Obama's comments are supposed to be significant because of the
popular perception that rural, working-class voters have abandoned the
Democratic Party in recent decades and that the only way for Democrats
to win them back is to cater to their cultural concerns. The reality is
that John Kerry received a slender plurality of their votes in 2004,
while John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey,
in the close elections of
1960 and 1968, lost them narrowly.
Mr. Obama should do as well or better among these voters if he is the
Democratic candidate in November. If he
doesn't, it won't be because he
has offended the tender sensitivities of
small-town Americans. It will
be because he has embraced a misleading stereotype of who they are and
what they care about.
Larry M. Bartels, the director of the Center for the Study of
Democratic Politics at Princeton, is the author of Unequal Democracy:
The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age.
^^^^^ CB: As Oscar Wilde said , some professors' ignorance
is the result of years of study. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk