--- On Tue, 9/9/08, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> But how would your theory square with the Democrats
> increasing their
> majority in Congress - possibly by a very significant
> margin - because of
> increased economic concerns and hardship?
>
> It still seems to me that race is the primary reason why
> Obama is lagging
> the reported movement towards the Democrats at the
> Congressional level.
[WS:] I think it is not economic hardship per se, but how this economic hardship is cognitively framed. Some will frame in terms of GOP neoliberal economic policies and those will likely to respond by running to the Democrat camp. Others will frame it as "foreigners taking our jobs" be it foreign companies or foreign workers, and will respond with calls for greater American assertiveness, which brings them to the Repug camp. Since public displays of patriotism are very strong in this country, much stronger than in ane EU country for example, this naturally reinforces the foreigner-bashing frame.
I think it is really difficult to predict who will adopt which cognitive frame. I've heard people of different occupational backgrounds adopting either frame. Based on what I read on psychological research on the subject, it may be linked to our hard-wiring, especially how we respond to uncertainty and ambiguity in everyday life. Those who hava problems dealiing with uncertainty naturally gravitate toward right wing parties and adopt their interpretative frames (cf. Jost et al. "Political conservatgism as motivated cogniton", _Psychological bulletin 129(3):339-375, May 2003 http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/ConsevatismAsMotivatedSocialCognition.pdf)
Keep also in mind that about half the electorate neves ceased to support Democrats - it is only thanks to the idiocy of the American electoral system that we can talk of "landslides." It is only relatively small changes on the margins that tip the balance of elections. So I do not really see vast majorities of the voters switching to the Democrat camp, but rather minor shifts that produce disproportional changes in the elections.
As to your racism claim, I would not discount it either. However, I would be very cautious here, because of certain tendencies in the US political discourse to see racism as a singular force responsible for all evils. I think it is more subtle - rather than outright rejecting Obama, many people adopt a more cautious wait-and-see stance (which they would not had he been white.)
Again, race is a way of cognitively framing the issue which cross-cuts the economic frames I mentioned earlier. I think many people are quite ambivalent on that, they hold both frames at th esame time and sometimes one is more prominent than other. If the Repugs do a good job painting him as "yet another Black politician" - this may as well cost him this election. If, otoh, he manages to project the frame of change the economic status quo as his "master frame," he has a decent chance.
I do not want to sound like a backseat driver, but my advice to Obama would be to better address the "anger" of the lower economic classes in a language that speaks to them - as avenging injustices done to them by the Repugs and their corporate backers (which he already does) and offer remedies that also speak to that social stratum - let's kick some asses here and restore "our dignity" (just as the Repugs have been doing it) but not by foreigner bashing but rather by corporation bashing. I understand that this will make some enemies but hey, if it will attract more supporters (especially from among those who are no unlikely to vote) he will be ahead in the game. In other words, stop being the "nice guy" all the time and start playing some hard ass-kicking ball from time to time.
Wojtek