According to this recent pole, Race is still playing a vital role in this year’s election. Is this going to cost Obama the election? My guess is, yes. I have said all along that race is playing a bigger underlying role than many people want to recognize. I personally feel that many Americans have some sort of negative feelings about the possibility of having a black president. One of the most worrisome parts for me is the segment of the poll that shows that more than one-third of the white democrats and independents polled shows that they have negative attitudes towards Blacks still to this day. These are votes that Obama cannot get into the White house without. This article states that just 70% of the people interviewed that call them selves Democrats are supporting Obama, while 85% of people who call themselves Republicans are supporting McCain.
Race is still playing a role!/Keith Valentine
Filed under Democratic Party, Obama, Voter Demographics
Election 2008: UC Denver Political Science 
It is a sad fact for this country that race is still an issue. The reason no one brings up the issue of him being half white is because of years of precedent through slavery that if anyone had a drop of black blood they were considered black. The mind set of American’s needs to change, but unfortunately that will not be starting anytime soon. Additionally, there are some blacks that find Obama to “white” for their taste, but fortunately it appears that the votes from this side are constant for Obama regardless of his “whiteness”. It will be interesting to watch in the upcoming weeks for changes among voters.
Keith is right to be concerned. Polls that asked voters about whether then prefer a generic Democrat to a generic Republican for president showed Democrats with a substantial lead all through the spring. But when voters are asked about Obama and McCain specifically, suddenly the generic preference for a Democrat disappears.
Is that because McCain is just such a fantastic Republican candidate, or is it due to voter unease with Obama? And if its due to voter unease with Obama, how much of that is due to race?
This is an especially troubling issue in the South and in Appalachia (W. Virgina, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etc.) where many whites (especially older whites) have always demonstrated racial habits in their voting. Why should we think this historic racism has suddenly disappeared?
It will be interesting to see whether closet racism or cell phones skews the polls the most. I believe there will definitely be a Bradley effect and some Democrats will wind up not voting for the black candidate (and lying about it to pollsters). I also believe that Obama has inspired a large group of young voters. Young voters are rarely included as likely voters and they usually have cell phones instead of land lines, meaning they are not communicated with in the same way. I know good polls try to factor these variables but it is impossible to know how many Cricket phones and secret racists are out there!
I think that race has just as an importance in this election as does sex. Sadly, a lot of voters are leaning towards Palin simply because she is a women just as some voters are rooting for Obama because he is black. Personally, I think that it is ridiculous for people to chose their candidate based on something irrelevant to their views and values. In the perfect America voters would research more into each party and vote based on who they feel would really be the better candidate for our country, instead of trying to support something completely off topic like the color of their skin or the boobs on their chest. It is true that ethnicity is playing an underlying role in this election, but it just shows us how much America needs to grow up and face reality. Of course we would meet a time where a woman or a minority would run for office, and what better time than now? America needs change, and with this election we’re gonna get it no matter what.
I believe that what we talked about today (9/25) in class has a large impact on the race issue. You all say that race plays a larger issue than we even can know now but you are failing to take into account the millennial voter who as was claimed in class today, are becoming less racial and more accepting of any and everything. Although I think that these things do play a role in any election I also think that there are other issues that play more of a role. We sit and discuss them everyday, the issues, the adds, the politics. Race is an issue and has been for all of America’s history, but we are not the same country we were during the civil war and with the up and coming voters (ages 18-29) there is less of a threat of people voting based on race than voting based on all the other issues.