Primary Colors
By JAMES TARANTO
"Some people counted me out and said to drop out, but the American people don't quit, and they deserve a president who doesn't quit either," Hillary Clinton declared after her resounding victory in yesterday's Pennsylvania primary. We guess the New York Times forgot to quote the part where she said, "Except in Iraq, of course."
David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers engages in a curious bit of analysis:
[Mrs.] Clinton still can't break Obama's hold on black and young voters. He won 92 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls, and between 56 percent and 58 percent of voters under 45.
Similarly, however, Obama can't shake that a lot of whites are uncomfortable with a black as president, as exit polls showed him losing the white vote by 60-40 percent--a consistent trend in recent primaries.
Why does Lightman feel it necessary to "explain" Obama's poor showing among whites but not his near-monolithic support among blacks? How does Lightman know that "a lot of whites"--or, to be more precise, a lot of white Pennsylvania Democrats--"are uncomfortable with a black as president"? And is it true?
The first two questions are rhetorical ones, and what would we do without 'em? As for the third question, some exit-poll data (not cited by Lightman) are consistent with Lightman's opinion, but those data are insufficient to justify his conclusion. Unless he knows something he is not revealing, he is guilty of reporting his own prejudices as fact.
CBS News has the exit-poll results, which give slightly different numbers than Lightman's: According to CBS, Mrs. Clinton beat Obama among whites, 62% to 38%, and he trounces her among blacks, 89% to 11%.
The crucial question, though, is the following: "In deciding your vote for president today, was the race of the candidate . . .?" Eighty percent said it was "not an important factor"; they went for Mrs. Clinton, 53% to 47%. Another 14% said it was "one of several important factors"; Mrs. Clinton outpolled Obama among these voters, 55% to 45%. Only 5% said it was "the single most important factor," and the pollsters don't tell us how they voted, because the sample was too small to be meaningful.
Breaking down the responses by race yields numbers that make Lightman's conclusion look better:
• Whites who said race was not a factor made up 66% of the total electorate; they went for Mrs. Clinton, 58% to 42%.
• Whites who said race was a factor made up 13% of the total electorate; they went for Mrs. Clinton, 75% to 25%.
• Blacks who said race was not a factor made up 9% of the total electorate; they went for Obama, 91% to 9%.
• Blacks who said race was a factor made up 4% of the total electorate, too small a sample for the results to be meaningful. Since the overall black vote for Obama was only 89%, it appears blacks who said race was a factor were somewhat more likely than other blacks to vote for Mrs. Clinton (although again, the sample sizes are too small for this to mean anything).
Based on these numbers, just over 1 in 6 whites said race was a factor, and they went 3 to 1 for Mrs. Clinton over Obama. This would mean approximately 12% of white Pennsylvania Democrats, or 1 in 8, voted for Mrs. Clinton in part because of race. That number may be on the low side, however, because it assumes voters are honest with pollsters when asked if race was a factor. It seems plausible to assume that some are not, especially whites plumping for the person of pallor.
Can we conclude from this, as Lightman apparently does, that 1 in 8 white Pennsylvania Democrats "are uncomfortable with a black as president"? Certainly not.
For one thing, consider the question. It employs the definite article, asking whether "the race of the candidate" was a factor. But this was a two-person contest. "The candidate" must refer to the one the voter supported, so that those 12% of white Pennsylvania Democrats who supported Mrs. Clinton in part because of race did so because she was white, not because Obama was black.
If you think we're just splitting hairs, consider two hypothetical black voters. One says he backed Obama because he's proud to support an African-American. The other says he voted against Mrs. Clinton because he's uncomfortable with a white as president. The vote is the same, and race is a factor in both cases, but the motive is quite different, is it not?
We shall now argue that it is possible to support Mrs. Clinton over Obama in part because she is white, without harboring any prejudice against blacks. To do so, we draw on the evolution of our own opinion of Obama.
We have never been an Obama enthusiast; he has always seemed to us too left-wing and too inexperienced. But in January, after his victory in the Iowa caucuses, we argued that Obama's race was a point in his favor, precisely because he did not seem to belabor race the way previous black candidates like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did. "If Barack Obama can grow up to become president," we wrote, "the notion that America is an irredeemably racist society is absurd on its face." It is good for the country if this notion is false, and it would be even better for the country if it were proved false.
Two months later, however, we learned new information about Obama: that his "spiritual mentor" of 20 years, the pastor of the church where he sends his young daughters, has shouted from the pulpit, "God damn America!" and has claimed that AIDS is a product of a genocidal U.S. government plot to kill blacks and that the 9/11 attacks were "America's chickens . . . coming home to roost."
Obama apparently chose this church, and continues to belong to it, because it fits his idea of what it means to "be black." Although he said he rejected some of his spiritual mentor's ideas, he has never specified which ones, and the bottom line, as he put it in a speech last month, is that "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Our view of Obama changed not because he is black (we knew this all along), but because we discovered that he countenances vile ideas. It seems reasonable to suppose that some Pennsylvania Democrats changed their minds about Obama for the same reason.
It is important to say that this is not a case of prejudice, which consists of judging someone in the absence of knowledge, but of its opposite: changing one's mind in the face of new information.
Voters who reject Obama for this reason can be relatively certain that Mrs. Clinton does not have the same problem. Because she is white, she has never faced the question of whether and how to develop a "black" identity. It may not be fair that Obama did face that question, but white Democrats in Pennsylvania are not the source of the problem.
It may be true, too, that a significant number of white Pennsylvania Democrats "are uncomfortable with a black as president." But Lightman has no way of knowing, and his facile stereotyping belies the complexity of race in America.
It's Pronounced 'ME-shell'
Blogger James Fallows of The Atlantic notes an amusingly narcissistic moment during Barack Obama's concession speech last night:
Michelle Obama, comparing her husband to his crucial Pennsylvania supporter, Sen. Bob Casey. "They both have households full of bright, beautiful young girls." Fine; charming. "And they both married brilliant, accomplished, and beautiful women."
The transcript shows that Obama, in likening himself to Jonathan Weinzapfel, the mayor of Evansville, Ind., said something similar:
I have repeatedly said upon first meeting the mayor that this guy's going somewhere and mainly because, like me, he married up, and his wife is such an asset.
He sounds like John Kerry! Isn't there something a bit weird about a man boasting that he "married up"--as if he wed for status or money rather than love? Wouldn't it have been better if Mr. Obama had called his wife brilliant and beautiful and she had come up with something nice to say about him for a change?
Bad News for Obama's Daughters
"Riise's Calamity Gives Chelsea the Upper Hand"--headline, Guardian (London), April 23
Butterfield Paradox--Solved?
This New York Times story starts off sounding familiar enough:
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.
Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs--that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.
And get a load of this: America puts people in prison for nonviolent crimes even though it "has relatively low rates of nonviolent crime."
But wait! Maybe there's a connection:
Whatever the reasons, there is little dispute that America's exceptional incarceration rate has had an impact on crime.
"As one might expect, a good case can be made that fewer Americans are now being victimized" thanks to the tougher crime policies, Paul G. Cassell, an authority on sentencing and a former federal judge, wrote in The Stanford Law Review.
From 1981 to 1996, according to Justice Department statistics, the risk of punishment rose in the United States and fell in England. The crime rates predictably moved in the opposite directions, falling in the United States and rising in England.
"These figures," Mr. Cassell wrote, "should give one pause before too quickly concluding that European sentences are appropriate."
Other commentators were more definitive. "The simple truth is that imprisonment works," wrote Kent Scheidegger and Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in The Stanford Law and Policy Review. "Locking up criminals for longer periods reduces the level of crime. The benefits of doing so far offset the costs."
Nah, it couldn't be.
Reliable Sources
From a New York Times story on Hillary Clinton:
"She has to win Pennsylvania and Indiana--pretty much everyone in the campaign agrees on that," said one senior Clinton adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the campaign's electoral expectations.
Isn't the phrase that comes after "on the condition of anonymity" supposed to explain why the source was granted anonymity? This one just tells us what he was talking about, which was clear enough from the quote.
Tony & Tacky
"Former White House press secretary Tony Snow remains in a Spokane [Wash.] hospital with an undisclosed illness," the Associated Press reports:
Snow went to the hospital after falling ill and canceling some appearances Tuesday at Eastern Washington University. Details about his illness have not been available.
Snow suffers from colon cancer but has said it is in remission. This causes us some regret over our item yesterday making fun of CNN, where Snow has a new gig. May he have a speedy recovery.
Two Papers--No, Two Stories--in One!
• "Presumed Language of Jesus Fading Away in Syria"--headline, New York Times (Paris edition), Mideast section, April 22
• "In Syrian Villages, the Language of Jesus Leaves"--headline, New York Times (Paris edition), Africa section, April 22
Isn't That How He Got Into This Mess?
"Supreme Court Hears Los Angeles Case on a Killer's Right to Confront His Victim"--headline, Los Angeles Times, April 23
'Let's Just Disagree to Agree'
"Water Groups Argue Over How to Cooperate"--headline, Daily Courier (Prescott, Ariz.), April 18
Other Than Being a Bear
"Bear Gave Off No Reasons for Concern Before Trainer's Death"--headline, Associated Press, April 23
Apple for the Teacher
"Orange Named Muir Principal"--headline, San Gabriel Valley (Calif.) Tribune, April 22
Can't They Give Her a Replacement?
"Woman Claims Victoria's Secret Stole Her Bra"--headline, Reuters, April 22
News You Can Use
• "Sorry to Ruin the Fun, but an Ice Age Cometh"--headline, Australian, April 23
• "Mind-Reading Hat Could Prevent Brain Farts"--headline, LiveScience.com, April 21
Bottom Story of the Day
"Buddy the 'Beautiful Bulldog' Excels at Sleeping, Snoring"--headline, Associated Press, April 23
A New Cold War?
The New York Times reports that global warmists are seeking to reduce the use of coal:
"Building new coal-fired power plants is ill conceived," said James E. Hansen, a leading climatologist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Given our knowledge about what needs to be done to stabilize climate, this plan is like barging into a war without having a plan for how it should be conducted, even though information is available.
"We need a moratorium on coal now," he added, "with phase-out of existing plants over the next two decades."
Good idea, but we're going to need a source of energy to replace all that coal. Perhaps we could find a Middle Eastern country with lots of oil and conquer it. |
