In the Times, Race is still an Issue

The New York Times is out with an article today promoting the idea that many voters will not vote for president Obama because of his race. The article focuses on an area in northeast Ohio where Obama did not run as well as expected in a normally Democratic county. The theme of the article is that many voters in the area just will not support Obama due to racism.

So what is the real point of the article? Actually there are two:

1) If you are white and not sure about for whom you will vote, choosing the Republican makes you a racist. America is supposed to vote for another term for a failed president in order to ignore being labelled racist.

2) If you support Obama but are not sure if you will actually vote, you had better come out on election day or the racists will win.

The amazing thing about an article like this in the New York Times is the total disconnect between reality and what has been written. First, we are told that the issue of race is threatening Obama's re-election. I do not think so. In 2008, African Americans turned out to vote in previously unseen numbers, and they almost all voted for Obama. With this group, race was a driving factor in favor of Obama. Also in 2008, many white voters chose Obama as an historic figure, the first black president, and they wanted to be part of making history, of showing that the USA was not racist. Four years of miserable performance have dulled the need to vote for Obama for these reasons. In other words, reality has intruded upon the racial based voting that helped Obama so immensely. The Times never talks about this factor in the article except to use the concept as a basis for ridicule of voters who oppose Obama.

The Times also has not written an article about the voters who will not support Romney because he is a Mormon. How many are there? No one knows, but this group surely exists. Similarly, there are probably many Mormon voters out there who will come to the polls in 2012 only in order to vote for their co-religionist. I doubt whether there will be a big movement to the polls, however, among voters who want to show that in the USA there is no prejudice against the LDS church.

The real truth is that in 2012, Obama's race will probably be a net plus for him, but that plus will be nowhere near as large as it was in 2008. Romney's religion will help in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado, but probably not enough to swing any of these states. Beyond that, race and religion will fade away as issues unless one side or the other foolishly decides to make them into issues. Hopefully, American voters will punish any candidate who would actually do such a thing.