Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama

by RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.

The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Julie Carr Smyth, Philip Elliot, Julie Pace and Sonya Ross contributed to this story.

Bassford replied:

That is a ridiculous comment. Why not talk about blacks who are only voting for the black guy. I don't really watch late night tv but there was a Leno where they were asking people on the street (in large part minorities) who they were going to vote for and 80% of them said I'm voting for the black guy not for Obama.

There is definitely a dichotomy between whites and blacks. But what cracks me up is that the talk only seems to be about the one side of racism or the dichotomy. In my opinion, the black men in our generation have done more to create this dichotomy than white people. You cannot expect white people to ignore race when blacks certainly do not.

For example, there is no such thing as WET allowed but BET is ok. When you create a difference between certain words black people can say that white people can't. That there is an urban language that when a white person talks that way he is considered as trying to be black. But when a black man runs for president white political analysts describe him his articulate, they are chastized as being racist bc they must assume black people are not articulate.

By no means am I saying that whites aren't racist and that there is not a long way to go to correct a lot of injustices. But as a white guy who lives on a street in Bmore that is 99% black (meaning i'm the 1%), racism goes both ways. I use to be a person who used the term reverse racism. There is no such thing. There is only racism.

My thoughts! I'm on the road and tired so I hope this makes sense.

Marie replied:

Sighhhhhhhhhhh... Jason, I don't think it's as bad as this article makes it out to be.

The article states things like "40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks" and some percentage "agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks." Who wouldn't? You could ask the same question of white people about white people and get the same results. Or black of black. Or black of white. Or black of Arab or Jew of white and so on. Is anyone totally positive of anything? I would think not. Then doesn't that mean everyone is partly negative towards everything?

I then like how the article goes on to say that "Not all whites are prejudiced." Geez, thanks! "Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama." Right like the fact that Obama won IOWA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can't get much whiter than those corn huskers.

What about the fact that a lot of blacks are only voting for Obama because he's black? I'd venture to say the percentage is higher for black people voting for him due to his race than white people not voting for him due to his race. The article even stated "On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks." Of course there are the skinhead types out there that would never vote for him. But I don't think that is your everday run of the mill 'corn husker', if you will.

Paul replied:

I could not agree more. It's all in how you spin it. Yes, there are
people who would never vote for him no matter what, because he's
black. And there are people who would never vote for him because he's
a democrat, too liberal etc. None of it matters. People are allowed
their opinions, even if they're wrong. And some poeple might change
their opinions, you never know.

Also, that there are republican conservatives that would vote for
Obama is very weird for me. Either they aren't really conservatives
or they value skin color over everything else. Which makes them
racists. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty conservative
republican view.

I replied:

i guess i just bemoan the fact that there are still people in this world who 'value skin color over everything else.' when will we live in a world where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, etc. etc.

Bassford replied:

I defninitely agree that there are still some injustices but I don't think this country will get past racism until both sides work on the issue. That just won't happen when Blacks see racism as only being a white problem. You can't have a dichotomy where its ok for blacks to use the word nigger and its ok for them to use the word bitch but its not ok for whites. I see the hatred in the black of youth towards white people. They have never suffered any direct racism or hatred from white people but still have this hatred of whites bc of stories of the past. They don't realize that they live in a country now where a black man has a real legitimate chance of becoming president for the first time. Until they see that themselves and realize as Obama himself said, America has changed and grown then racism will not be fixed.

I replied:

I agree with pretty much everything you have said in this email and am glad you brought up the point that working on racism and racism itself is a two way street and that as people, we will not get past this until 'both sides work on the issue.' However, I do disagree with one thing you said, namely that blacks 'have never suffered any direct racism or hatred from white people.' I disagree with this statement and question your epistemic access to this fact, although my epistemic access is probably similarly limited. However, I have talked with black people, one person in particular, and they have expressed to me that indeed, they have suffered and been exposed to direct racism from white people. They have not based their views on stories from the past, although a lot of black people do do that, but have experienced it themselves firsthand even in this modern day.

I guess that this is the only counterpoint that I want to make to your point. Indeed, everything you said in the email I believe is true and agree with, but I think it is naive to think that this direct kind of racism doesn't happen today (on both sides of the divide) and that all the current racism is simply based on our shared past history. Direct racism is still very much alive in the modern day, although I'm sure that it is declining a little bit more everyday. We should ask D this question, if he has ever experienced any sort of direct racism. I really think that he would say yes, he has experienced it.

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USA Socialism

so what do all you neo-cons think of all this government bailout of wall st and shit that's been happening these past few days? isn't this totally what you guys stand up against and why you'll be voting for mccain and not obama this coming november, because the former will be more laissaz faire and not impose his socialistic government on private business the way obama hussein wants to with universal healthcare? i'm just surprised that nobodies said anything regarding this stuff these past few days.

so it's ok for the government to bail out big business and shady businessmen and speculators on wall st who make shitty loans and investments, but not ok for them to help out the single working mother of 3 in the robert taylor homes who can't pay her electric bill because gas prices are too high and she has to put food on the table? welfare is allright for the former but not for the latter? why, because one wears a tie and a white shirt and shops at armani, but the other wears a pink shirt and black shoes and shops at goodwill and the salvation army?

and how do you feel about your boy, Dubya, and his oh so strict fiscal and governmental conservatism, what is supposed to be a hallmark and selling point for the repulican party in the first place? when you add up these wall st bailouts, his blue light special wars in the herion mountains and the oil reserve desert, along with his creation of whole new sections of government (department of homeland defense), isn't he just the paradigmatic example of what a good republican and fiscal and small government conservative should be? if husseinmessaih did half as much spending and creation of government that Dubya has done, you guys would be calling him a commie bastard and saying his granddad was freidrich engels evil socialist brother.

i guess i just want to see a little more consistency out of you when it comes to your positions. if your against government spending and are for small government, be against it regardless of whether a republican or democrat is endorsing it. if you are pro life, then be pro life across the board, stand up for both the unborn fetus and the death row inmate and the civilian casualities of war and those innocent men who were tortured and killed in guantanamo bay and for our own soldiers who died in these wars. this position would be the true pro life position.

but basically i dont' understand what is exactly happening on wall st right now and it would be nice if somebody helped it explain it to me, because this is yet another bill that our children and grandchildren will be paying for long after we are wormfood.
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