The real lesson of NY 9th - Democrats are losing the white vote.

[sufrommich]

Last night, Republican Bob Turner won a surprisingly strong victory in New York's 9th Congressional District. As I noted after the New York-26 special election last May, special elections don't have much predictive power; we can't use this race to forecast the outcome of the 2012 presidential race -- or even whether Republicans will retain their majority in the House. Still, just as the special election in NY-26 can be seen as part of a gradual decline of Republican fortunes in upstate New York, yesterday's results in NY-9 tells us a bit about the state of the Democratic coalition, both in terms of its fading prospects among white voters, and the effects of packing its most reliable voters into a few districts.

To understand what’s going on in New York-9, let’s travel back to 1988. That year, Democrats won only 40 percent of the white vote in this country, en route to an eight-point defeat for their national ticket, headed by Michael Dukakis. Democrats’ losses among whites were broad: Upper-class whites, suburbanites, and even working-class whites voted Republican. The Democrats’ congressional majorities, while large, were also increasingly shaky; as old Southern Democrats retired, they were increasingly being replaced with Republicans.
In 1992, Democrats nominated Bill Clinton for president, who famously professed to be a “new” Democrat. Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it,” while eschewing tax increases for the middle class.

This paid substantial dividends among the white voters with whom Democrats had struggled for almost four decades. While Republicans had won 60 percent or more of the two-party white vote in 1980, 1984 and 1988, Clinton came a point away from being the first Democrat since LBJ to carry whites. It wasn’t just any whites among whom Clinton improved the Democratic vote share. The white working class -- which never fully left the Democratic Party, especially at the congressional level -- warmed toward a candidate who didn’t seem antagonistic to their values, while suburban whites appreciated his fiscal realism.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/09/14/new_york_9_and_the_democratic_coalition_111328.html

[blm]

1. This is why Comcast scheduled Sharpton at 6pm moving Ed Schultz to 10pm. Bedtime for working class

workers and many middle class families.

Never trust ANYTHING Comcast does. They are RW fascists through and through. They are NOT our allies in any way, shape, or form. (Especially when they want to APPEAR as if they are fair to the working class.)

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Uh, large country, they have one feed....

Ed's on at 7 pm here in the west, an excellent slot. 10 is also prime time. Previously, his slots were not as good. Ed used to be on at 3-mid afternoon and then at 6-which is Newshour, not commentary time, for tens of millions of American viewers.
I also dislike Comcast, and do not even watch MSNBC but TV is a business, and Ed's new times are in fact better than his old ones. Sharpton is new to the form, and thus, in a less appealing slot. It is also a fact that they hired Sharpton when they sure did not have to. They can fire Ed, too, and they don't. They just extended a lucrative contract to Maddow, whom they also could sack if they wanted to.

[blm]

11. East and midwest have more purple states where working class tend to be the swing voters.

West is pretty solid blue the last 2 decades - Comcast knows its audiences and is targeting the white working class of the east and midwest. No doubt about it. They are a big part of the fascist agenda. They pulled a number of dirty tricks before 2004, too. They 'dropped' Howard Stern from some Florida stations at a time when he was railing against Bush and urging his listeners to vote Dem.

[TomClash]

2. Bullshit nt

[sufrommich]

3. Numbers don't lie. nt

[TomClash]

8. But the people who interpret them do

And actually sometimes numbers do lie.

[Romulox]

4. Without economic populism, what does the Democratic Party offer the working class?

:shrug:

[vi5]

5. "Like Republicans, just not quite as much!"

Boy that's a winning track, isn't it? But that's pretty much what they're offering and what far too many on here are pitching as our main impetus for voting.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. exactly. n/t

[valerief]

12. Extinction. nt

[UTUSN]

6. Wasn't it Orthodox Jews voting against Gay marriage?!1

The wingnut spin is that it was a referendum on OBAMA over "Israel and the economy," but O'LOOFAH-style/Catholic-"traditionalist" made (anti-)Gay marriage a main topic.

[quiller4]

14. Orthodox Jews & conservative ethinic Catholics voting together

against gay marriage. The whole mosque at ground zero issue was a factor, too.

[Selatius]

10. There used to be a time when the white middle class and working class voted Democrat.

They called it the New Deal Coalition. It was built out of the ruin of the Great Depression when food, water, and shelter were the primary issues that needed to be addressed. FDR and the New Deal Democrats led the fight and became champions of the working man.

The Coalition began fracturing in the 1950s with the Civil Rights Movement. Rightly or wrongly a lot of middle class white voters saw this as a threat to their own welfare. This generally drove a wedge between liberal activists pushing equal rights from more socially conservative working class whites. The war in Viet Nam also served to drive another wedge between liberal activists and the intelligentsia from a middle and working class that was, at least at first, more deferential to authority as far as "national security" issues went, until the US death count started rising into the tens of thousands. True, people eventually caught up with the activists as far as Viet Nam went, but the counter-culture was seen as somewhat alienating to more socially conservative Democrats at the time, and from that point forward, rightly or wrongly, Democrats were seen as weak on defense.

Sadly, it seems when people are struggling with just the bare basics, they learn to set aside differences and work together, but when a time of comfort and plenty came, they all splintered over what a great society should do.

[FarCenter]

13. Democrats are gay unemployed black Hispanic pregnant unwed mothers on welfare

who are primarily concerned about the environment, global warming, animal rights, and the death penalty.

</sarc>