How many of those white men who have supported a black man against a white woman will vote for Senator Obama then?

actually, I think most of them — the ones who voted in Democratic primaries for Obama — will support Obama if he is the nominee…

Being, I suspect, much older and having seen and experienced how pervasive and unrecognized misogyny is in this culture I am not as sanguine about the staying power of some significant minority percentage of the white male demographic, and in a close election every percentage point counts.

While no rational voter would vote for McCain instead of either Clinton or Obama due to the 180 degree difference exhibited on policy issues (and vice versa) the entire existence of embedded cultural prejudices (The Jesse Jackson admitting to being relieved that the young man following him on a dark street was not black type) is that they are unexamined, unquestioned, deeply subconscious and irrational.

As you so astutely point out the psychological discomfort caused by culturely embedded misogyny is so acute that Obama supporters cannot even admit, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that it exists. This discomfort is also the reason I am not surprised that Democratic leaders seem unable to consider strategies to combat it in the general election. One cannot defend against problems one cannot discuss out loud.

Racism is finally, and very belatedly, being recognized, named, condemned and combated with varying degrees of success at all levels of society. Sexism has a long way to go before it is as universally recognized and even further before it is unreservedly condemned. Misogyny will be even more difficult. I am sure that Senator Clinton and her advisers were prepared for sexism and misogyny, but I don’t think they were prepared for their depth and severity. Perhaps no one was. Your series is a step in defining the problem.

In November 2008 there will be a white man for this demographic to support. A white war hero, no less. How many of those white men who have supported a black man against a white woman will vote for Senator Obama then?

actually, I think most of them — the ones who voted in Democratic primaries for Obama — will support Obama if he is the nominee. Just like most democrats will support whoever is the eventual nominee.

The problem is that the general electorate isn’t like the primary electorate, and a general election isn’t like a democratic primary. I keep hearing Obama supporters say that Clinton has “thrown the kitchen sink” at Obama, That really bothers me because its so not true — or true only in the sense that she’s thrown the kitchen sink from Barbie’s Dream House at him. And if they freak out when a little piece of cardboar get tossed at them, when a real, heavy marble kitchen sink gets thrown at them, they are going to so stunned and discombobulated that it will be over before the other side picks up the broken pieces of the sink to keep throwing at Obama.

One of the things that kills me is that when you point out that Hillary Clinton has been running not for the nomination, but for the Presidency, for the last 18 months, Obama supporters treat it as “proof” that Hillary doesn’t know what she is doing. Quite the contrary — if winning the Democratic nomination for President was like getting the Democratic nomination for the 13th Illinois State Senate district, she’d have spent her last seven years in the Senate moving to the left rather than the middle, and run an entirely different primary campaign, and already locked up the nomination and be putting her cabinet together now.

I think that Obama supporters don’t see what I’ve written for what it really is — a piece about our national culture — because it creates so much cognitive dissonance for them. The idea that their candidate has been the beneficiary of sexism and misogyny is simply unacceptable to them.

Obama has the delegate lead because ‘he a better candidate, and has run a better campaign’ and any suggestion that his lead is based on any factor other than the will of a completely unbiased, highly intelligent and well-informed primary electorate must be rejected — if for no other reason that admitting that might not be true would lead them to question how unbiased, intelligent, and well-informed they themselves are. And they don’t want to confront racism because it interferes with their need to not question their candidate’s electability and inevitability in November..

Unfortunately, the data gathered over the last 35 years suggests that there is a negative correlation between winning the Democratic nomination, and becoming president….

Prejudice easily explains the hysteria caused by Senator Clinton’s effort to become the most powerful woman the modern world has ever known. Not much else rationally can. And, make no mistake, it is hysteria. Note the disdain with which Senator Clinton’s meant-to-be-confidence-inspiring initial slogan of “In it to win it, ” was received, the increasingly desperate efforts to discredit her obviously superior expertise and the recent crude, vitriolic and personal attacks as it has become clear she does not acknowledge any establishment control over her campaign.

Usually liberal politicians, bloggers, and media figures have steadfastly refused to even consider the possibility that Senator Clinton could be a successful presidential candidate, let alone successful president, proving the point that a woman remaining in an expected position, even a position of authority, is not threat and requires no attack.

However, Senator Clinton has refused to remain in her expected position. Even worse she refuses to admit that she, a woman, has an expected position. No one seems able to control her unfeminine behavior and ambition. Exactly the trigger of unexamined fears and prejudices in many men who consider themselves supportive of women. These men have found that they are supportive of women in positions of authority only if the woman ultimately acknowledges superior male authority.

Senator Clinton remains so potent a threat to cultural imperatives that the urgency to discredit her, to insist that she cannot win, that she step down and support Obama’s candidacy has become overwhelming.

This is profoundly dangerous to Democratic hopes in the general election. As you demonstrate so clearly, a major demographic supporting Senator Obama in the primaries/caucuses is white men. White men! White men voting for a black man against a white woman does not indicate the end of racism. It indicates the the overwhelming power of misogyny.

In November 2008 there will be a white man for this demographic to support. A white war hero, no less. How many of those white men who have supported a black man against a white woman will vote for Senator Obama then?

The fact that Senator Obama and the Democratic leadership does not seem to be willing to consider these questions is both expected and dispiriting. If they would do so we would have a much better chance of winning in November should Senator Obama be at the top of the ticket.

When Obama spoke about people being bitter he left out how many men still blame afirmative action for job losses. And, that when people in places where the black population is higher they see a lot more crimes committed by blacks on television, often very close to home. Women tend to fear crime more than men. I think this might factor into why Clinton picks up votes in areas where there is a larger black population.

And, those exit polls on whether race factored in. Bunk, total bunk. No one is going to admit out loud that race played a factor in anything or any decision. However, when it comes to gender people tend to be more open about not wanting women in power because sexism is so embedded in our society. What did Randi Rhodes say? Would she say that about men? Whore is a very gender specific derogatory word. Call a man a whore and he laughs. Call a woman a whore and it has all sorts of nasty connotations connected to it no matter what context it was said in.

there are a ton of other non-rational reasons in addition to sexism. i don’t see how you can conclude it is primarily sexism.

I guess I’m making a distinction between “non-rational reason” and “rationalization”. “Bush/Clinton/Bush” is the rationalization that springs from non-rational decision-making. But as far as I know, there is no general subconscious impetus toward change for its own sake — or at least none that manifests itself in “uncertain” times. That is a desire for change for its own sake may spring from the subconscious when people feel secure and get bored — the brain needs to be stimulated. But the current desire for “change” isn’t a manifestation of security and boredom, but of insecurity and disastifaction. Its change for a purpose, not for its own sake.

In other words, I don’t think that “Bush/Clinton/Bush” fits the category of ‘non-rational reason’. And while I’m sure that there are people out there that have a problem with Hillary Clinton because she reminds them on a subconscious level of some sexually humiliating experience or something, I really don’t think that is what we see reflected in the data, even if it is a “non-rational reason” that isn’t about sexissm.

Several of us are asking whether there is a basic problem with the analysis since it requires extrapolating general claims of “sexism” and “racism” from data which potentially reflects other, more specific factors. That’s a legitimate question removed from candidate preference – and has nothing to do with our recognition of the sexism and racism in society.

siun, there are always “other factors”. The question is whether they have more than a marginal impact. And they do — and are reflected in the data itself, and the way that you get different results from Vermont and Idaho. If there weren’t “other factors at work” all data points would line up with their trend lines, and every relationship would be precisely linear.

But what I’m looking at are trends, and this piece is on the impact of racism on the evidence regarding sexism. Racism is a specific, meaningful, and quantifiable phenomenon that can be found in the data. “DLC” is not.

And trying to turn the discussion of trends into a discussion of everything and anything that might make an individual not part of the trend is a waste of time. Its a part of the “progressive” disease — we all hate the idea of being lumped into a group, and not treating each and every person as a special individual, and the very idea of saying “you’re from Connecticut, and you’re white? He’re YOUR data point” is anathema to us.

You can either have a focussed discussion about a trend, or a completely unfocussed discussion about variations from a trend — when the subject becomes variations, there is no subject anymore, just 250,000,000 individuals.

However, I hope you will agree, that a few good questions were raised for your consideration?

absolutely. selise has been especially helpful in getting me to look more closely at the data — and finding that in some cases what I thought I was seeing wasn’t really there. And there are lots of caveats to what I did to begin with — part of the problem of examining the impact of racism on the evidence of sexism is that gender distribution is fairly equal, while race distribution has a much wider range — and there is really no “right” way to represent trends between the two. The kind of variables I created to examine the gender gap are useful when looking at the gender gap as a discrete phenomenon, but don’t work very well when comparing them ot other phenomenon. (I mean the “gender gap shift” is one data point based on 18 different bits of data — 16 different male/female/McCain/Clinton/McCain/Obama points of data, plus the distribution of the men and women in the electorate by which the 16 other pieces of data have to be weighed. Trying to relate that to how many white voters support Obama doesn’t work that well.)

But I’m afraid that I don’t learn a whole lot from people who approach this subject from a “democratic primary” perspective.

It’s unfortunate that you could not engage without claiming that those ask questions about some of your premises or ask for clarification have merely “absorbed the misogyny directed at Clinton into their own psyches.”

Several of us are asking whether there is a basic problem with the analysis since it requires extrapolating general claims of “sexism” and “racism” from data which potentially reflects other, more specific factors. That’s a legitimate question removed from candidate preference – and has nothing to do with our recognition of the sexism and racism in society.

I think this is precisely what’s difficult about your analysis. If everyone voted for someone of a different race we would have no Blacks voting for Obama and all the whites (and all Republicans would abandon their party to vote for him). Would that be non-racist?

you miss the point. Its not that people vote for people of their own race — its that they claim that race is not a factor in their choice.

We’ll never be able to have a real discussion about racism (or sexism) until people can acknowledge that their own prejudices — acknowledge that there is a lizard brain part of you, or that you have an Id that defines the world and everything in it with yourself as the yardstick by which everything else is measured, is necessary for any kind of honest discussion of these kinds of issues.

You found us all in great ignorance, but, thanks to your clarity and steadfast refusal to ‘engage in speculation’, we are very much wiser now.

However, I hope you will agree, that a few good questions were raised for your consideration?