Pennsylvania

In deciding your vote for president today, the race of the candidate the candidate:

19% Important  Clinton 59  Obama  41
80% Not Important  Clinton   54  Obama   46

In deciding your vote for president today, the race of the candidate the candidate:

22% Important  Clinton 82  Obama  12
77% Not Important  Clinton   62  Obama   30

Further note that in West Virginia, 8% of voters said that race was the most important factor and 10% of those voters cast votes for Senator Obama.

North Carolina

In deciding your vote for president today, the race of the candidate the candidate:

18% Important  Clinton 35  Obama  64
80% Not Important  Clinton   44  Obama   54

More than 25% of African American voters said that race was a factor and Obama got 92% of their votes.

Look, I'm not saying that there is no racism among the white voters who said that race was a factor.  I'm not arguing that African-American voters are racist for supporting Obama in record numbers.  They should be proud that a member of their community, a loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, is on the verge of becoming the Democratic nominee.

The point I am trying to make is that you cannot read "racism" into how people answered this question.  Race and racism are complicated issues that cannot be understood by looking at one poll question.

You're assuming that they were voting for oppression.  Given the wording of the question )"Was race a factor?"), you cannot draw that conclusion.  There is no way to infer the intent of the voters.

I have to say, I think race should be irrelevant to this discussion. To be honest with you, even though I am 'white' I would love to see more CAPABLE, PROGRESSIVE black candidates for anything. And I would like to see them win. I just DON'T think Obama is that person, at this time, I think Hillary is FAR more qualified.

Sorry, but thats just my opinion. I know in my heart that many black people will probably realize that I was right and I hope that they will appreciate the fact that not all of us bought into the hype.

I agree it's not relevant, that's why I disagree strongly with the commenter I responded to, who has used the "Obama has Muslim roots" smear in the past.

I am not ashamed of myself because my actions are not the problem here.

You seem like you'd prefer it if we all buried our heads in the sand and pretended everyone was colorblind and racism and bigotry didn't exist.

and it's intellectually dishonest to suggest Hillary's being duplicitous for not denouncing people who voted for her when it's Obama's problem, one he did precious little to address himself by basically blowing off W. Virginia and Kentucky.

Smiley had issues with Michelle Obama representing her husband. Strange you missed the sexism there. Sigh. I guess it's like Carville's jokes relating courage to teticles. Some sexism escapes under the radar....

You should listen to Obama speak. You could learn a lot.

People like you are the reason so many people dislike Obama.

Are you proud of yourself?

>There is plenty of footage and polling data that should that a substantial portion of white voters will NEVER vote for an African American --- you won't find similar results the other way around.

Of course you would find it ludicrous because we can't think, right? That's what you are saying. Interesting that no one found it ludicrous that AA's were voting 90-10 for all of the WHITE Democratic nominees.

Hmmmm.

"However, I do find it kind of ludicrous that 90% of African-Americans vote for Obama in every state and yet two-thirds of them tell exit pollsters that race is not a factor at all."

Sigh... yet another repetition of yet the same stupid argument.

2/3rds of 90% are 60%. What's so ludicrous about the idea of Obama getting 60% of the vote even without his race being taken into account? And yes racial solidarity towards Obama may boost this 60% into 90% among black people -- same way that white racism may lower it to 30% among certain white demographics in the South or Appalachia or whatever.

What's so stupid though about 2/3rds of the people saying race wasn't a factor for them?

No, it's identity politics, which is different than racism. Women who vote for Hillary because she's a woman are using identity politics, not sexism. Same for blacks and Obama. But the reverse is sexism and racism.

I shouldn't think progressive Democrats would find this so hard to figure out.

You are right on the polling results, though I disagree a bit with your analysis on the "race was a factor" point.

If white voters say "race was an important factor" (as the question was phrased in West Virginia), I think the overwhelming majority of those voters did, in fact, engage in racist decision-making.

"Automatically" may go too far, but "presumptively and very likley" is probably about right.

Same with Obama voters saying gender was an important factor; sexism was involved in that decision-making.

In Kentucky, since I have these numbers in the back of my head, about 20% of voters said race was a factor, and they split 90% - 10% for Clinton. About 15% said gender was a factor, and they split 60-40% for Clinton. So we can't really equate them, at least in that state. I suspect the "Race was a factor" vote would be more split in a state with more diversity, but I think even in PA it tilted to Clinton, though I don't have the numbers at hand.

I think it's an error on our part to claim that anyone who says race or gender was an important factor is necessarily racist/sexist.  Frankly, I think we liberals throw those terms around a bit too loosely and diminish them thereby.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical person who believes there is no way Americans are willing to elect a black President this year, and therefore votes for Hillary because he thinks she's the only Democrat with a chance to win.  (This scenario can be played in reverse, of course.)

Consider a hypothetical person who believes that the Middle East is the most important region in terms of foreign policy, and that it would be a mistake to elect Hillary because the leaders in the Middle East come from backwards societies and won't be willing to listen to a woman.

Consider someone who thinks race is a major asset for Obama (the John Kerry argument) but ultimately decides to vote for Hillary for whatever reason.  That person might well tell an exit pollster that race was an important factor for them, even though it ended up not being the decisive factor.

Some or all of these people might be misguided, in your opinion.  But are they all racist?  I think we overestimate the amount we can learn from a single, imprecise exit poll question.

Were they educated? Were they white? So put two and two together.

Randi Rhodes called us "White Trash" after calling HRC a f-ing whore.

I really don't get your point.  Are you trying to say that there is not a single racist Democrat?

Are you trying to say that race doesn't play a big role in this race?

Are you trying to argue that every single Clinton supporter has come to that support solely based on the issues, and race never played a role?

Because that is nonsense.

Look, you are going to lose a lot of credibility if you say something like "people going around screaming racist" when an African American is running for President and he is clearly losing votes based solely on his race.

Racism is real, it's affecting the Democratic primary, and I have no idea why you want to deny that simple fact.

When you openly state that you won't vote for a candidate based on race, that is racist. If voters said that they weren't voting for say John Kerry because of his beliefs then that wouldn't be controversial but when people are openly stating that race was a factor and they are voting against the black candidate on that reason,  that is racist.

"And one last thing these are not racists they are democrats"

Um, do you really think these two are mutually exclusive? They are not.

..Obama product?

(Bluntly, If THAT isn't sexism, WHAT IS?)

if it is, and if there are ANY SANE PEOPLE left on this planet, how can somebody justify voting for somebody who allows THAT?

is providing me with much amusement. Thank you.