Last Call For The Politics Of Resentment

NY Times political reporter Jackie Calmes talks about the Great White Whale for the Dems:  winning over white male voters.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of white men since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all prevailed with support of the so-called rising electorate of women, especially single women, and minorities. But fewer of those voters typically participate in midterm elections, making the votes of white men more potent and the struggle of Democrats for 2014 clear.

“Realistically, winning votes from working-class white men has just been a very tough political challenge for Democrats,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. With demographic trends favoring Democrats nationally and in many states, strategists say it makes sense to concentrate resources on mobilizing women, young people, Hispanics, blacks and other minority voters.

Democrats generally win the votes of fewer than four in 10 white men. But they win eight of 10 minority voters and a majority of women, who have been a majority of the national electorate since 1984, while white men have shrunk to a third, and are still shrinking.

Republicans have been playing the Politics of Resentment for 50 years now.  It's difficult to imagine that Democrats are going to be able to fix that by November.

“Democrats are for a bunch of freeloaders in this world as far as I’m concerned,” said Gari Day, 63, an Avis bus driver from suburban Detroit. “Republicans make you work for your money, and try to let you keep it.”

Michael Bunce, 48, buying parts at a Lowe’s in Southfield, Mich., first ascribed his Republican bias to fiscal matters, but quickly turned to social issues like gay rights. “I don’t see why that’s at the top of our priority list,” he said. “But you say that out in the open, and people are all over your back.”

Here's my question:  why should Democrats want to win over voters like that?  It's not going to happen and if it does, it's going to come at a far greater cost of current Democratic voters.  It hasn't happened in 50 years, so why is it a problem now?  Answer:  it's not.   

Had only White men voted in the 2012 presidential election, this is how it would have looked. pic.twitter.com/CP7oA9soGE
— Sarafeminista (@FeministaJones) March 3, 2014

Here's your lesson:  In 1988, getting 38% of the white male vote was Dukakis's political death knell in a 315 point electoral vote bloodbath.  In 2012, Barack Obama getting 35% of the white male vote was an easy 124 point electoral vote win.  One last paragraph from the Times article:

Republicans say Democrats’ appeals to women, minorities and gays have been counterproductive with white men. “When you’re spending 60 percent of your time talking about birth control and Obamacare, not a lot of men are paying attention to you,” said Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Right, because Obamacare has been the problem for the last 50 years?

I suspect Hillary Clinton in 2016 would get something pretty close to Obama's 41% of the white male vote in 2008.  If that's the case, she'll win handily and the Republicans damn well know it.  The issue here isn't the Dems giving up on white male voters, it's the Republicans giving up on winning the White House.