Key to Presidential Win? White Males
Every two years the Old Media engages in its now-familiar mating ritual with the liberal electorate. Acting on cue, reporters and columnists dust off their tired clichés and recycle their flawed arithmetic to show how this year women will — at long last — determine the outcome of the presidential election.
Remember 1984? That was the year Hulk Hogan defeated Iron Sheik to become the WWF champ, and the “Milk and Honey†album by John and Yoko Lennon was released.
It was also the year that N.O.W. president Eleanor Smeal guaranteed the Democrats would enjoy a 10% boost if they selected a female presidential running mate. But come November, only 44% of female voters voted for the Mondale-Ferraro ticket, handing Ronald Reagan a historic landslide victory.
That embarrassment didn’t stop the rad-fems from playing up the female gender gap, telling party elders to endorse abortion rights for teenage girls if they were going to have any hope of winning the election.
So did their hectoring turn the tide?
In 1976, 50% of the ladies opted for Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter. In 2004, John Kerry garnered 51% of the soccer-mom vote. Yep, a gain of one measly percentage point in 28 years.
Meanwhile, men were fleeing the Democratic party like a crew of well-drillers invited to a Nancy Pelosi fund-raiser. While 50% of men voted for Carter in 1976, only 44% of the guys selected Mr. Kerry in 2004. That translated into a 3.5 million vote gap favoring Mr. Bush.
In the seven elections from 1980 to 2004, the Democratic party has prevailed in only two contests. Writing in The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma, David Kuhn concludes, “No factor has been more instrumental in causing the Democratic decline in presidential politics than the loss of white men.â€
Before the Democratic primaries, all the smart money was betting on an easy win for Hillary Clinton. But once again history proved itself unfazed by the dictates of political correctness.
After the smoke had cleared, Barack Obama emerged triumphant. Out of the 17 primaries with exit polling, Mr. Obama took the white male vote in 10 states. Only in four states did he win thanks to a plurality of white female voters. As ABC analyst Gary Langer noted, “in states with significant but not vast numbers of black voters, and few Hispanics, white men are critical.â€
So let’s take a look at Sen. John McCain’s selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin. The reaction of pundits on both the Right and the Left was that Palin would shore up female support for the Republican ticket.
And sure enough, the McCain/Palin ticket is now tied with Obama and Biden. Is that due to a surge of support from the female electorate for the GOP candidates? Well, not exactly.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, men are more enthusiastic about the Palin candidacy than women – 62% of men have a favorable opinion of the Alaska governor, compared to only 53% of women. Fifty-seven percent of male respondents believe Palin is qualified to be vice president, compared to only 43% of females.
These sentiments translate into you-can-take-it-to-the-bank votes.
Following McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, white men gave McCain a muscular 25-point advantage over Obama. In comparison, white women favored the GOP ticket by only 11 points.
More amazing is how those progressive, tolerant women are falling all over themselves to trash the vice-presidential candidate. During her acceptance speech in Minneapolis, protesters stood up wearing dresses that declared, “Palin Not a Woman!â€
Uber-feminist Gloria Steinem castigated Palin as a pawn of the “right wing patriarchs.†Newsweek’s Sally Quinn deplored her “weak resumé and right-wing ideology.†Eve Ensler, playwright of the raunchy Vagina Monologues, described the choice as “insidious and cynical.†Eleanor Clift claimed the selection triggered laughter in “many, many newsrooms.†And Maureen Dowd called Palin the “Vice in Go-Go Boots.â€
As you can see, it’s not the patriarchy that’s holding women down. Rather, it’s the self-adoring, male-detesting leftist women who can’t stand the thought of a gun-toting, abortion-rejecting Hockey Mom coming to town.
And as far as white men, the second largest electoral bloc in the nation, don’t count them out. When all is said and done, they may again tip the outcome of this Fall’s presidential race.
| More from Carey Roberts
Stumble It!
September 25th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Thanks Carey. I have a copy of Kuhn’s book too. Covering this the way you did, summarizing history to the current context – great idea for an article. Thanks for adding your knowledge and perspective.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:46 am
So Prof, let’s assume for a moment that the men prevail and the women implode again, what will we get? Another Republican Administration which will do sweet feck all for men and still give all the sweeties to the girls. And the funny walks will continue with the shackles on men’s ankles all the way to the jail house.
Left wing Right wing East wing. Ordinary men are seen as the enemy of the State.
This is the age of the Male Wound. The land is dying and the King is in his Castle sitting, groaning in pain. Where is the boy, the pure untutored lad who will change it all? Obama is no Parzival. It definitely isn’t Sarah (haras, backwards) either.
The rules must be broken. The Party rules. The Parties have abandoned men and yet, as you say, the men will vote for one or another of the corrupt thieves who are stealing all the wealth and the life. They see only the choice placed infront of them by the liars. The land will continue unto death unless the Wound of Amfortas is healed by a man’s Word.
For men to restore the Land, bring health and fertility back to the family and the Land they must reject the corrupt and mendacious Candidates paraded before them, no matter how good the PR machines are, and choose their own. They must write their own Word.
Write it in on the ballot.
Vote# 1 Amfortas.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:08 am
amfortas:
Exactly why this article motivated me to post the GOP Platform plank on marriage. There is a point in this, beyond Carey’s analysis that calls for action. Carey’s analysis tells us that men are in a realistic bargaining position. Politicians know. Carey, among others, is telling them that we know, and that we know that they know. We’re not falling for that women decide the election thing, as if we don’t matter.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Roger, you are a Man of Faith.
The GOP ‘platform’ can say whatever it damned well wants to but asking me to believe them when they have proven themselves, as Political Parties are wont, to lie like Dickie Mint trim sheets, is too big an ask.
If MacCain promised to restore marriage to its former glory, re-inforce the Family, incarcerate Family Court Judges, dismember the VAWA, cancel and make illegal Affirmative Action programs, arrest all members of NOW as the fifth columnists they are, provide lollipops to kiddies on Thanksgiving day, would you believe them?
Do you even think they COULD do it?
September 25th, 2008 at 6:27 am
You may be right about “white males†being the group that puts Republicans back in the Whitehouse and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Feminists want people to believe that all white males are “white supremacistsâ€.
The truth is Feminism is responsible for the annihilation of the black family through their “No father in the house†welfare policies. Feminism and the Welfare State have wreaked havoc on the black community for over 45 years at the cost of millions of young lives destroyed because they were raised in single mother homes.
Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are mostly located in minority neighborhoods, where minority women are a systematic target of the abortion industry. That industry is led exclusively by Feminists and their many government supporters, which are mostly Democrats.
Isn’t it ironic that most Blacks vote Democrat?
It may be whites who put Republicans back in the Whitehouse, but wouldn’t the victory be much sweeter if our Black brothers and sisters joined us in defeating the “overtly racist†Feminist policies of a Democratic administration.
“They might have wanted fathers and they might have wanted husbands. We have given them instead checks and a dole.â€
-Robert F. Kennedy
September 25th, 2008 at 9:32 am
amfortas;
I haven’t asked you to believe anyting. I didn’t say that McCain or the GOP promised to restore marriage.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
merck:
You may be right about “white males†being the group that puts Republicans back in the Whitehouse and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If they do. Nothing has been presented in favor of men. That wasn’t important before – not really considered a political issue other than “men” in that sense that meant all people – once upon a time. But after decades of anti-male federal law and spending. Well, now it matters, and the Republicans have been careful to ignore it.
The net effect is that men have become the lost Americans in politics. They’ve been dealt out.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Roger F. Gay said,
“The net effect is that men have become the lost Americans in politics. They’ve been dealt out.â€
________________________________________________
I have to disagree with you there.
If anything, they dealt themselves out.
We all need to take personal responsibility in this mess.
Feminists have been trying to portray men as “white supremacists†for decades when the truth is exactly the opposite.
The facts are available for anyone who cares to look.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Carey Roberts,
Do you think there goes the neighborhood if this happens?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1061791/Could-Clinton-come-Internet-buzzes-rumours-Biden-replaced-Hillary-Obamas-running-mate.html
September 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
merck;
I don’t understand your point. It seems like you changed context and then blamed men for things femininsts said.