There is a fabulous graph attached to Nat Silver’s post at Five Thirty Eight pouring water on the hopes of Sanders supporters. It illustrates by state the share of primary and caucus voters from 2008 who were both white and liberal. It’s too large or I’d, er, sample it.
As Alec Trebek might say I’ll put it in the form of a question: what is one thing that makes Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Massachusetts different from every other state in the Union? How about Oregon, Utah, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and (of all places) Montana?
If you’re taking your lead from those states, I suggest a radical re-think.
I’m a little less skeptical about Sanders’s chances than I think that Nate is. Oh, I still think he’s a long shot. But the scenario goes something like this.
Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire. The big donors desert Clinton in droves and the media pundits start dumping on Clinton in earnest. Turnout is extremely low in South Carolina.
Hillary Clinton’s support has always been a mile wide and an inch deep.
I think the issue for Democrats right now is their bench is so narrow. If Clinton implodes and Sanders is unelectable then someone else will have to get in the race quickly – someone who has at least the beginnings of an organization. So, Biden? I think this will be a tough year for Democrats.
Kind of an interesting contrast with the 2008 primaries, where there was somewhat of a bimodal distribution — Obama did best in states that were either very white or very black (relatively speaking). Obama won Vermont, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Connecticut, and essentially tied in New Hampshire.
PD, it makes sense that Obama did very well in very white states, as culturally Obama is a very, very white man. He puts on the accent and the airs of a black man at times, but he’s still the guy that was pacing around his college dorm room in a kimono reciting T. S. Elliot poems to his (white) girlfriend AFTER having had sex. Sweet Jebus, there probably aren’t any Klansmen as white as that! And Whiter People totally pick up on that vibe.
A lot of regular old white folk don’t pick up on that Unbearable Whiteness of Being coming from Barack because out here in the hinterlands they haven’t had much exposure to the kinds of Very White People who do things like read T. S. Elliot to their girlfriends after sex while wearing a kimono. It just isn’t done!
I’ve tried explaining this to a couple of less educated friends and they’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, but it’s there for anyone to see if they’ve ever been subjected to white college grad students from the humanities or social sciences. Or, of course, if that person is from some Whitopia, where practically everyone is Unbearably White.