Thread: BS Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama

This garbage makes me sick! The MSM has manuvered this now to make it appear that if Obama loses this election, it will be because America is a racist country!! Is there anything the media will not say or do to promote their beloved Obama!

Once again, the MSM seems to operate under the assumption that the only "bigots" in this country are "white" Americans!


By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.



More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.

The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-...lse-obama-race

The election has come down to this...

Those who have drunk the MSM/Obama kool-aid vs. those who haven't. If America is full of kool-aid drinkers, the demise of this great, but teetering on the brink, country will arrive right before our eyes.

Are there really that many kool-aid drinkers out there???

This racial nonsense makes me sick as well, NoBueno, but let's remember where it came from:

None other than Obama and his camp are responsible for this....the media is just playing along with what they got the ball rolling on.

Obama is a master at playing the race card.....either as a reason, or as an excuse. Remember how race was the reason for his popularity as the democratic nominee? Oh yes sir, this country was ready for a change, time to break the chain of the same old-same old white guy in the WH and that's why he was there.

And now that he's watching his chance at winning quickly flying off into the sunset, he's using race as the excuse for why he didn't win.

The man is pathetic.

While I agree that many white bigots will not vote for Obama, they also assume that 99% of blacks are voting for him based on the premise of sharing a race. That IMO is a bigotted assumption.

I'm black and myself and many other blacks are not voting for him, solely based on his cramming amnesty down our throats. The same applies to McCain. I plan to write in my candidate of choice in protest.

I wonder what category we fit in?

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment

Statements like this is what keeps America divided.

These negative traits attributed to blacks by bigots such as these surveyed cross racial divides. They are bigots who more likely than not are guilty of the pot calling the kettle black.

Originally Posted by WhatMattersMost

While I agree that many white bigots will not vote for Obama, they also assume that 99% of blacks are voting for him based on the premise of sharing a race. That IMO is a bigotted assumption.

I'm black and myself and many other blacks are not voting for him, solely based on his cramming amnesty down our throats. The same applies to McCain. I plan to write in my candidate of choice in protest.

I wonder what category we fit in?

That's an excellent point WMM and i'm glad you brought that up! How many people in this country do you believe intend to vote for Obama simply because he is black! Isn't that bigotted as well? And why no polls that ask that question?

Look, lets get this out in the open right now. If this election is simply going to be about electing the first black as President - then hey i'm down for that! BUT GIVE ME SOMEONE WHO I CAN BELIEVE IN AND AGREE WITH, ATLEAST ON A FEW OF THE ISSUES, especially illegal immigration. If one of the parties nominates Alan Keys as their nominee for President, then you have my vote. I can almost promise you that.

But I will not vote for Obama simply because he is black just as I would never vote for ANY candidate simply because they are white! my vote means to much to this country throw it away in that manner...

I don't ever recall McCain or any conservative talk show hosts ever making this campaign about race at anytime. What I have witnessed, though is the MSM/Obama machine constantly interjecting race into the presidential campaign.

So, since I'm voting against Obama because I believe he is a Marxist in idealogy, a socialist in his economics, a far left radical in his political associations, a dangerous "globalist citizen of the world" that looks at America as a stepping stone to his seat at golbal government and a completely unvetted and woefully inexperienced politician...I must be a racist.

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Originally Posted by WhatMattersMost

While I agree that many white bigots will not vote for Obama, they also assume that 99% of blacks are voting for him based on the premise of sharing a race. That IMO is a bigotted assumption.

I'm black and myself and many other blacks are not voting for him, solely based on his cramming amnesty down our throats. The same applies to McCain. I plan to write in my candidate of choice in protest.

I wonder what category we fit in?

That's an excellent point WMM and i'm glad you brought that up! How many people in this country do you believe intend to vote for Obama simply because he is black! Isn't that bigotted as well? And why no polls that ask that question?

Look, lets get this out in the open right now. If this election is simply going to be about electing the first black as President - then hey i'm down for that! BUT GIVE ME SOMEONE WHO I CAN BELIEVE IN AND AGREE WITH, ATLEAST ON A FEW OF THE ISSUES, especially illegal immigration. If one of the parties nominates Alan Keys as their nominee for President, then you have my vote. I can almost promise you that.

But I will not vote for Obama simply because he is black just as I would never vote for ANY candidate simply because they are white! my vote means to much to this country throw it away in that manner...

Agreed. We are definitely of the same SOUND mind. Unfortunately, this country is filled with sheeple. There are both blacks and whites voting for Obama simply because he is black. Issues be damned, they want to be able to say, I helped elect the first black POTUS.

Then you have whites who may actually agree with Obama's stances on the issues but refuse to vote for him BECAUSE he IS black.

The biggest problem I see is that the majority of voters have learned nothing from wanting a POTUS "they can share a beer with" the MSM has turned our election process into an American Idol contest.

Those of us who actually care about the issues and the demise of America no longer have a voice nor do we have a candidate.

I'm not voting for him because:

(1) of the "you better make sure your kids learn Spanish" line.
(2) because he talks about change, but has he ever delivered change? I can just see him getting raped by all the other world's leaders and the sharks on Wall Street (and if he gets raped, WE get raped) and he's like, "but change, we must have change, what about change?."
(3) McCain is right: Obama does not know how the world works. McCain didn't understand how it works until probably 2004.
(4) If Obama were white, we'd all be saying, "What a talent. Maybe in 10 years, he could run for President." In other words, he would not be were he is without reverse racism.

I don't know why they keep touting Obama as America's first BLACK Presidential Candidate in the first place. He is not a Black man..He is Half White, a fraction black (not African black) and Arab. He does not even look like a Black man, he looks like an Arab for goodness sakes.

This whole race thing the Dems. keep bring up is rediculious!!

They have an agenda whether it's the Presidential race or amnesty and the blanket throw back if you don't blindly follow is "racism". They tout MLK and his words but they forget the "content of character" part. Can't be "content of character" in question......still has to be color. I've been reading in some places where they don't say "racist" out right.....they have termed it "closet racist"........coz deep down inside, even if you have valid reasons......still has to be racism.

Heck I'm not even a "real woman" for "womens rights" because I didn't jump the Hillary wagon. And I'm still not a "real woman" if I support Palin.

I don't know where I fit in either......except a free thinker with a mind who hasn't drunk at the kool-aid fountain.........excuse me while I polish my "tin hat".