15 percent?
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4105
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4076
By Roger Simon
An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that “about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.”
I was talking the other day to a prominent Republican who asked me what I thought John McCain’s strongest issues would be in the general election.
Lower taxes and the argument he will be better able to protect America from its enemies, I said.
Republicans have a pretty good track record with those two.
The Republican shook his head. “You’re missing the most http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4201 is worth maybe 15 percent to McCain.”
The man I was talking to is not a racist; he was just stating what he believes to be a fact: There is a percentage of the American electorate who will simply not vote for a http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4316 no matter what his qualities or qualifications.How big is that percentage? An AP-Yahoo poll conducted April 2-14 found that “about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.”
I don’t know if 8 percent sounds high or low to you, but I was amazed that 8 percent of respondents were willing to admit this to a pollster. And I figure that the true figure is much higher.
The same poll, by the way, found that 15 percent of voters think Obama is a Muslim. He is, in fact, a Christian. But thinking a person is a Muslim probably does not encourage you to vote for him in America today.
And consider this little nugget from Monday’s Washington Post, in a story by Kevin Merida and Jose Antonio Vargas datelined Scranton, Pa.:
“Barack Obama’s campaign opened a downtown office here on March 15, just in time for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was not a glorious day for Team Obama. Some of the green signs the campaign had trucked in by the thousands were burned during the parade, and campaign volunteers — white volunteers — were greeted with racial slurs.”
Signs burned? Racial slurs shouted out loud? In this day and age? Maybe that 15 percent estimate is low.
I am not suggesting for a second that McCain would exploit race in a campaign against Obama. He would not. But the real question is whether the racial issue has to be “exploited” at all. It is pretty powerful just sitting there on its own.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9761.html