Any wonder why all those Tea Party and town-hall protests seem to be made up of angry white folks?
by Pat Buchanan
If Republicans will study the returns from Massachusetts, thenreview the returns from Virginia and New Jersey, light will fall uponthe path to victory over Barack Obama in 2012.
Obama defeated John McCain by winning the black vote 24 toone, the Hispanic vote two to one and taking a larger share of thewhite vote, 44 percent, than did John Kerry or Al Gore. As the whitevote was three-fourths of the national turnout, Obama coasted tovictory.
Now consider Massachusetts. In the 2008 election, no lessthan 79 percent of the voters were white, and Obama carried them by 20points, winning the state 62 to 36.
How did Scott Brown turn that 26-point deficit into asix-point victory? By winning the white vote as massively as did Obama.While there are no exit polls to prove it, we do have exit polls fromVirginia and New Jersey, which tend to corroborate it.
Bob McDonnell won the Virginia governor’s race by 17, while McCain lostVirginia by six. As McDonnell did equally poorly withAfrican-Americans, losing the black vote 90 to nine, while McCain’slost it 92 to eight, what explains his Virginia landslide?