There’s a lot of excitement in the air about Obama’s win in the Iowa Caucuses. When the fever pitch comes, so does hyperbole. One thing I’ve been hearing a lot is something to the effect that “the results show that a state that is 94% white can vote for Obama.” I beg to differ.
Let’s begin by recalling that the “state” of Iowa does not vote in these primaries. The voting is done by members of a party, not the population of the state. Furthermore, only a fraction of those with party alignment participate in the caucuses, and dare I project that they are the more committed members of the party? I do indeed. Thus, instead of Iowa going for Obama, instead we have the core of the democratic party going for Obama (sort of–let’s recall that 62% of them did not go for him).
About 240,000 Democrats participated in the Caucuses. Obama got 38% or about 90,000 votes. That number is about 3% of Iowa’s population. It is about 6% of the number of people who voted in the 2004 Presidental Election. So, white Iowa did not necessarily vote for Obama in resounding fashion. As a side point, and for your consideration, I would point out that there are about 180,000 people in Iowa who are not in the 94% white majority.
Reality Check #2: The race has just barely begun. The needed number of delegates for the democratic nomination is 2209. Obama picked up 16 in Iowa. That’s .7 percent. Hillary picked up 15. That’s .7 percent.
Reality Check #3: New Hampshire is really going to tell us something? In Iowa, there were 45 delegates at stake. In New Hampshire, there are 22.
My point: It’s too early to tell anything. Remember when Dukakis had a double-digit lead over Bush Senior? Do you even remember who Dukakis was?
8 Comments
Reasonable points, although I thought Obama’s margin in Iowa was provided by first-time caucus goers, including people who were only registering Democrat at the caucuses, and so it seems not correct to characterize this as the core of the party.
Obama’s victory also is larger to me given that I think Edwards voters would have gone more for Obama than Clinton. BUT: if you think the prediction market world is overestimating Obama’s ultimate chances for the nomination at this point, you’ve got a money-making opportunity!
P.S: Welcome back! I’m glad you’ve started blogging states you’ve visited. I’m hoping to pick up Louisiana this spring, which will be my first new blog state in awhile.
Ah, if I only had the money to invest. But my money is all tied up in predicting Ohio State’s win tonight over LSU!
Since I brought up Dukakis/Bush Sr., just a interesting addition. In the 1988 Iowa Caucus, the republican winner was Dole–Bush was third–receiving fewer delegates than Pat Robertson! For the Dems, Dick Gephart was the big winner, with Dukakis coming in third behind Paul Simon.
One thing I’ve come to wonder about the historical lessons of past elections–and this is going to sound like it’s trying to serve a general argument of Obama-enthusiasm, but I don’t mean it to be–is if the speed with which the world is changing now makes Presidential Elections now basically unique events for which only weak lessons are to be drawn from the past. Like with various pundits being confident in their predictions of caucus turnout based on models of past turnout and then being wildly wrong. And the continual failure of exit/entrance polls to make accurate adjustments in the current elections based on the lessons learned from the last election.
I realize that this is not directly relevant to this post, but it’s fascinating me that Obama’s father was a Luo. Luos are disenfranchised Nilotic people that live in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. (They are related to the Nilotic people of the southern Sudan who have been victims of genocide for hundreds of years). When given opportunities, Luos rise to the top - many of the intelligentsia of eastern Africa, in Kampala and in Nairobi, are Luos. I have no way of knowing, but I would bet that the colonial British and Germans deliberately divided Luo territory into a couple of countries (kind of like what happened to the Kurds).
I lived among the Luo, in a remote part of Kenya, for a couple of years, doing my doctoral research. It’s hard for me to encapsulate in a few words the kind of people they are - but they are super perseverent, education-focused, and family-oriented. Odinga, the opposition leader in Kenya, is a Luo. The Bantus (Kikuyus, etc.) keep assassinating Luo leaders (Mboya, Ouko) and I worry about what might happen to Odinga.
At any event, I know that Obama can hardly be considered a Luo (in a cultural sense) since his parents split up when he was two years old or something. But I would not bet against a charismatic Luo leader - they are singularly impressive people, with great inherent dignity and integrity.
I generally agree, except for the part about this year’s caucus being mainly populated by the most committed members of the Dem party. That’s probably usually the case. But this time at my precinct for example, 242 of the 519 participants were newly registered Democrats. The large majority of those (I know because I was working at the registration desk) were people who had been registered as Independents.
Also, 93% of the Democratic caucus goers were white, so it’s not like non-whites were turning out in droves to support Obama. And while support for Obama was higher among non-whites than it was among whites, he still had more support among whites than any other candidate (B.O.–33%, J.E.–24%, H.C.–27%).
One thing I’ve been wondering about in discussions about whether race would negatively affect Obama’s chances in the general election is whether most of the people for whom race would matter would be more likely to vote for a Republican anyway. Not that I’m saying that Republican’s are generally racists or that no Dems are. But still, racism seems more compatible with some elements of conservative ideology (people who are poor have themselves to blame, etc.)
I was just talking about this with a colleague who believes that there are a lot of white people out there just dying to vote for an African American to prove that they aren’t racist and that racism is waning in importance. And Obama is a non-threatening way to do that (compared to say, Al Sharpton!). Puts an interesting twist on the race argument.
there are a lot of white people out there just dying to vote for an African American to prove that they aren’t racist and that racism is waning in importance.
and this would be okay as long as racism did start to wane. hopefully, if obama becomes president, he can start to hack away at some of the more entrenched institutions of inequality. and if he doesn’t, or isn’t able to i should say, then his election is nothing more than tokenism which could very well make things worse for black people.
Dan, you’re right to note that it’s a little too early for Obama to be ordering his White House furniture, but there are a few things about Obama that make it hard to compare his campaign with other early front-runners who’ve stumbled. (1) He has won and is now leading in two states where he wasn’t supposed to lead; (2) he’s bringing out huge numbers of new voters and is also winning over independent voters; and (3) he’s the first serious post-Boomer presidential candidate, which makes for a refreshing break from the others.
I share gradmommy’s comments: as much as I’ve been pulling for Obama for quite a while now, I don’t hold much hope for his election improving the state of racial inequality in the US. Obama is the best-case scenario: a light-skinned, positive, articulate black man. Hell, even my conservative 60something mother-in-law likes him. He is, as the racists would say, “one of the good ones.” It’s hard for me to imagine how his election will do anything to change racist whites’ perceptions of — pick one: poor, urban, young male — blacks, or for the entrenched nature of institutional inequality.
But still…I’m hoping…