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It’s Not About Race: Obama Trounces Cain With African American Voters
Ahead of tonight’s Republican debate some conservatives might be thinking that Herman Cain could bring in some African American voters, but according to PPP survey of South Carolina, Obama destroys Cain with African American voters, 93%-4%.
PPP tested the idea that Herman Cain would be popular with African-Americans in their latest South Carolina poll. The pollster found that Cain had only a 12% approval rating with African Americans and a 52% disapproval rating.
Overall, Cain is a relative unknown in the state. He has a 26% favorable rating, a 35% unfavorable rating, and 39% were not sure. Obama beats Cain 43%-40% head to head, but it is clear that most of that support is coming from white male Republicans. (Cain’s favorability with women in the state is only 21%).
Since Obama was elected in 2008, the constant conservative assumption has been that African Americans support Obama because he is black. It is this belief that makes some Republicans think that Herman Cain is a viable candidate for 2012, which is just like how they assumed that women would vote for Sarah Palin because she is a woman in 2008. In case you don’t remember how that one turned out, women voted 56%-43%, and unmarried women, 70%-29% for Obama.
Republicans like to comfort themselves with the thought that Obama’s 2008 victory was a novelty based on race, but just like women, African Americans aren’t stupid. All Americans minority or not look for a candidate that speaks to them about the issues that they care most about. If Republicans want African-Americans to support them, instead of floating a gimmick like Herman Cain, they should be talking about the issues that are most important to African American voters.
Barack Obama was elected because he was trying to talk to all Americans, but Republicans would rather support novelty candidates like Cain and Palin than have a discussion outside of their older, white, male base.
It doesn’t matter what race the Republican nominee is if they are not talking to voters about their top issue. Herman Cain has shown himself to be more than willing to carry the Republican message. For example’s his comments published on Bloomberg today that,
“Barack Obama is more of an international,” Cain said. “I think he’s out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it’s true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual.”
It is not about race. African Americans and millions of other voters support Obama because of his politics, not his skin color. Some on the right have been delegitimizing Obama for so long that they have convinced themselves that he was elected because he is black. They cynically believe that putting another minority on the ballot against Obama is their path to victory, but as the South Carolina poll illustrated African America voters aren’t going to be fooled by camouflaging the same old Republican message in a different color.
Barack Obama beat John McCain 95%-4% with African American voters in 2008, and Herman Cain got the same percentage with African Americans in 2011.
If the GOP wants the support of African American voters they should stop trying to trick them, and actually talk to them.
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28 Responses to It’s Not About Race: Obama Trounces Cain With African American Voters
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phoebes-in-santa fe
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
It ain’t about the skin color. I’m an old white lady and I support Barack Obama. I would support him if he was white, Asian, Martian, etc.
karen tahir
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 1:09 am
Hallelujah! I am so happy to see that. I don’t like Cain at all. He is very prejudice against Muslims. I heard him speak..and he does not have it together.
Jared D.
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:45 pm
This is just more evidence of how out of touch the Republicans are with the majority of the voting public, and also the low opinion they have of not only our president, but the majority of voters.
Jared D.
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
I am a 31 year old white male, And I voted for Obama, but I wouldn’t vote for Cain if you paid me.
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
I am a 62 year old white male who doesn’t like the future of this country under anything that even smells like a republican. I would not vote for Cain OR his pizzas
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
PS, I do my own laundry, make up the bed and can cook a VERY mean bbq. I will also clean out the dishwasher
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
PSPS I also have my own Kirby vacuum cleaner
oldsun
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Try craigslist if you need a date.
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
I did, all I got was senators and representatives
NoMooseStew
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Loosen up he is joking. I dig the Kirby though. I am a white woman and voted for Hillary. When she lost I voted for Obama. I wouldn’t vote for Cain, Palin, any of them all of them if they tore my fingernails out.
Anne
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
As a black woman, I have always found the idea that anyone would support a black politician while ignoring his regressive policies to be the height of idiocy. Herman Cain has nothing to offer that I want any part of, and the GOP is apparently incapable of learning that black men are neither monolithic nor interchangeable. The U.S. Senator’s race of 2004, in which Barack Obama trounced Alan Keyes 70% to 27%, should have brought that lesson home, but it obviously hasn’t. They didn’t learn anything either from the fact that Sarah Palin is no substitute for Hillary Clinton. They have never understood that just as women rejected Palin’s regressive ideology in 2008, most blacks of both sexes just as firmly reject the same regressive ideology of Cain, Allen West, Keys, Clarence Thomas, and others.
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
I think the GOP has found that appointing a female to be VP and a black man to be RNC chairman didnt work. They were both idiots and put in to impress voters the way the DNC did.
They have learned that none of that funny diddly stuff works. SO its down to just cheating and being as corrupt as possible
Mike
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Don’t forget that when Michael Steele stopped parroting the party lines and began to show glimmers of intelligence the GOP kicked him out. Now they have a new Uncle Tom who only wants 3 page bills because he ain’t got time to read no 2700 page bills. When will these idiots realize that we’d rather see a black man (or any other man or woman, for that matter) show his true intelligence? The only reason Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry portrayed Stepin Fetchit the way he did was to ridicule the way many Americans at that time thought of black folks. I would have sworn we were past all that, but of course, that would mean that the repugnicans were living in the present.
nk007
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 2:05 am
Very well said Anne! People who think Black people voted for Obama simply because of race reveal their racism! Especially given the way he trounced Alan Keys in 2004. Herman Cain may turn on teabaggers but he does absolutely nothing for the vast majority of people in the Black community.
Anne
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
You are exactly right. Yet, these same folks would take offense if anyone suggested to them that they voted for John McCain on race. What really shows the truth of your statements is that they project their own racism onto us.
Shiva (Moderator)
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
This (Obama beats Cain 43%-40% ) scares me. I wont be happy till I see Obama beats Cain by 99-1
nk007
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 2:06 am
This was in reference to just one state, South Carolina!
janet Scarbrough
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Why does Herman Cain believe Pres. Obama was raised in Kenya? I believe he visited there for a couple of weeks as an adult. And why does he think being an “intellectual” is a negative? Cain, please go back to making cheap pizzas.
nk007
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 2:07 am
He is trying to carry favor with the birthers!
novenator
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
The reason why every. single. minority group in America rejects the Republican Party is quite simple: the Republican Party doesn’t like them and their policies demonstrate that.
From trying to underfund inner city black school to pushing anti-sovereignty authoritarianism on Native American tribes, from ramming monotheistic beliefs down the throats of the children of the kids of Asian immigrants to outright calling for concentration camps for undocumented immigrants in the latino community, the Republican Party has some pretty severe racial issues to come to grips with.
Can’t say I’m sad all those southern racist dixiecrats left the Democratic party after liberals got the Civil Rights Act passed, and were welcomed into the GOP. It makes it far easier to tell who the bad guys are now!
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
I’m sure the Republicans will somehow interpret this to mean that 93% of black voters are somehow racists just like they did when blacks voted for Obama in ’08.
Sarah Jones
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Cain really needs to stop playing that race card. I heard he wasn’t born here…..Also, he hates white people. /s
Amyloo
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
Speaking of thinking they can trick voters, it reminds you a little of “Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.” www.time.com/time/politic...
Reynardine
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
The funniest stunt I saw the Republicans pull was after President Obama’s first State of the Union speech, when their fight- dark- meat- with- more- dark- meat doctrine led them to bring on this pipspeak with the voice of a mosquito. I think Bobby Jindal’s Presidential ambitions were finished off that day.
zumpie
Jun. 13th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Let’s not forget—Marco Rubio was also supposed to put us all in our place and be a Puggie of Color that would get all the minority votes he wanted! Even Lawrence SnoreDonnel commented how Rubio’s election could affect the electorate for decades. Annnnnndd……yeah, I know, Marco Who???
WTF1113
Jun. 14th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
As a young black man, the thing that bothers me the most about Herman Cain is that he thinks his cooning is endearing to rich white GOP voters and doesn’t realize that he’s being used – or maybe he does realize it and doesn’t care. When I saw the clip of him talking about vetoing bills longer than 3 pages I was more put off by his use of urban dialect than by his lack of a grasp on reality. It would have been one thing if he was in Atlanta, but no, he was addressing a crowd in Iowa. Do the repugnicans really think that we’re that stupid? At least back in the 80′s when Ronnie wanted to get black votes, he had sense enough to play our heartstrings and put wreaths on the graves of fallen black soldiers – now they just trot out the most convenient Uncle Tom they can find. Ugh….
Anne
Jun. 15th, 2011 at 10:43 am
It’s encouraging to see young blacks who also see through the okey doke. Trying to endear himself to conservative white Republicans is exactly what Cain is trying to do. All he’s done is to prove that the only difference between him and the other 6 intellectual dwarves who participated in Monday’s GOP dumbfest of a debate is the degree of melanin in his complexion. Yes, Republicans do think Americans are stupid, and African-Americans are included in that thinking. It doesn’t matter whether Cain speaks in urban dialect or in more “polished” speech. What he’s trying to sell is the same steaming pile of garbage that the other GOP knuckleheads are trying to sell. No matter what package garbage is wrapped in, it still stinks.