White Flight From The Democrats

Ron Brownstein, writing in National Journal has a profoundly interesting, detailed, and, for Democrats, ominous piece about exit polling numbers illustrating that Democrats are at a historical nadir among white votes. In the column, we get a number of explanations for why white voters have rejected Democrats.

Dick Wadhams, the head of the Colorado GOP, says that white voters reject Obama's view of government. "The voters who went with Obama in 2008 did not know what they were going to get with that vote. Now that they’ve seen the health care bill, the stimulus bill, the bailout, the cap-and-trade proposal—issue after issue, they don’t like what they see." Democratic pollster Mark Mellman echoes this type of argument, saying, "People felt government did a lot of big things that were inappropriate. They felt government took care of the big guys—and not me." Presidential advisor David Axelrod says that these are the voters who have born the brunt of the recession, so its understandable that they have moved away from Democrat. Jeff Bell, a conservative strategist argues that these voters have become part of a larger, permanent conservative coalition.

So, what's missing from this analysis? Well, in the over 4000 words of the column, the following words do not appear together "first," "black," and "president." In an article about white flight from the Democratic party.

To be clear, Brownstein has written an insightful piece that I recommend. But it does illustrate a fundamental failure of the dialogue in our political culture - that even in an article about racial voting patterns, race is a secondary issue.