Friday, January 04, 2008
A brief note on "white" Iowa and the vote for Obama
Everywhere I turned last night, from television to the blogs, people were marveling that a state as "white" as Iowa would vote for a black man, Barack Obama. Is this not a sign of change for the better? Well, it is and whites and blacks should rejoice in it, but it is not surprising that Iowa would do such a thing. In the 1970s, more than 30 years ago, Iowa City's state senator was an African American named Bill Hargrave. In a town with 45,000 residents and fewer than 500 blacks, the voters sent Hargrave to Des Moines because he was a great guy (there's some background on the Hargrave family in this story about one of his coaching sons). Yes, Iowa City is more liberal than most of the rest of the state, but the students do not really vote. Hargrave was elected by the townies, most of whom are as Iowan as the day is long.
The thing to remember about Iowa is that it is socially very flat. A lawyer or a banker is likely to be friends with his barber or plumber -- not just cordial, but actual friends. In Iowa, more than any other place I have lived and possibly more than most places on earth, people really are just people. This is not to say that race is irrelevant, but in Iowa it is more a curiousity than a barrier (and, it should be said, the shortage of blacks means that they cannot form any visible separate community -- both involuntary and voluntary segregation are effectively impossible).
I think the flatness of the social structure, which defines the Hawkeye State, made it possible for Hargrave to serve in the '70s and for Barack Obama to win last night. And it probably hurt Mitt Romney, who looks like a patrician even if the idea of a Mormon patrician from Massachusetts is itself wildly improbable.
15 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Jan 04, 09:01:00 AM:
TH - I completely agree with your assessment of Iowa. I have been blessed with having done a fair amount of business over my career and I can say without any trepidations that I dealt with the most level-headed people who wanted only the right answers.
With that said, I do find it ironic that they have no issue with voting in a black man on one side while the most compelling reason to vote for Huckabee was that he was an Evangelical Christian and that Romney was a Mormon. As much as you try to put a patrician spin on this, if both men were Catholic would this have even been a race at all..? Or would as many evangelicals showed up to vote if that were the case?
Don't get me wrong - as a Catholic I am firmy behind 99+% of what Evangelicals stand for (I cannot even think of what the other 1% would be.) However, I am not going to vote for a person to run the most powerful country in the history of the world just because he is a minister. Mike Huckabee's credentials as a conservative are shakey on about 10 different levels (the least of which are his stances on immigration which I am OK with.)
I am still a fan of G.W. because I love his conviction and his belief that nothing comes easy. I think America was made great because of stealy minds that just stuck it out when things got tough. However, I dont think I could go through another four years of fiscal sloppiness.
By 
Deirdre Mundy, at
Fri Jan 04, 10:18:00 AM:
I think people may be underestimating Huckabee's appeal to non-evangelicals.
I tend to vote on the issues, so Huck's a no-go for me... he'd be a great pro-life Democrat but is too liberal to be a Republican.....
But I know a lot of people who vote on personality. And watching Huck on the Tonight Show, I can definately see why a lot of people like him.
Heck, I know Agnostic Libertarians who are rooting for Huck just because he seems like the most genuine of the candidates.
So I think you might be being unfair to Iowans when you say that huck v. Romney is only about religion. A fair bit of it might be sheer likeability.
That may hold for Obama too-- he comes across as the most likeable of the Democratic frontrunners.
(Also, is it really "voting for a Black Man" when the man in question isn't really campaigning based on his blackness? When someone votes for Jesse Jackson, they're voting for "a Black Man". I haven't seen nearly as many commentators commenting on "Allen Keyes as Black Man"--- though I suppose that COULD be because Keyes is never a major contender........)
By David M, at
Fri Jan 04, 10:55:00 AM:
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/04/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 12:19:00 PM:
I have lived in Iowa all my life. In fact, I am a sixth generation Iowan and I find your comments to be dead on accurate. My father is a 9th grad drop-out who has worked for himself his whole life. I doubt he has ever called anyone “sir” in his entire life. It would never occur to him. He has also never been surly or mean to anyone as far as I know. I remember years ago he owned a small town tavern and he would talk to the banker and the town drunk in the same tone and manner. Prairie populism is real. I had no idea until I worked for a company that sent me often to Japan. There I saw the opposite of Iowa. Japan is a stratified, hierarchical society where status and class means everything. I really like Japan and am not criticizing it, I am just pointing out how being there made me realize how little strata the society I come from has.
Last night Hillary got her ass handed to her because she came to Iowa and seemed overly ambitious and gave the impression she felt an entitlement. Obama talked hope and populism. Likewise, Huckabee made Iowans feel like he is a guy they could know and trust and would not condescend, pander or lecture them. Both Obama and Huckabee are anti-establishment candidates who play well in an Iowa culture. If you come to Iowa and act like a big-shot, you will get shot down.
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 12:29:00 PM:
'Iowa' didn't vote for a black candidate. 38% of the mostly hardcore libs who attend the Democrat caususes did.
I agree with the point that O'Bama not being an obsolete Jackson/Sharpton clone helped alot.
BTW, someone commented on Iowa's 'flat social structure.' I grew up in SW Iowa on the low end of that social structure and it never looked very flat to me (though I guess it's flatter than, say, Chicago).
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jan 04, 12:34:00 PM:
And, Zach, Chicago is much flatter than anywhere in the Boston to Richmond corridor.
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 01:04:00 PM:
How does a post on race and politics not even garner a single comment from the resident race-troll?
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 01:24:00 PM:
'Iowa' didn't vote for a black candidate. 38% of the mostly hardcore libs who attend the Democrat caususes did.
Indeed. And once Obama leaves 95% white Iowa and New Hampshire and heads for more diverse states, he's going to find his race a big negative. Maybe not in the primaries but most certainly in the general. It's not that Americans are racists - it's that they're fed up with hearing about race all the livelong day, and if he says or does anything to make them think he has hang-ups about it, he'll get clobbered.
I hope he wins the primaries, though. He's better than the other two.
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 04:04:00 PM:
Three quick points:
1. I don't think Obama's lack of foreign policy will hurt him -- or us -- in the least.
2. I think his domestic agenda will be -- shall we say -- easier to swallow than Hillary's.
3. And if both of those are true, then how can you NOT make the case that Obama would do more to heal the out-of-control racism and racial accusations in our country better than every other candidate, combined?
If anyone's interested, I make the case here.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jan 04, 04:10:00 PM:
I like Obama personally more than any of the other Democrats (except Joe Biden, with whom I would love to shoot the breeze). So don't get me wrong -- I am with those who would like to have a beer with him, and who believes that he would share that beer.
But he is a paternalistic left wing candidate, do not mistake that, and he is against the sort of confrontational foreign policy that I rather relentlessly advocate on this blog. In that regard, Hillary has two advantages over him. First, I believe that she would not think twice about "pulling the trigger" when duty calls -- I am persuaded that she is not a knee-jerk dove. Second, the Clintons are practical people, which means they can be bargained with. They say they are against "corporate greed," but in fact they are not. That is useful to those of us who believe that corporate greed is all part of what makes America the land of opportunity.
By , at
Fri Jan 04, 05:02:00 PM:
You very nicely summarized Iowa's "flat" social status. It was a tremendous shock when I met an upper-class British man who treated me like a heel after learning that my dad had been an Iowa farmer! All my life I had been proud of him and had no idea being a farmer was something to be ashamed of, at least in some people's view.
However, the "flatness" of race and social standing changes pretty quickly to antagonism if, say, some 20-year-old college student informs her parents, as I did those many years ago, that she was seriously dating a black man. Nothing like that announcement to shake up the flatness.
By Jerry Mills, at
Fri Jan 04, 05:22:00 PM:
Iowa has always been a progressive state regarding race and gender. I believe the U. of Iowa was one of the first state universities to admit both blacks and women and have black players play on the football team.
Many southern blacks, like George Washington Carver (Simpson college, I believe), came north to attend college in Iowa because they could.
Obama can certainly win here in Nov.
By Whiskey, at
Fri Jan 04, 07:36:00 PM:
Tigerhawk -- I think you are exactly wrong.
Iowa's social hierarchy, and the complexity of it, guaranteed both Obama and Huckafool wins.
Obama was selected by wealthy, upper class white voters who are also (unsurprisingly) very liberal. He's the candidate who embodies what certain film critics have called "the Magical Negro" i.e. the black character in films who helps the befuddled white lead character obtain spiritual authority and status achievement. Think Will Smith in Legend of Bagger Vance, or Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, or Morgan Freeman in the Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty films, Cuba Gooding Jr. in Radio, and Michael Clark Duncan in the Green Mile.
Sometimes of course the black character is literally "magical" in some form or another.
Most working and middle class white voters are going to vote against Obama in the privacy of the voting booth. Because they will lose in an Obama Presidency. Obama is committed to more Affirmative Action which punishes or hurts whites while benefiting Blacks and the hordes of illegal aliens who become instantly eligible once they cross the border.
Affirmative Action was only politically tenable in a white society of at least 80%, with margins for "harm" to the majority. Given that in many places like California Whites are less than 50% the lost opportunities are too great: shoved out of government jobs in high cost coastal areas, moved out of unions, foregone educational opportunities in higher education and the like.
These are real costs and explain the success of Prop 209 in California and Michigan's anti-AA law.
You will see more not less "White Identity Politics" and it won't be Klansmen with sheets but it will be fairly obvious calls for class-racial policies that stop real political and economic and cultural harm to a former majority. It will probably be wrapped in "all men are created equal" and not calls for special privileges.
Since "racism" has been debased to the point where the University of Delaware labels all whites racist by nature of their existence, the sting of that term has no meaning.
Huckafool benefited from Evangelicals "taking care of their own" ala Pat Buchanon and Pat Robertson who both won in Iowa. Reagan lost in 1980 btw.
If anything the dual structure of downward-mobility Evangelicals taking their cue from the Mega Churches, and the brie-white wine set moving after the "fashionable/trendy/hip/edgy" Obama would say you TH are absolutely wrong on this.
NH will be a poor predictor. Too many rich urban NYC refugees, and the like. South Carolina is likely a better bet for how people break.
By , at
Sat Jan 05, 11:21:00 PM:
In my experience, throughout my entire life, race has mattered far less than talking heads and political figures say it does/want it to.
By , at
Sun Jan 06, 09:53:00 PM:
I dont trust OBAMMA his name is too much like OSSAMA
