Obama’s Victory: A Replay of 1960.
Blacks and Hispanics Take a Seat At the Table. The Rehabilitation of Richard
Nixon.
Turnout and Home State Advantage
According to unofficial results, Barack
Obama received 67,981,686 votes to John McCain’s 59,082,002. Turnout surged 6,560,747 (5.36%). Obama got 8,953,605 votes more than Kerry in
2004, while McCain slipped 2,946,199 from Bush’s vote.
[Historical
note: To put things in perspective, Obama’s vote almost equaled the total vote
cast in the 1960 election. The 1960
election produced 68,828,960 votes, 847,247 more than Obama’s total, so
far. It is important to remember that in
1960, blacks were effectively barred from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests
and intimidation in much of the deep South.
Ironically, if they had been allowed to vote, Richard Nixon might have
won the 1960 election. In 1960, the
Republican Party was still the party of Lincoln.]
In
answer to the burning question of whether Sarah Palin’s effect on the campaign,
the results show that she hurt McCain badly.
Delaware, the home state of Joe Biden, Obama’s Vice-Presidential
candidate, had a turnout increase of 37,208 (9.92%). It was the 12th highest turnout
increase in the entire election. Kerry
had carried Delaware handily by 28,492. Obama
bested Kerry by 55,294 while McCain trailed Bush by 19,289. Consequently, Obama carried Delaware by
103,073.
Now,
let’s look at Alaska, the state that knows Sarah Palin best. Alaska’s turnout increased 11,222
(3.59%). That was the 28th
highest. Alaska voted reliably
Republican in 2004, 190,899 for Bush and 111,025 for Kerry. In 2008, McCain received 192,631 only 1,742
more than Bush, while Obama received 122,485 an increase of 11,460 over Kerry. Bad news for Palin. She can be safely discounted as a national
candidate if her effect on a nationwide ticket in her own state was to only
produce 1,742 more votes.
Continuing
the comparison, look at the home states of the presidential candidates. Arizona had the 7th highest
increase in turnout 13.89%. 279,491 more
voters went to the polls. Obama bested
Kerry by 141,180 while McCain ran ahead of Bush by 125,819. But at least Alaska and Arizona were two of
the fourteen states where McCain ran ahead of Bush, even though he carried the
states by smaller margins.
In Obama’s home states of Hawaii,
Illinois and Kansas, the story is different.
Hawaii, Illinois and Kansas had turnout increases of 5.72%, 1.83% and
1.57%; ranking them 22nd, 35th and 39th. Hawaii and Kansas, predominantly non-black
states, had increases of 24,555 and 18,621 voters respectively. Obama ran ahead of Kerry by 94,163 in Hawaii
and 64,986 in Kansas, even though he lost the latter. McCain trailed Bush by 73,625 in Hawaii and
50,915 in Kansas. That’s the effect of a
homeboy on the ticket. In Illinois,
although only 96,772 more voters cast ballots, Obama got 427,687 more votes
than Kerry, even though Kerry carried the state, and McCain’s vote fell 364,788
compared to Bush, a veritable blowout.
And
that’s why Obama carried Ohio. Ohio’s
turnout fell by 3.1% (-174,681) after soaring by over 900,000 four years
earlier when it gave the 2004 election to Bush.
Obama received 43,177 more votes than Kerry. Kerry still would have lost Ohio if he had
received Obama’s vote. But McCain’s vote
fell 277,594 compared to Bush, and that was enough to put Ohio in Obama’s
electoral column.
Turnout
Surges In the South Just Like 1960
Turnout rose the most in North Carolina, 23.13%
(809,616); followed by Georgia, 18.97% (625,634); South Carolina 18.75%
(303,279); Nevada 17.19% (141,949); Virginia 16.41% (524,893); Washington, D.C.
15.74% (35,823); Arizona 13.91% (279,491); Indiana 11.47% (282,974); Alabama
11.10% (209,131); and Florida 10.26% (780,935).
These are the top ten, account for 3,993,725 or 60.87% of the 6,560,747
increase in voter turnout compared to 2004.
When Obama was saying, “Yes we can.” What was he talking about? He was talking about voting. Yes we can vote.
This
election redressed the two centuries of slavery and discrimination against
black people. People of color turned out
in unprecedented numbers and voted for Obama by lopsided majorities. In 1960, race was also a big issue in the
South. In 1960, an unpledged slate of
electors won in Mississippi and subsequently voted for arch segregationist
Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. Byrd won all
8 Mississippi electors; 6 of Alabama’s 11 electors, a state Kennedy carried by
the substantial margin 318,303 to Nixon’s 236,110. And one of Nixon’s electors in Oklahoma also
voted for Byrd. The strategy of the
segregationists was to siphon enough votes to prevent either Kennedy or Nixon
from attaining the 269 electoral votes needed for victory (the District of
Columbia with its majority black population was completely disenfranchised in
1960, it did not have any electoral votes), thereby throwing the election into
the House of Representative where the segregationists, through their control of
southern House delegations, would be stronger.
In 1960, the south turned out to keep
the election in the hands of the voters and out of the hands of Congress. Even so, the 1960 election shows that
everyone knew that civil rights was going to be on the agenda regardless of who
won the 1960 election, and in the end, both did, Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968. The civil rights bills, the Voting Rights Act
and the Public Accommodations Act passed by Lyndon Johnson in the wake of
Kennedy’s assassination were the instruments designed to give the blacks the
power to overturn centuries of discrimination and slavery. They worked.
The Rehabilitation of Richard Nixon
The 2008 election
was also good news for Nixon, the loser in 1960. Nixon mistakenly believed that the 1960
election had been stolen from him in Illinois, of all places. It wasn’t.
In fact, the race in Hawaii was closer than in Illinois. Hawaii’s electoral votes were certified for
Nixon, but in a recount after the Electoral College ballots had been mailed to
Washington, it turned out that Kennedy had carried the state by 115 votes out
of 184,705. Nixon, as Vice-President,
presided over the Senate and the counting of the ballots in the 1960
election. To his everlasting credit, he
counted the electors for Kennedy, who won the race in Hawaii, and did not
resort to the legalistic legerdemain, as Bush and Gore did in 2000, to defeat
the will of the voters.
The reason this
election was good for Nixon is because Obama defeated all the people who drove
him from office. After Nixon was forced
to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which was really a coup d’etat
engineered by the deputy director of the FBI, W. Mark Felt, who leaked
investigatory information to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington
Post, Gerald Ford became president and promoted George H.W. Bush (who did not
stand behind Nixon), Donald Rumsfeld (who became Secretary of Defense) and Dick
Cheney (who became Chief of Staff.)
Obama also defeated Hillary Rodham, who
was an attorney over at the House Watergate Committee, prior to her marriage to
Bill Clinton.
Furthermore, the major reform to
emerge from Congress in the wake of Watergate and Nixon’s impeachment was the
Federal Election Campaign Act which provided for restrictions on campaign
contributions, spending limits and matching funds (for Democratic and
Republican, not independent candidates.)
By not participating in the public financing provisions of the act and
then winning the election by a large margin, Obama has destroyed the Federal
Election Campaign Act. The Federal
Election Campaign Act is blatantly discriminatory against independent
candidates and was unsuccessfully challenged by Eugene McCarthy and William
Buckley before the United States Supreme Court.
Obama is, in fact, an independent, who has used his black power base to
take over the Democratic Party and in the process destroyed an important piece
of the two party fix that emerged from the removal of Nixon from office.
McCain’s Tragic Error with the Blacks
Although historical hindsight always
has the appearance of inevitability, there was nothing inevitable about Obama’s
historic victory. Certain routine
questions recur in every culture, “Do you think they will ever land a man on
the moon?” “Do you think there will ever be a black president?” “A woman
president?” “A gay president?” When
these questions have been asked over and over, it is always portents big
changes when an event occurs to answer that question.
McCain made plenty of mistakes in his life and his
campaign. Choosing Sarah Palin instead
of Mitt Romney as his Vice-Presidential running mate is probably the biggest
error in the campaign. Having an
uncontrollable temper illustrated by calling the questioner in New Hampshire
who inquired about his age, “a little jerk.”
No, McCain’s age was a legitimate concern. People who ask about it are not jerks. Being
a shoot from the hip guy. But none of
these are fatal errors.
McCain’s tragic error was not understanding the depth of the nation’s
revulsion to the way he was maligned by George W. Bush’s campaign in the South
Carolina primary in 2000. That was one
of the major reasons that Bush lost in 2000.
Then, when Bush and Gore decided to steal the election from the American
voters and change the Constitution by resolving the disputed Florida election
in the courts instead of following the constitutional path through the
Electoral College and Congress, there was a group of black House members who
needed only one Senator to stand up and challenge the Electoral vote count in
the Senate in order to move the process into Congress.
Because Carol Mosley-Braun
lost her re-election bid in 1998, there were no blacks in the United States
Senate in 2000. There have only been
five in U.S. history. Two from
Mississippi during Reconstruction.
Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts who served two terms from 1967 to
1979, Carol Mosley Braun of Illinois who served one term from 1993 to 1999, and
Barack Obama who has just resigned after less than four years of his first term
after being elected President of the United States.
That was John McCain’s moment to stand up, to be the
maverick and the hero he always wanted to be, to stand up for the American
people, to have supported the black members of the House in challenging the
electoral vote from Florida in 2000.
Then, whether Bush ultimately prevailed or not, McCain could have come
back and won in 2004 against either Bush or Gore. No, John McCain was no maverick. He was a maverick Republican. He is a decent man who, perhaps, could have
won the 2008 election, but not without reigniting the race wars. Then he would have been president of a
divided nation facing an overwhelmingly Democratic and hostile Congress.
John McCain is too decent a human being to want to be
president at the expense of destroying his country. And for that alone, history will treat his loss
to Barack Obama more kindly than it will treat the two inherited terms of
George W. Bush and its legacy of external attack, two wars and the worst
economic crisis in eighty years. Let the
stolen election of 2000 be a lesson to anyone who thinks they can outsmart 100
million voters.
The
voters can be very subtle. They gave
McCain a consolation prize. His vote
total of 59,082,002 is bigger than Kerry’s 59, 028,081 by a meager 53,921,
(0.043%). That still makes McCain the
third highest vote getter in history.
|
Obama |
|
McCain |
Bush |
|
Nader 04 |
|
|
|
|
2008 Turnout |
|
Increase |
Obama increase |
McCain |
||||||||||
811,764 |
693,933 |
1,264,879 |
1,176,394 |
6,616 |
6,701 |
4,984 |
4,303 |
0 |
|
2,092,546 |
1,883,415 |
209,131 |
11.10% |
117,831 |
88,485 |
||||||||||
122,485 |
111,025 |
192,631 |
190,889 |
3,757 |
5,069 |
1,575 |
1,652 |
0 |
1,720 |
323,820 |
312,598 |
11,222 |
3.59% |
11,460 |
1,742 |
||||||||||
1,034,704 |
893,524 |
1,230,110 |
1,104,294 |
11,301 |
2,773 |
12,555 |
0 |
3,406 |
|
2,292,076 |
2,012,585 |
279,491 |
13.89% |
141,180 |
125,816 |
||||||||||
418,049 |
469,953 |
632,672 |
572,898 |
12,808 |
6,171 |
4,707 |
4,000 |
3,433 |
1,089 |
1,076,758 |
1,054,945 |
21,813 |
2.07% |
-51,904 |
59,774 |
||||||||||
7,818,249 |
6,745,485 |
4,720,544 |
5,509,826 |
101,566 |
20,714 |
63,752 |
0 |
36,097 |
38,062 |
12,778,270 |
12,421,353 |
356,917 |
2.87% |
1,072,764 |
-789,282 |
||||||||||
1,216,793 |
1,001,732 |
1,020,135 |
1,101,255 |
12,542 |
12,718 |
10,264 |
5,872 |
2,573 |
5,545 |
2,273,724 |
2,129,630 |
144,094 |
6.77% |
215,061 |
-81,120 |
||||||||||
1,000,994 |
857,488 |
628,873 |
693,826 |
18,410 |
12,969 |
|
199 |
49 |
35 |
1,648,560 |
1,578,769 |
69,791 |
4.42% |
143,506 |
-64,953 |
||||||||||
255,446 |
200,152 |
152,373 |
171,660 |
2,401 |
2,153 |
1,109 |
626 |
385 |
58 |
412,398 |
375,190 |
37,208 |
9.92% |
55,294 |
-19,287 |
||||||||||
243,531 |
202,970 |
17,204 |
21,256 |
955 |
1485 |
|
|
584 |
1,135 |
263,409 |
227,586 |
35,823 |
15.74% |
40,561 |
-4,052 |
||||||||||
4,282,074 |
3,583,544 |
4,045,624 |
3,964,522 |
28,124 |
32,971 |
17,218 |
7,915 |
2,887 |
6,903 |
8,390,745 |
7,609,810 |
780,935 |
10.26% |
698,530 |
81,102 |
||||||||||
1,844,137 |
1,366,155 |
2,048,744 |
1,914,256 |
1,123 |
0 |
28,812 |
1,305 |
249 |
62 |
3,924,432 |
3,298,798 |
625,634 |
18.97% |
477,982 |
134,488 |
||||||||||
325,871 |
231,708 |
120,566 |
194,191 |
3,825 |
0 |
1,314 |
1,013 |
979 |
|
453,568 |
429,013 |
24,555 |
5.72% |
94,163 |
-73,625 |
||||||||||
236,440 |
181,098 |
403,012 |
409,235 |
7,175 |
1,115 |
4,747 |
3,658 |
|
|
655,032 |
598,376 |
56,656 |
9.47% |
55,342 |
-6,223 |
||||||||||
3,319,237 |
2,891,550 |
1,981,158 |
2,345,946 |
30,517 |
3,471 |
19,122 |
8,135 |
11,690 |
1,236 |
5,371,095 |
5,274,323 |
96,772 |
1.83% |
427,687 |
-364,788 |
||||||||||
1,374,027 |
969,011 |
1,345,637 |
1,479,438 |
898 |
1328 |
29,257 |
980 |
87 |
90 |
2,750,976 |
2,468,002 |
282,974 |
11.47% |
405,016 |
-133,801 |
||||||||||
827,648 |
741,898 |
680,810 |
751,957 |
7,993 |
5,973 |
4,587 |
4,434 |
1,419 |
7,290 |
1,534,181 |
1,506,908 |
27,273 |
1.81% |
85,750 |
-71,147 |
||||||||||
499,979 |
434,993 |
685,541 |
736,456 |
10,242 |
9,348 |
6,564 |
4,051 |
|
|
1,206,377 |
1,187,756 |
18,621 |
1.57% |
64,986 |
-50,915 |
||||||||||
751,707 |
712,733 |
1,048,113 |
1,069,439 |
15,372 |
8,856 |
5,986 |
4,670 |
|
|
1,825,848 |
1,795,860 |
29,988 |
1.67% |
38,974 |
-21,326 |
||||||||||
782,989 |
820,299 |
1,148,275 |
1,102,169 |
6,997 |
7,032 |
|
2,581 |
9,187 |
10,732 |
1,960,761 |
1,943,106 |
17,655 |
0.91% |
-37,310 |
46,106 |
||||||||||
421,497 |
396,842 |
296,215 |
330,201 |
10,763 |
8,069 |
9,903 |
|
2,874 |
|
741,252 |
740,752 |
500 |
0.07% |
24,655 |
-33,986 |
||||||||||
1,628,995 |
1,334,493 |
959,694 |
1,024,703 |
14,710 |
11,854 |
9,839 |
3,759 |
4,745 |
|
2,621,742 |
2,380,606 |
241,136 |
10.13% |
294,502 |
-65,009 |
||||||||||
1,891,083 |
1,803,800 |
1,104,284 |
1,071,109 |
28,520 |
4,806 |
12,999 |
5,023 |
6,528 |
|
3,048,437 |
2,912,388 |
136,049 |
4.67% |
87,283 |
33,175 |
||||||||||
2,875,308 |
2,479,166 |
2,050,655 |
2,313,736 |
33,126 |
24,037 |
23,740 |
14,759 |
8,662 |
|
5,006,250 |
4,839,227 |
167,023 |
3.45% |
396,142 |
-263,081 |
||||||||||
1,573,354 |
1,445,014 |
1,275,409 |
1,346,695 |
30,152 |
18,683 |
9,174 |
6,787 |
5,174 |
10,319 |
2,910,369 |
2,828,387 |
81,982 |
2.90% |
128,340 |
-71,286 |
||||||||||
520,864 |
457,766 |
687,266 |
672,660 |
3,727 |
3,175 |
2,425 |
2,447 |
1,086 |
470 |
1,218,285 |
1,139,824 |
78,461 |
6.88% |
63,098 |
14,606 |
||||||||||
Missouri[94] |
1,441,910 |
1,259,171 |
1,445,812 |
1,455,713 |
17,813 |
0 |
11,386 |
8,201 |
822 |
|
2,925,944 |
2,731,364 |
Missouri[94] |
194,580 |
7.12% |
182,739 |
-9,901 |
||||||||
229,725 |
173,710 |
241,846 |
266,063 |
3,649 |
6,168 |
1,341 |
|
|
10,499 |
487,060 |
450,355 |
36,705 |
8.15% |
56,015 |
-24,217 |
||||||||||
Nebraska[95] |
329,132 |
254,328 |
448,801 |
512,814 |
5,306 |
5,698 |
2,684 |
2,927 |
1,002 |
|
789,852 |
778,104 |
Nebraska[95] |
11,748 |
1.51% |
74,804 |
-64,013 |
||||||||
118,588 |
|
146,140 |
|
1,934 |
|
906 |
1,023 |
392 |
|
268,983 |
|
|
|||||||||||||
134,168 |
|
132,908 |
|
1,502 |
|
533 |
560 |
292 |
270,059 |
|
|
||||||||||||||
71,867 |
|
167,212 |
|
1,789 |
|
789 |
1,335 |
305 |
|
243,297 |
|
|
|||||||||||||
533,736 |
397,190 |
412,827 |
418,690 |
6,150 |
4,838 |
4,263 |
3,194 |
1,411 |
6,267 |
967,848 |
825,899 |
141,949 |
17.19% |
136,546 |
-5,863 |
||||||||||
384,826 |
340,511 |
316,534 |
331,237 |
3,503 |
4,479 |
2,217 |
|
|
531 |
707,611 |
677,768 |
29,843 |
4.40% |
44,315 |
-14,703 |
||||||||||
2,085,051 |
1,911,430 |
1,545,495 |
1,670,003 |
20,336 |
19,418 |
8,044 |
4,732 |
3,941 |
2,299 |
3,669,898 |
3,611,691 |
58,207 |
1.61% |
173,621 |
-124,508 |
||||||||||
472,211 |
370,942 |
346,824 |
376,930 |
5,327 |
4,053 |
2,428 |
1,597 |
1,551 |
|
829,938 |
756,204 |
73,734 |
9.75% |
101,269 |
-30,106 |
||||||||||
4,363,386 |
4,314,280 |
2,576,360 |
2,962,567 |
38,048 |
99,873 |
22,292 |
|
12,031 |
8,001 |
7,020,118 |
7,391,249 |
-371,131 |
-5.02% |
49,106 |
-386,207 |
||||||||||
2,142,569 |
1,525,849 |
2,128,390 |
1,961,166 |
|
1,805 |
25,722 |
|
|
13,942 |
4,310,623 |
3,501,007 |
809,616 |
23.13% |
616,720 |
167,224 |
||||||||||
141,278 |
111,052 |
168,601 |
196,651 |
4,189 |
3,756 |
1,354 |
1,199 |
|
|
316,621 |
312,833 |
3,788 |
1.21% |
30,226 |
-28,050 |
||||||||||
2,784,344 |
2,741,167 |
2,582,174 |
2,859,768 |
40,696 |
0 |
19,094 |
12,105 |
8,128 |
6,686 |
5,453,227 |
5,627,908 |
-174,681 |
-3.10% |
43,177 |
-277,594 |
||||||||||
502,496 |
503,966 |
960,165 |
959,792 |
|
0 |
|
|
|
|
1,462,661 |
1,463,758 |
-1,097 |
-0.07% |
-1,470 |
373 |
||||||||||
1,036,856 |
943,163 |
738,136 |
866,831 |
18,606 |
0 |
7,631 |
7,692 |
4,537 |
13,270 |
1,826,728 |
1,836,782 |
-10,054 |
-0.55% |
93,693 |
-128,695 |
||||||||||
3,234,949 |
2,938,095 |
2,634,115 |
2,793,847 |
42,684 |
0 |
19,739 |
|
|
|
5,931,487 |
5,765,764 |
165,723 |
2.87% |
296,854 |
-159,732 |
||||||||||
296,571 |
259,760 |
165,391 |
169,046 |
4,829 |
4,651 |
1,382 |
675 |
797 |
122 |
469,767 |
437,134 |
32,633 |
7.47% |
36,811 |
-3,655 |
||||||||||
862,449 |
661,699 |
1,034,896 |
937,934 |
5,053 |
5,520 |
7,283 |
6,827 |
4,461 |
|
1,920,969 |
1,617,690 |
303,279 |
18.75% |
200,750 |
96,962 |
||||||||||
170,886 |
149,225 |
203,019 |
232,544 |
4,267 |
4,317 |
1,835 |
1,895 |
|
|
381,902 |
388,156 |
-6,254 |
-1.61% |
21,661 |
-29,525 |
||||||||||
1,085,720 |
1,036,477 |
1,477,405 |
1,384,375 |
11,882 |
8,992 |
8,540 |
8,182 |
2,498 |
2,336 |
2,596,563 |
2,437,319 |
159,244 |
6.53% |
49,243 |
93,030 |
||||||||||
3,528,633 |
2,832,704 |
4,479,328 |
4,526,917 |
5,214 |
9,159 |
56,116 |
5,052 |
671 |
2781 |
8,077,795 |
7,410,756 |
667,039 |
9.00% |
695,929 |
-47,589 |
||||||||||
307,016 |
241,199 |
571,115 |
663,742 |
7,826 |
11,305 |
6,628 |
11,435 |
925 |
251 |
905,196 |
927,844 |
-22,648 |
-2.44% |
65,817 |
-92,627 |
||||||||||
219,262 |
184,067 |
98,974 |
121,180 |
3,339 |
4,494 |
1,067 |
500 |
|
1,904 |
325,046 |
312,309 |
12,737 |
4.08% |
35,195 |
-22,206 |
||||||||||
1,959,532 |
1,454,742 |
1,725,005 |
1,716,959 |
11,483 |
0 |
11,067 |
7,474 |
2,344 |
6,355 |
3,723,260 |
3,198,367 |
524,893 |
16.41% |
504,790 |
8,046 |
||||||||||
1,736,308 |
1,510,201 |
1,222,304 |
1,304,894 |
29,298 |
23,283 |
12,632 |
9,364 |
3,782 |
1,324 |
3,015,012 |
2,859,084 |
155,928 |
5.45% |
226,107 |
-82,590 |
||||||||||
302,273 |
326,541 |
394,922 |
423,778 |
7,182 |
4,063 |
|
2,454 |
2,356 |
|
709,187 |
755,792 |
-46,605 |
-6.17% |
-24,268 |
-28,856 |
||||||||||
1,670,474 |
1,489,504 |
1,258,181 |
1,478,120 |
17,402 |
16,390 |
8,795 |
5,022 |
4,234 |
1,545 |
2,965,653 |
2,997,007 |
-31,354 |
-1.05% |
180,970 |
-219,939 |
||||||||||
82,868 |
70,776 |
164,958 |
167,629 |
2,525 |
2,741 |
1,594 |
1,192 |
|
1,521 |
254,658 |
243,428 |
11,230 |
4.61% |
12,092 |
-2,671 |
||||||||||
U.S. Total |
67,981,686 |
59,028,081 |
59,082,002 |
62,028,201 |
720,227 |
456,474 |
529,767 |
189,888 |
157,585 |
164,380 |
128,825,535 |
122,264,788 |
U.S. Total |
6,560,747 |
5.37% |
8,953,605 |
-2,946,199 |