At the end of the day, I guess I’m agreeing with him in that regard, although I’d say “near-monopoly” would be overstating it. Then again, I’d be surprised if the conservative share of such people was less than 75%.

Given that white racists tend to be poorly educated, working class schlocks, I’d be frankly be surprised if the conservative share of white racists were that high. I would be more surprised still – floored, even – if it could be shown that the conservative share of all anti-black racists, including Latinos, were anywhere close. Still, just for grits and shins, let’s assume arguendo that your 75% figure is correct, as it doesn’t really affect my point. For Obama’s statement to hold any water, it’s not enough to show that conservative racists outnumber liberal racists, as the two groups do not cancel each other out. To Obama, conservative racists don’t matter; they wouldn’t vote for him even if he were white, and while his race may give them a second reason not to vote for him, it’s not as though they can vote against him twice. OTOH, liberal racists do matter, as they are the ones who Democrats need to win an election. If one-fourth of all racists would vote for Hillary Clinton but would not vote for Obama, that matters. Unless, of course, Obama’s real point was that racists in America (or at least the ones who direct some of their hatred toward blacks) are so rare nowadays that one-fourth of that group constitutes the statistical equivalent of zero. That would be an interesting point, but I don’t think it’s the one he was trying to make.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m agreeing with him in that regard, although I’d say “near-monopoly” would be overstating it. Then again, I’d be surprised if the conservative share of such people was less than 75%. I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that your typical “Southern Partisan” reader is exceptionally unlikely to be a liberal or a Democrat, for example. And the GOP wins with the Southern Strategy for a reason.

Of course, it would help if the GOP would send a strong message to the Trent Lotts and Hayley Barbours and Jesse Helmses of the party, telling them that “we don’t need your kind.” While we’re at it, I’d gladly throw Robert Byrd to the wolves in favor of someone without his racist baggage.

Bottom line is, I took him to mean “the people who wouldn’t vote for me because I’m black probably wouldn’t vote for me for other reasons, either,” and I just don’t think that’s a terribly outrageous statement. Maybe somebody can use their Mad Google Skillz and produce a non-politicized study that proves me wrong. (It would frankly be good news if they did.)

I submit that the reason you’re sticking to the hyper-literalist interpretation is because you have to in order to make the statement look bad.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Go ahead, search my archives for long, angry posts about Obama’s outrageous statement. You’ll find zero entries. Trust me, you’d find PLENTY if I thought he intended the literal meaning of his statement. But that doesn’t change the fact that what he probably meant to say was pretty bad, as well – and your paraphrase doesn’t make it any better. He’s still giving conservatives a near-monopoly on anti-black racists. Nothing short of that makes sense.

Obama tried to make one asshole point (most/all racists are conservatives) and ended up saying something even worse (racists and conservatives are one and the same).

My point is that very few reasonable people would seriously take Obama to mean what you say he said. And come to think of it, I don’t even think his “one asshole point” (as you describe it) was that “most/all racists are conservative.” (Admitting that I, too, mischaracterized this initially.) Ultimately, he was describing a subset of racists, specifically, those who would choose not to vote for him because he’s black. If you changed his statement from “…those are the same voters who wouldn’t probably vote for me because of my politics to just “…those voters probably wouldn’t vote for me …” (which is what he likely meant), I frankly don’t see how that’s a controversial statement.

I submit that the reason you’re sticking to the hyper-literalist interpretation is because you have to in order to make the statement look bad.

Actually, when JFK said “Ich bin ein Berliner,” translated literally, he was saying “I am a pastry.” (Some translate it as “I am a jelly donut.”) The correct way to say it would have been simply “Ich bin Berliner,” but everybody knew exactly what he meant.

Actually, a better example would be GWB: “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” Sure, we liberals had a lot of fun at the president’s expense on that one, but I’m not aware of any of us suggesting that this is really what the president meant. And that’s a much more egregious semantic gaffe than anything Obama did.

But hey, if the best you can do is to intentionally misrepresent what the guy obviously meant based on a literalist nit, then I guess you should knock yourself out. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

By that rationale, me saying “most Chargers fans are Californians” is the same thing as saying “most Californians are Chargers fans.” Frankly, I think most reasonable observers are going to know exactly what Obama means here, and it’s certainly not the hyperliteralist interpretation you’re positing here. Obama means what you say he means about as much as JFK really meant to tell the people of Germany that “I am a pastry!”

True enough, I suppose my statement is geared more towards white liberals. However, I’d be willing to bet that many of those Black Democrats were more Leftist than Liberal.

Because from his quote, either:

racists are conservative

conservatives are racist

According to his quote, it’s both … and, not either…or. “Those are the same voters” means the two groups, racists and conservatives, are one and the same, not that one group subsumes the other (which also isn’t true).

Some racists may be economic socialists, but they aren’t multi-culturalists…which nearly all liberal Democrats endorse on some level. Racists could be Leftists, but not liberals. Barack Obama is a liberal.

What really bugs me about this is that you’re twisting Obama’s statement to almost exactly the opposite of his intended meaning. He’s not making race an issue — he’s dismissing race as an issue, by saying that of those who are likely to vote against him because of his race, almost certainly wouldn’t vote for him anyway because of his stances on other issues. This doesn’t mean that people who wouldn’t vote for him are all racists; just that racists wouldn’t vote for him anyway, and therefore they are largely irrelevant (along with the whole race issue).

Sheesh. And you call us hypersensistive about race.

racists are conservative

conservatives are racist