All this talk of women only liking Clinton because she's a sister and African Americans only supporting Obama because he's a brother is making my head hurt something terrible. There's a kernel of truth in there, of course, but the implication that it's only blacks and women whose votes are influenced by gender and race is really nothing short of idiotic.
Here's the crux of the matter*:
Caucasion is a race. White people's votes are influenced by issues of race all the time. Were it not so, we wouldn't have just one African-American in the senate and Barak Obama would not be trying to become the first black to head a major party's ticket. We have the "Bradley effect," the Southern Strategy, etc., all of which illustrate quite clearly that many white voters are and always have been heavily influenced by identity politics.
Another news flash: male is a gender. Men are influenced by gender issues in making their political choices to no lesser degree than women. If it were not so, there would be no novelty in Clinton's campaign; she wouldn't be vying to become the first woman to head a major party's ticket.
Consider all the blather we've heard about women and blacks in the upcoming South Carolina Dem primary. Earlier in the week, toe-sucking pervert and frequent Fox News analyst Dick Morris warned: "if blacks deliver South Carolina to Obama, everybody will know that they are bloc-voting. That will trigger a massive white backlash against Obama and will drive white voters to Hillary Clinton." So, in Morris' view, blacks are "bloc-voting." But according to a poll released this week by MSNBC and McClatchy Newspapers, 25 percent of SC blacks are supporting Clinton -- about 40 percent less support than she gets nationwide -- while just ten percent of white South Carolina Dems say they'll vote for Obama -- fully 70 percent less than his nationwide support. So, who's "bloc-voting" according to race? Are we supposed to believe that the 90% of South Carolina whites who won't vote for the negro are really just unimpressed with his message of hope? You can, but I'm not buying.
And what about gender? Whites may be "bloc-voting" against Obama, but it's a good bet that white men are not breaking the same way as white women. John Edwards, with 13 percent support across the country, is leading among South Carolina whites with 40 percent in the MSNBC/McClatchy poll -- triple his nationwide numbers. White is a race, male is a gender, but Dick Morris and the rest of the punditocracy seem unperturbed by the possibility that those silly, emotional white guys are casting their votes for Edwards based on nothing more than group identity. That's because, unconsciously at least, most people think of white folks as the default humans, while people of color belong to a "race"; male is the standard model, and only women belong to a gender.
Let's also consider the biological determinism inherent in the conventional wisdom about race and gender. I'm a white guy who's supported Edwards based on the policies he's proposed. But I wouldn't be disappointed to see either Hillary or Obama get the nomination, despite the fact that I consider both to be centrist tinkerers who are very unlikely to bring about the kind of change I want to see. Why am I OK with the idea of my preferred candidate coming up short? Because I think it would be a significant step for the country to have a black man or a woman elected to the nation's highest office. In other words, I'm a white male who is positively influenced by the gender and ethnicity of the two leading Dems -- but people like me don't make it into any of the analyses because the assumption is that identity politics fall along clean lines.
There are other problems with the narrative. First, it ignores how close Clinton and Obama are on the issues. If it weren't for the fact that it's tough to draw meaningful distinctions between the two candidates' proposals -- with a few exceptions -- race and gender wouldn't be so prominent in this primary fight. Clinton and Obama are so similar in their ideology and legislative approach that everyone's looking at something else -- something aside from their positions on the issues -- to determine a favorite. Race and gender are certainly more legitimate reasons to pick a candidate than whether one would like to have a beer with him or her or any of a dozen other brainless criteria that voters use all-too-often to choose "their guy" (or gal).
Secondly, and related to the previous point, it's nonsense to suggest that anyone is basing their decision solely on identity issues. They're just part of the larger mix of criteria that people use to decide whom to support. Don't believe me? Ask Michael Steele. The African American Republican was pummeled among black voters in the 2006 Maryland senate race against the lilly-white Ben Cardin -- Cardin got 74 percent of the black vote, while Steele won a narrow victory among white voters.
I think it's safe to assume that black Democrats in Maryland would have been happy to see an African American representing them in the United States Senate, but when they sat down and looked at their various interests, they rejected the Bush-loving Steele handily. Black South Carolina Democrats would also like to see a black man in the White House, and with so little space separating the candidates' positions, why shouldn't that tip the scales towards Obama? Clinton may be very much like Ben Cardin, but Obama's no Michael Steele.
A friend of mine remarked recently that he thought "Hillary and Barack running for prez have re-stimulated issues surrounding race and gender" in America. Really? Does anyone believe race and gender had faded into the background of American society until this primary fight "re-stimulated" them? Identity politics have been with us forever (and not just us), and it's only new in presidential politics because the norm for over 230 years has been two older white guys facing off for the White House.
* I apologize for writing such a ridiculously obvious post.
Update: As several people have pointed out in the comments, "masculinity" is the gender, and "male" refers to sex. I should have paid more attention in those sociology classes -- thanks for the correction.