Whites with No College - Interesting Stats on Black or Woman President

[RamboLiberal]

While overall discomfort with an African-American president is much lower, it rises among less-educated whites - the same group that's been a challenge for Obama in the Democratic primaries. Among whites who haven't gone through college, 17 percent say they'd be at least somewhat uncomfortable with a black president; that compares with just 4 percent of white college graduates. Clinton may face a similar problem, however; less-educated whites also are more apt to be uncomfortable with a woman president (21 percent, vs. 7 percent of white college graduates).

39% of Americans said they'd be uncomfortable with president who enters office at age 72, as McCain would, whereas only 16% think same about a female president and only 12% say so about a black president.

I don't think there's any question that questions like this yield a substantial amount of self-censoring among respondents. Social Scientists have a reassuringly unwieldy term for this -- which escapes me at the moment. But basically, many people won't say they'd be uncomfortable with a black president because they know they're not supposed to think like that, even if they do. On the contrary, there's no comparable social stigma associated with thinking that about someone past retirement age.

Still, even with that factored in, that's a very big gap -- and a big slice of the electorate for whom McCain's age is a big issue. No doubt that's why we're hearing a lot of references from Dems about honoring McCain's many decades of service to America.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

So maybe Hillary's argument holds no water!

[dana_b]

1. yeah, we might hear a lot more about ageism in this campaign.

They've already accused Obama of it so I'm sure it will be used again.

[Ice-9]

2. "Clinton may face a similar problem . . . .

. . . . less-educated whites also are more apt to be uncomfortable with a woman president."

I'm surprised there hasn't been more media scrutiny of this question. All we ever hear about are supporters of Senator Clinton who won't vote for Senator Obama if he's the nominee. Why don't any of these pollsters ask the obvious follow-up question: "Well, if Senator Clinton were the nominee, would you vote for her?" I'll bet you'd find that a lot of the same people who would vote for Clinton over Obama in a Clinton-Obama contest would vote for McCain over Clinton in a McCain-Clinton contest. Particularly in a state like West Virginia, a lot of Clinton's supporters are probably just conservative Democrats. Maybe the only reason they're not voting for Senator McCain is that he's not an option in the Democratic primary. So they vote for the next "best" thing: Senator Clinton.

The Financial Times article posted earlier today adverted (inadvertently) to this phenomenon. The people quoted in that article said that they wouldn't vote for Obama in the primary because they "heard" he's a Muslim or because they want a candidate who's a "full-blooded American." Give me a break. Does anyone really think that retrograde voters like that would choose Clinton over McCain? All McCain has to do is start bragging about all of the "go*ks" he killed in the war and those voters will be creaming their pants for him. (And yes, I realize that the FT article was based solely on anecdotal evidence, but as I said that's all the data we have now because almost no one in the media is asking the obvious question set forth above.)