Anger and Disgust at White Male Leadership Fuel Contributions and Polling of Clinton, Obama

Crossposted at the Francis L. Holland blog, in the Afrosphere.

Anger and disgust against white male leadership in America are fueling campaign contributions and poll numbers for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In the first quarter of 2007, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama together raised 51 Million dollars for the presidential campaigns - more than three times as much as their nearest white male competitor. Meanwhile, polls consistently show that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama combined are favored by two-thirds of the Democratic electorate while all of the white men - Edwards, Biden and Gore, Dodd and Kucinich - have the support of only one third of the Democratic electorate. When New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson is included, clearly almost seventy percent of Democrats support candidates who are not white men. (Hat Tip to Zimbel for reminding me to include Richardson, Dodd and Kucinich here.)

Considering the traditional advantages that white men have had in presidential races (at one time, only they were eligible to vote and run for office), now political observers are at a loss for traditional explanations for the dominance of the not-white-male candidates. Why Has John Edwards Raised So Much Less Money Than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

A theory is gaining support among Democrats, supported by polling numbers and campaign contribution tallies, that Americans are simply sick and tired of the leadership that white men have offered. The infant mortality rate is worse in America than in Cuba, and forty nations in the world have less infant mortality than does the United States.

The United States still does not have a program of national health care while every other industrialized nations and many "Third World Countries" not only offer national health care but, consequently, many other countries' citizens are living longer and living better.

Gun Deaths Graphic

Under white male leadership, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world AND still leads the world in gun deaths from murders, suicides and accidents.

The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found. The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000. GunCite.Com

Americans overall are increasingly unwilling to accept that the Constitution's Second Amendment, drafted two centuries ago exclusively by white men, should now condemn all of us to live in a perpetual gun-saturated shooting gallery.

In fact the ever-present absurdity of the Second Amendment in the context of today's America, written by white men who pointedly rejected the wisdom of women and Blacks, casts doubt daily upon the wisdom of the traditional white male dominance of American political life.

In one poll of Americans, "Sixty-one percent said they favored tighter restrictions while 37 percent opposed more stringent regulations." WaPost. But with white male leadership in control of the National Rifle Association, the US Congress and the presidency, the killing continues and the government does nothing about it.

The fight over gun control reflects a battle of the sexes. American women say stricter weapon laws would curb violence while men want better enforcement of existing laws, an Associated Press poll finds . . .

The telephone survey by ICR of Media, Pa., found 56 percent of American adults favored stricter gun laws and 39 percent opposed. Sixty-six percent of women favored the tougher laws, compared with 45 percent of men. Thirty percent of women and 49 percent of men were opposed.

"Women have the mother instinct and don't want guns around," said James Rowe, a 73-year-old semi-retired contractor and gun enthusiast from San Diego. ICRSURVEY

The white male minority who have run America thus far still disproportionately oppose gun control, leading campaigns against the very laws that make the rest of the world safer.

And now, a Supreme Court with a seven-to-two white male majority, (and Clarence Thomas' vote makes eight) has banned even some abortions that could save the life of the mother, with many observers concerned that the Court will ban this reproductive choice entirely. Salon

Traditionally, when Americans became sick and tired of the leadership that one political party offered, they see-sawed from the Democrats to the Republicans and back again, in the hopes that things would change. However, after 43-consecutive white male presidencies and no movement toward national health care, many Americans have abandoned the traditional belief that white male leadership was inevitable or inherently better. In fact, both the polling numbers and the campaign contribution numbers point to a new dynamic: Many Americans have concluded that as long as America is led at the highest levels exclusively by the white male minority of the population, the country will never change for the better.

Traditionally, to support their monopoly of political leadership, white men have insisted that the leadership offered by women and Blacks could make no difference in solving the world's problems, and would be "merely symbolic." With no empirical data to support or refute this theory, even white women and minorities have sometimes accepted this historical brainwashing. Jackie Robinson and the Enduring Importance of "Firsts"

White men have even resorted to sophistic arguments, arguing that a decision not to vote for a white man in 2008 would compel Democrats to vote for a Republican like Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice, even though two non-white male liberal Democratic candidates are running in the Democratic Primary. But, the polls say Democrats are rejecting absurd arguments whose only purpose is to perpetuate the white male supremacy paradigm. F.L.H. Blog What is a "Phallacy"?

Democrats are also analyzing and rejecting the paternalistic idea that the very white male leadership that ruled the country as the nation's poverty became so bad could be the only leadership that can deliver us from the poverty that has persisted through 43 consecutive white male presidencies. Why, Exactly, Will the Election of John Edwards Lead to Less Poverty Among Women and Minorities?

And so, Americans are promising their votes and their dollars to candidates who are not white men, hoping finally to achieve fundamental changes like national health care (Clinton) and an end to partisan gridlock (Obama).

Americans know that white men have led us into every war America has ever fought, but now instead of wanting better and bigger wars many Americans want to give peace a chance.

All the President's White Men

After Vietnam, and Iraq, Panama, Grenada and the Contra War, with white male leadership inextricably linked to war in minds of Democrats, voters want to choose from among the candidates who have never led American into a futile and unnecessary war - the female and Black candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In a country where Blacks were once held as slaves and women were considered little more than the property of their husbands, it has taken a long time for women and Blacks to achieve the political prominence that would make them a viable alternative to white male political dominance.

But now, with the war in Iraq dragging into its fourth year, global warming threatening the very survival of humanity and world poverty promising still more wars and suffering, Americans have concluded that white male leadership just does not have what it takes to lead America and the world out of its malaise. Much to the contrary, Americans have seen that the more they elect white male leaders, the more our young people take bigger and better guns to school, to shoot their classmates and their teachers.

Although polls consistently show that Americans want fundamental changes like national health care, and they want an end to the Iraq war, America always "voted against interest," supporting candidates from the demographic group that least supports national health care and that most supports the war in Iraq statistically - white men.

Americans see health care crisis as international embarrassment, blame white male leadership.

Strategically, some observers advise Clinton and Obama not to specifically ask voters to vote for them because of their demographic difference per se, but rather to emphasize that electing the first president who is not a white male shows the open-mindedness for which Americans want to be known. Other Americans are less willing to soft-peddle their disgust with the status quo. Convincing Democratic Voters to Nominate a Non-White-Male Presidential Candidate

In 2007, Americans are looking at basic, undeniable facts, like America's utterly dysfunctional health care system and the endless war in Iraq, and they are demanding fundamental change. But now, instead of shifting merely from one party to another, they are challenging the very political monopoly of white men that got us into this mess in the first place. They are opposing with their votes and their dollars the very white male supremacy paradigm that guaranteed 43 consecutive white male presidencies. With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leading the white male candidates in the Democratic race by 2 to 1, Americans are saying "Enough of the white male leadership! It's time for fundamental change!"

Narrator:

"Polls show that by a two-to-one majority, Democratic voters prefer to elect Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the candidates who are not white men. Meanwhile, Americans have contributed three times as much money to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as they have to their nearest white male competitor, John Edwards. After 43 consecutive white male presidencies, what's going on? Americans seem to have concluded that white male leadership simply is not capable of bringing the fundamental change that America needs.

Forty nations in the world have lower infant mortality rates than the United States. After 43 consecutive white male presidencies, the United States still does not have a program national health care. With the Vietnam and Iraq Wars universally recognized as failures, Americans are associating both warfulness and war-making incompetence with white male leadership and they are finally demanding fundamental change.

With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leading in the polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, voters are saying, "It's time for change at the national level. It's time to end the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency."