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.

 

 


State  

Obama  

Kerry

McCain  

Bush

Nader  

Nader 04

Barr  

Baldwin  

McKinney  

Others  

2008 Turnout

 2004 Turnout

State  

Increase

Obama increase

McCain

Alabama

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

Alabama

209,131

11.10%

117,831

88,485

Alaska

122,485

111,025

192,631

190,889

3,757

5,069

1,575

1,652

0

1,720

323,820

             312,598

Alaska

11,222

3.59%

11,460

1,742

Arizona

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

Arizona

279,491

13.89%

141,180

125,816

Arkansas

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

Arkansas

21,813

2.07%

-51,904

59,774

California

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

California

356,917

2.87%

1,072,764

-789,282

Colorado

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

Colorado

144,094

6.77%

215,061

-81,120

Connecticut

1,000,994

857,488

628,873

693,826

18,410

12,969

 

199

49

35

1,648,560

         1,578,769

Connecticut

69,791

4.42%

143,506

-64,953

Delaware

255,446

200,152

152,373

171,660

2,401

2,153

1,109

626

385

58

412,398

             375,190

Delaware

37,208

9.92%

55,294

-19,287

District of Columbia

243,531

202,970

17,204

21,256

955

1485

 

 

584

1,135

263,409

             227,586

District of Columbia

35,823

15.74%

40,561

-4,052

Florida

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

Florida

780,935

10.26%

698,530

81,102

Georgia

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

Georgia

625,634

18.97%

477,982

134,488

Hawaii

325,871

231,708

120,566

194,191

3,825

0

1,314

1,013

979

 

453,568

             429,013

Hawaii

24,555

5.72%

94,163

-73,625

Idaho

236,440

181,098

403,012

409,235

7,175

1,115

4,747

3,658

 

 

655,032

             598,376

Idaho

56,656

9.47%

55,342

-6,223

Illinois

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

Illinois

96,772

1.83%

427,687

-364,788

Indiana

1,374,027

969,011

1,345,637

1,479,438

898

1328

29,257

980

87

90

2,750,976

         2,468,002

Indiana

282,974

11.47%

405,016

-133,801

Iowa

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

Iowa

27,273

1.81%

85,750

-71,147

Kansas

499,979

434,993

685,541

736,456

10,242

9,348

6,564

4,051

 

 

1,206,377

         1,187,756

Kansas

18,621

1.57%

64,986

-50,915

Kentucky

751,707

712,733

1,048,113

1,069,439

15,372

8,856

5,986

4,670

 

 

1,825,848

         1,795,860

Kentucky

29,988

1.67%

38,974

-21,326

Louisiana

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

Louisiana

17,655

0.91%

-37,310

46,106

Maine

421,497

396,842

296,215

330,201

10,763

8,069

9,903

 

2,874

 

741,252

             740,752

Maine

500

0.07%

24,655

-33,986

Maryland

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

Maryland

241,136

10.13%

294,502

-65,009

Massachusetts

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

Massachusetts

136,049

4.67%

87,283

33,175

Michigan

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

Michigan

167,023

3.45%

396,142

-263,081

Minnesota

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

Minnesota

81,982

2.90%

128,340

-71,286

Mississippi

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

Mississippi

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

Montana

229,725

173,710

241,846

266,063

3,649

6,168

1,341

 

 

10,499

487,060

             450,355

Montana

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

1st Dist.

118,588

 

146,140

 

1,934

 

906

1,023

392

 

268,983

1st Dist.

 

 

2nd Dist.

134,168

 

132,908

 

1,502

 

533

560

292

96

270,059

2nd Dist.

 

 

3rd Dist.

71,867

 

167,212

 

1,789

 

789

1,335

305

 

243,297

3rd Dist.

 

 

Nevada

533,736

397,190

412,827

418,690

6,150

4,838

4,263

3,194

1,411

6,267

967,848

             825,899

Nevada

141,949

17.19%

136,546

-5,863

New Hampshire

384,826

340,511

316,534

331,237

3,503

4,479

2,217

 

 

531

707,611

             677,768

New Hampshire

29,843

4.40%

44,315

-14,703

New Jersey

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

New Jersey

58,207

1.61%

173,621

-124,508

New Mexico

472,211

370,942

346,824

376,930

5,327

4,053

2,428

1,597

1,551

 

829,938

             756,204

New Mexico

73,734

9.75%

101,269

-30,106

New York

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

New York

-371,131

-5.02%

49,106

-386,207

North Carolina

2,142,569

1,525,849

2,128,390

1,961,166

 

1,805

25,722

 

 

13,942

4,310,623

         3,501,007

North Carolina

809,616

23.13%

616,720

167,224

North Dakota

141,278

111,052

168,601

196,651

4,189

3,756

1,354

1,199

 

 

316,621

             312,833

North Dakota

3,788

1.21%

30,226

-28,050

Ohio

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

Ohio

-174,681

-3.10%

43,177

-277,594

Oklahoma

502,496

503,966

960,165

959,792

 

0

 

 

 

 

1,462,661

         1,463,758

Oklahoma

-1,097

-0.07%

-1,470

373

Oregon

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

Oregon

-10,054

-0.55%

93,693

-128,695

Pennsylvania

3,234,949

2,938,095

2,634,115

2,793,847

42,684

0

19,739

 

 

 

5,931,487

         5,765,764

Pennsylvania

165,723

2.87%

296,854

-159,732

Rhode Island

296,571

259,760

165,391

169,046

4,829

4,651

1,382

675

797

122

469,767

             437,134

Rhode Island

32,633

7.47%

36,811

-3,655

South Carolina

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

South Carolina

303,279

18.75%

200,750

96,962

South Dakota

170,886

149,225

203,019

232,544

4,267

4,317

1,835

1,895

 

 

381,902

             388,156

South Dakota

-6,254

-1.61%

21,661

-29,525

Tennessee

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

Tennessee

159,244

6.53%

49,243

93,030

Texas

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

Texas

667,039

9.00%

695,929

-47,589

Utah

307,016

241,199

571,115

663,742

7,826

11,305

6,628

11,435

925

251

905,196

             927,844

Utah

-22,648

-2.44%

65,817

-92,627

Vermont

219,262

184,067

98,974

121,180

3,339

4,494

1,067

500

 

1,904

325,046

             312,309

Vermont

12,737

4.08%

35,195

-22,206

Virginia

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

Virginia

524,893

16.41%

504,790

8,046

Washington

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

Washington

155,928

5.45%

226,107

-82,590

West Virginia

302,273

326,541

394,922

423,778

7,182

4,063

 

2,454

2,356

 

709,187

             755,792

West Virginia

-46,605

-6.17%

-24,268

-28,856

Wisconsin

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

Wisconsin

-31,354

-1.05%

180,970

-219,939

Wyoming

82,868

70,776

164,958

167,629

2,525

2,741

1,594

1,192

 

1,521

254,658

             243,428

Wyoming

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

 

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Contact: Joshua Leinsdorf