Political observer Fred Barnes looks at the Louisiana gubernatorial election and notes that we can see evidence again of racial politics, including the inside-out opposition of black Americans to the election of a dark-skinned candidate who is a conservative.
Why did [Bobby] Jindal lose after leading his Democratic opponent, Kathleen Blanco, in statewide polls in the weeks before the election? In a word, race. What occurred was the "Wilder effect," named after the black Virginia governor elected in 1989. Wilder, a Democrat, polled well, then won narrowly. Many white voters, it turned out, said they intended to vote for a black candidate when they really didn't. Questioned by pollsters, they were leery of being seen as racially prejudiced.Jindal's advisers worried that he might lose the "Bubba vote," rural whites unwilling to vote for a black candidate or even a dark-skinned Indian-American. The Jindal camp's fears were realized. A Republican normally needs two-thirds of the white vote to win in Louisiana to compensate for losing nearly all of the black vote. But Jindal got only 60 percent of whites, according to an analysis by GCR & Associates Inc., a political consulting firm.
Jindal, whose parents moved to Baton Rouge from India shortly before he was born, won 70 percent of the white vote in the New Orleans area. But outside that urban hub in the more rural and poorer parts of the state, only 48 percent of whites voted for Jindal, according to the GCR analysis.
Not only was the Jindal campaign afffected by black-white politics, fanned by many political operatives, this particular contest included recidivist South Asian rivalry as well.
Republican Bobby Jindal's campaign to become the first Indian-American governor in American history has touched a nerve with some Pakistani-Americans, who are lining up to support Democrat Kathleen Blanco of Lafayette in Saturday's runoff.The support culminated during an Oct. 21 fund-raiser for Blanco in Lake Charles sponsored by the Pakistani-American Business Association of Louisiana, which gave Blanco $50,000 for her campaign.
One attendee said Jindal's Indian heritage has some Pakistanis worried, given the decades of animosity between India and Pakistan.
"I think it's a kind of unforeseen fear that if Bobby Jindal gets elected he might push things that are against the Pakistani interest," said Ashraf Abbasi of Port Arthur, Texas, president of the Pakistani-American Congress, an umbrella organization for Pakistani-American groups.
via the Shreveport Times
Our melting pot is more like a cauldron sometimes.
Posted by Alan at November 18, 2003 06:34 AM