http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/09/26/african-americans_embrace_chris_christie_120093.html#ixzz2g6ajD3iM
I’ve said before that it would be impossible for Republicans to ever successfully court the black vote due to African-Americans being attached to the Democratic brand. but apparently Christie has cracked the code. Granted, 30% isn’t “winning” by a long shot, but if Republicans won 30% of the black vote nationally, it’s hard to see a Democratic path to victory. Sometimes it’s really awesome to be wrong.
So what has Christie done to accomplish that, and how can national Republicans pull off the same feat?
That’s 30% of black people in New Jersey. Christie generated enormous good will (and deservedly so) for his handling of the hurricane. I very much doubt you’d see this sort of support among African Americans nationwide. Hell, I doubt he’d be able to hold onto that many of them once his presidential campaign gets underway, and he has to start selling policy to the national Republican base. Right now, he’s the governor who fought like hell to help rebuild their state. How happy are they going to be when he’s the guy campaigning on destroying policies that have wide support among African Americans?
As for my statement, I’d be interested in knowing why. Aren’t there any groups that Democrats regard as unwinnable? Is it wrong to believe that a particular group is unwinnable?
Arnold got 27% of the black vote in California in 2006. Maybe this is just the norm for popular Republican incumbent governors in nationally blue states (PRIGNBS’s).
ETA: Tim Pawlenty got 23% in Minnesota, and Donald Carcieri (Rhode Island) got 26%. Neither of them were even especially popular; Pawlenty won with a bare plurality and Carcieri won by 2% overall.
“Brand”?? Do Republicans like you really view voters as so simple-minded. Brands??
Maybe you choose politicians the way consumers choose soft drinks, but is it really so hard to grasp that voters – even black ones – might care about issues?
Sheeesh. Take your ignorance to the Pit.
ETA: Let me guess. Instead of helping GOP policies become more sane, you want to package Christie’s personality somehow and have him dazzle black voters nationwide the way Coke commercials work.
Chistie has a distinctly Jersey personality and it’s always puzzled me that he’s been as popular as he seems to be outside of the state in much the same way that I can’t understand the popularity of the animated show Bob’s Burgers - which reminds me too much of the people in NJ.
Don’t get me wrong though. There are a lot of things I love about the state, but I’ve always seen the people as being very much an acquired taste, for the most part anyway and I think Christie definitely falls into that category.
You’re reading too much into what I said. African-American voters have been voting democrat for a long time, and started giving solid majorities to Democrats long before Democrats stopped being the racist party.
Now I could be wrong about it primarily being an issue of brand loyalty, and I said as much in my OP. Thus my question of how Christie is managing to do what I thought impossible.
So, are you here to fight ignorance, or just lash out at the ignorant? Because I think I asked a reasonable question.
Maybe more Republicans should emulate candidates like Christie, Schwarzenegger, Pawlenty, Carcieri, and Bloomberg (another Republican who’s attracted significant black support). These candidates demonstrate there’s nothing fixed about black voters - they’ll vote for Republicans if the party gives them good candidates.
So there’s no trick involved, adaher. Stop trying to figure out what’s wrong with the voters and start trying to figure out what’s wrong with your candidates.
Part of it is likely is genuine concern for helping his state’s residents after a natural disaster. Part of it, in my opinion, is that he was willing to work with Mr. Obama after Sandy, gave him credit for it, and treated him like the president and not as an uppity black usurper.
Want to get more favorable ratings among black voters? Then stop trying to suppress black votes. Stop acting like all government programs take money from middle class whites and give it to black welfare queens. Stop having conventions that look like a swimming pool filled with vanilla wafers with a handful of oreos tossed in. Disavow the racist teahadists. Stop with the reflexive opposition to every single thing that Obama says. Stop with the reverse Robin Hood economic theory. Put the dog whistles away. You know how Republicans always are? Stop being that way.
As has been noted before, black voters gave significant support (though not usually majorities) to the Republicans until the Southern Strategy. After the Southern Strategy, Republicans rarely got more than 10-15% of the black vote nationally.
FWIW I think there is nothing wrong with thinking in terms of “brand” and “market segments.” Thing is that “Black” is just not the most useful demographic for market segment analysis for this issue. Or more precisely it is how that label correlates with other ways to divide the market that answers the question.
The GOP has increasingly become the brand of rural America. The Democratic brand is preferred by urban America. Suburbs and Exurbs are split but the more entrenched the GOP gets in pandering to the rural voters the more they lose the suburbs and even some exurbs. With that in mind look at this link. Blacks were in 2009 about 8.7% of the population of all rural districts, pretty flat over the decade, while 14.9% of urban ones (which was an increasing number). Within the rural landscape Black population was specifically decreasing in the South.
Christie is able to appeal to urban and suburban voters. Blacks tend to be urban and suburban voters.
Christie does not particularly appeal to rural voters. The GOP brand does. If he somehow manages to get past that and become the GOP nominee for President then the issue whether he can overcome the current GOP brand identification and appeal to urban voters without losing the rural ones. To the degree he does that he will likely attract Black urban voters.
Also, in the present political environment, few Republican politicians show a bare and reasonable amount of respect for the first black President as a person. Christie is one of these few, most notably in the time following hurricane Sandy. If a Republican wants to appeal to more black people, any statements of his or her deriding Barack Obama’s heritage, patriotism, “american-ness”, etc., are probably a deal breaker for getting more than the normal <10%.
It’s also a deal breaker for many white voters. I know that I’ll never vote for someone who has expressed doubts about Obama’s birthplace, patriotism, heritage, religion, etc.
He’s popular overall in New Jersey and his opponent seems pretty weak, which probably helps. And I’ve heard a lot of people say Christie gets points because he offers Obama a basic level of respect. Almost every other national Republican isn’t just opposed to Obama’s policies, which Christie also is on most issues, they’re reflexively dismissive of him and challenge his legitimacy and his right to be president on a regular basis. I don’t know if there’s data to back it up, but it makes sense to me.
He acts more like a Democrat in a lot of ways, so that makes him popular with people who lean that way. How many top Republicans would have given the president any credit after super storm Sandy? Not many.
He is reasonable to deal with, or at least he appears to be. I’m actually not going to be shocked if he switches party affiliation someday.
Go back to the icon of modern conservatism: Ronald Reagan. Reagan really believed that conservatism had something to offer everyone. He wanted every American to join him.
Contemporary conservatism has lost that spirit. It’s now based on the idea of “us” vs “them” - it’s based on telling people they have enemies and they need to join the conservatives to protect themselves from those enemies.
And many black voters feel they’ve been cast as one of those enemies.
Take a closer look and you’ll see he’s a good deal more conservative than you might think. Granted he’s the conservative governor of an East Coast state and not a Deep South state, but he’s not a Democrat. Right now he’s busy with a lawsuit intended to stop a pro-gay marriage State Supreme Court ruling from going into effect.