# Will bigots cost Obama the presidency? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2008, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503 "2008-09-21T00:40:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/141 "2008-09-24T04:24:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Any attempt to apply definition #3 is refuted by the fact that blacks have overwhelmingly supported white candidates in the past and because – and this is significant – they initially supported Clinton over Obama. He had to prove himself to them on substance. He did not get their support on skin color alone. I’m not sure how relevant the past is, however. When your choice was an old white guy or an old white guy, didn’t **everyone** who voted support an old white guy? It’s not as though they were supporting white candidates over candidates of other races. If they did initially support Clinton, I managed to miss the data that supports the theory. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/142 "2008-09-24T04:42:29Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Then why would you chastise a woman for voting for Palin? I honestly don’t see the difference. What woman have I chastised for voting for Palin? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/143 "2008-09-24T04:55:09Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I’m not sure how relevant the past is, however. When your choice was an old white guy or an old white guy, didn’t **everyone** who voted support an old white guy? It’s not as though they were supporting white candidates over candidates of other races. They’ve had the option of not voting at all, but in point of fact, there have _have_ occasionally been other black candidates (Jackson, Sharpton, Keyes, Chisholm) and black voters have still chosen the white guy. Skin color alone has not historically been enough. > [@](#): > > If they did initially support Clinton, I managed to miss the data that supports the theory. It’s not a theory, it’s called “polling.” [Hillary polled well ahead of Obama among black voters](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1581666,00.html) for months before the Primaries. The tide only turned after Obama won the Iowa Caucus. Ironically, the meme before the Primaries was that Obama appealed only to white voters but that he wasn’t “black enough” to appeal to black voters. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/144 "2008-09-24T04:56:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > What woman have I chastised for voting for Palin? So you feel that if a female voter has decided to vote for Palin for no other reason than to break the glas ceiling for female politicians, that voter isn’t doing anything in any way “bad” or “wrong” or “illegitimate” or “-worthy” in any way, shape, or form, however you define any of those words? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/145 "2008-09-24T05:00:14Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > So you feel that if a female voter has decided to vote for Palin for no other reason than to break the glas ceiling for female politicians, that voter isn’t doing anything in any way “bad” or “wrong” or “illegitimate” or “-worthy” in any way, shape, or form, however you define any of those words? It might not be smart, but it wouldn’t make them “sexist.” Do _you_ think that anyone who votes for Palin because she’s a woman is a sexist? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/146 "2008-09-24T05:32:45Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It might not be smart, but it wouldn’t make them “sexist.” > > Do _you_ think that anyone who votes for Palin because she’s a woman is a sexist? Can’t bring yourself to just answer the question like you did with **Rand rover** \*\*\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/147 "2008-09-24T05:33:49Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Can’t bring yourself to just answer the question like you did with **Rand rover** \*\*\*\* I did answer the question. The answer is “no.” Now you answer the question. Is anyone who votes for Palin because she’s a woman a sexist? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/148 "2008-09-24T06:58:04Z")
**anyone, everyone**? No, but some probably are. Same way I feel some people voting for Obama because he’s black can be called racist. Not all of them, not most of them, not enough to negate white racists voting agaist Obama, some of them. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/149 "2008-09-24T13:29:48Z")
> [@JonScribe](#): > > Then I suppose I should have seen my grandmother, who called Brazil nuts “nigger toes,” as an intolerant evil ogre. You didn’t answer my question, and I fail to see how unintentionally calling Brazillian nuts by an offensive name is comparable to a someone making an negative assumption about another person because of their race. I wouldn’t call your grandmother racist, prejudiced, or bigoted for anything like that. Do you think racists _have to be_ unredeemably intolerant? I don’t. They can be bigoted, but they can also be prejudiced simply due to ignorance. This is why I think it’s pointless to make feel-good distinctions between prejudice and racism. > [@JonScribe](#): > > Those with prejudices, idiots or otherwise, can only cost Obama the election if their numbers are great enough. And the only way I know of keeping their numbers down, is to reason with them and not see them as unredeemable racists who deserve only my disdain. One way you can challenge someone with a prejudiced belief is to be frank and honest with them. Few people nowadays want to think that they are racist, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t. It also doesn’t mean they can’t be reasoned with. The notion that only big bad monsters are racist needs to be squashed. My name is **ywtf** and I am sometimes racist. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503/150 "2008-09-24T13:34:37Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Do you think racists _have to be_ unredeemably intolerant? I don’t. This is that thing again where people seem to think that anything short of Hitler is non-racist. It comes up a lot on this board where racism = irredeemably evil so if someone isn’t irredeemably evil they must not be racist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bigots-cost-obama-the-presidency/464503.md?page=7)