Commentary: Finally Getting Our Fair Shake

As is true of any good young person growing up in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, there is one thing that I have always wanted to be.  For so many reasons, I have been denied this for years.  Now, in this most historic of elections, when barriers are falling like so many drunken starlettes out of limos, we might have a chance.  That coveted role is none other than… swing voter.

Certain states have traditional roles in presidential election years.  New Hampshire and Iowa get special attention for being the first primary and caucus.  New York and California have huge war chests of electoral votes.  Pennsylvania and Ohio are hotly contested “swing states,” also bringing many electoral votes.  Florida… well Florida is the screw-up of the family who can be expected to do no more than not bring the Constitution down with it.  They get a medal for trying though.

Particular groups of people also tend to get much attention during elections.  Women voters were important for Bill Clinton.  Black voters are always crucial for the Democrats. Evangelicals form a powerful bloc for the conservatives.

However, millions of Americans don’t fit in any of these categories.  What are they supposed to do?  Listen only to the issue?  Please. Bo-ring!

Fortunately this election is different.  According to an article in The Washington Post on March 17th, there’s a new player in the game - white guys.  Yes, the oft-ignored culturally ambiguous white guy is on the board.

With all eyes on the Democratic primary now that the GOP has things fairly settled, the two candidates seem to have the majority of their historic constituencies all locked up.  Barack consistently gets the vast majority of black voters and Hillary keeps bringing in more women voters.  That leaves the field wide open for a new upstart demographic, and if there’s anything we white guys have been good at through the centuries, it’s taking over what once belonged to someone else.

But wait.  There might be a problem here.  There are an awful lot of us around.  There are rich, Harvard-educated, latte-sipping white guys and, there are poorer, high school educated, belly-scratching white guys.  There are even some middle class, college-educated white guys who enjoy a good belly scratch while waiting in line at Starbucks.

Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, is quoted in The Washington Post article suggesting that Obama spends more time at VFW halls to get more votes.  I guess that will work for working-class voters.  I thought they were their own voting blocs, though.

Other questions arise for the white dude demographic.  When it comes to the general election, do our loyalties have to push over to McCain?  Or does he only get the old white guys? Can we young white guys identify with Obama because he’s younger?

This new spotlight placement is also telling Americans some things that maybe they didn’t want to know.  More of the white guys group said that race was an important factor in Ohio when they came out more for Hillary.  Personally, I’d rather not be stuck in the same demographic as those particular white guys.

So are white males the new swing voters?  Maybe not.  Maybe there are too many segments within white-dudedom to classify as such.  If that’s true, then what does that mean for women voters, black voters, Latino voters, old voters, young voters, or cross-demographic belly-scratching voters?  Maybe, just maybe, pollsters, campaign managers, and the media will no longer have easy groups they can move around electorally like chess pieces so they have to create a new group to play with.

Here’s a suggestion.  The new group is…issue voters: healthcare voters, defense voters, or economy voters.  Unfortunately, those groups might blend just a little too much.  We shouldn’t make things too hard on the campaigns and pundits.  God forbid they forget which groups they are talking to on any given day and just speak to us, and more importantly, see us, as American voters.

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