In 2008 with Barack Obama running for President, campaigning on a platform (if you were willing to listen) of ideas that would move the nation dramatically to the left, New Jersey supported him by a 16% margin and Virginia supported him by a 5% margin.
In 2009 New Jersey and Virginia voters did not support the white, Democrat candidates running who had campaigned on platforms that mirrored Barack Obama’s of 2008. The election results were not a mild rebuff. Rather, they were a complete rejection with a 21% swing in New Jersey and a 24% swing in Virginia.
It’s hard to believe that in 10 short months an electorate who solidly elected a new President would just as solidly reject men who campaigned on nearly identical terms. If it wasn’t a rejection of the policies, what would explain the dramatic reversal? The AP has an answer: Racism!
In both states, the surveys also suggested the Democrats had difficulty turning out their base, including the large numbers of first-time minority and youth voters whom Obama attracted. The Virginia electorate was whiter in 2009 than it was in 2008, when blacks and Hispanics voted in droves to elect the country’s first black president.
Wow! Did I just read that right? Youth, blacks and Hispanics voted for a black president but wouldn’t invest the time it takes to mark a ballot to give him support? They voted for a black president but when it came time to vote for men who walked lock step with him in each major policy, they sat on their hands?
There is one other explanation to the rapid evaporation of the youth, black and Hispanic vote. Perhaps these voters, like so many others, have been shocked to their senses by the audacity and self indulgence of the man they voted for last year, and wanted to make sure that he had no additional support to implement his new view for America?
Youth, black and Hispanics; they either don’t like what Obama is doing or, as the AP points out, they’re racists. You decide.