The Maverick Tribe

With Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Tuesday now over, one thing is clear.  The Democratic primary shows us that race still matters.  It matters a lot.  Ethnic groupings in America remain suspicious of one another.

What makes me say this?  Pollsters like to break out the voting public by demographic categories:  age, gender, income, education level, ideological bent, and, of course, race.  I've looked at the numbers for the Democratic contests and it is clear that the best predictor of whether a particular voter will choose Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is that voter's race.  It is the best predictor, that is, if you're anything other than caucasian.  (White Democrats generally break out more evenly between Clinton and Obama, and the specific splits are driven more by the other factors of age, gender and so forth.  Don't worry though, if you're looking for a place where whites exhibit monolithic behavior, look no further than the Republican party.)

In a race in which both contenders have done a pretty good job eschewing identity politics, Barack Obama trounces Hillary Clinton with African Americans by a factor of 4 to 1.  Meanwhile, Asian Americans go for Clinton 3 to 1.  And Latinos reliably favor Clinton by roughly 2 to 1.  I heard someone on CNN try to explain these divisions the other day by suggesting that Asians and Latinos vote as they do because they are "more comfortable with what they know".

As you ponder that sad euphemism, also consider this:  two people I've spoken to about the election mentioned that they didn't "trust" Obama, but neither could give a concrete reason as to why.  I didn't realize what was at play here until a friend (an Asian one, incidentally) pointed it out to me.

Bigotry!

Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious,

If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!