Light On Dark Water

I mentioned in the previous post that I would say more about the Alabama governor’s race. You may have seen headlines saying that a black candidate, Representative Artur Davis, was defeated in his run for the Democratic nomination. No doubt casual (i.e. ignorant) observers will see that and think “Well, of course, it’s Alabama, and all the white people are racists.”

But what happened doesn’t fit that picture at all. Davis was defeated by a white man because the black establishment turned against him and actually endorsed his opponent. Yes, let me make that clear: black politicians urged black people to vote against the black candidate and for his white opponent. The reason was that Davis did not toe the ideological line: although he seems in general to be fairly liberal and is friendly with President Obama, he voted against Obamacare. For this he was deemed “not black enough.” Abigail Thernstrom analyzes the situation more fully here.

Although I usually vote Republican, there’s a good chance I would have voted for Davis in the general election, depending on who the Republican nominee was and what I heard from the candidates over the next few months. I’m sorry I won’t have that choice. If it was cool for the nation to have a black president, how much cooler would it be for Alabama to elect a black governor?

Still, overall I think this is a positive development. It does further damage to the idea that race always has the last word in these situations, and it exposes the fact that white and black voting patterns are driven by many factors other than race. The black establishment revealed that it is as much an ideological as a racial force, even though it continued to try to cast the debate in racial terms: ‘”He rejected black voters to go for whites. He acted more like a Republican than a Democrat,” [black political kingpin Joe] Reed said.’ (story here)

 I believe that if Davis had won, he would have had significant white support in the general election, though he probably would have lost, because the majority of people in this state vote for the person who best makes the case that he or she is a conservative, whatever that means in this context, and Davis would have appeared more liberal.

Davis got me on his side some months ago with a statement he made some months ago in an interview that made me want to stand up and cheer:

There’s a group of voters who will vote based on race. Some are black, some are white. You add that group together and I don’t think it makes up more than a quarter of the state, which leaves 75 percent black and white we have to make the case to.
Are there some black voters that will automatically vote for a black? Yes. Are there some white voters who will automatically vote against a black? No doubt. But, if you add that together – I don’t think it’s a significant block.

(The whole interview is here.) I think this is absolutely right, philosophically, and in a bizarre backward way the opposition of the black establishment to Davis proved it: they would rather vote for a white man who shares their political views than a black man who doesn’t. It would be ridiculous to pretend that race and racial hostility aren’t a factor in politics. But it’s increasingly untenable to believe that they have the last word. And Davis’s attitude is just right: recognize the facts, but concentrate on making your case and follow your convictions.

I will now certainly vote for the Republican candidate this fall. The Democrat seems like a classic old-time demagogic Alabama politician; he’s promising to legalize gambling and thereby take the state to financial heaven. He’ll probably lose, I’m happy to say. And I hope we’ll hear more from Congressman Davis.

NB: I’m aware that there’s something a little ridiculous about describing as “black” a man who looks like this, but such are the lines drawn by the racial history of the U.S.A. It’s downright strange that Vivian Figures gets counted as “black,” but there it is…