Michelle Obama: "A lot of our folks didn't vote. It was almost like a slap in the face."

[The Mouth]

40. I do wonder how many Blacks voted for Obama simply because they wanted to see a black President.

In other words, how many would not have voted for a white male candidate with the same record, policies, and exceedingly high level of articulation and charisma? The OP comes kind of close to slightly giving insight into that. OF course, the other interesting question is how many people voted against Obama specifically because he was black? I don't know if it's quite that direct a correlation, as he was highly progressive and presumably, we progressives are not going to let racism infect our political views as much.

I laughingly recall tales of my father being *HIGHLY* conflicted in 1960; he was *EXTREMELY* right-wing, Joe McCarthy level of hard-right, BUT the fact that an Irishman was running for President made him proud, as he was really prideful of that heritage. He utterly loathed anything to do with Democrats, but boy oh boy did he want to see an Irish Catholic President. I find it pretty funny in retrospect; I wonder if he voted Kennedy even though he hated him .

I mention the above because it helps me understand, perhaps a little bit, both the aspirations of African Americans and the aspirations of women, something I can't naturally relate to being a white male.