Black voters deserve all the credit for the Doug Jones win in Alabama

[Tom Rinaldo]

58. Sorry, that's foolish

I agree that Black voters deserve most of the credit. They overcame every barrier erected against their participation. They worked hard, they were passionate, they stood firm for the principles that the Democratic Party sometimes forgets. They are loyal to Democrats to a fault. They are the foundation of the Democratic coalition. And yes far far too often their support is taken for granted by Democrats. But no, they do not deserve all the credit for Jones winning.

For one thing, Jones, a white man himself, deserves some credit for his victory. He ran a very good campaign. But the most basic truth is that Jones beat Moore because he got more votes than Moore, and half of the votes Jones got were white votes. Votes are not color coded, they are simply counted. Without virtually all of those white voters who backed Jones as well as virtually all of those black voters who backed Jones, Jones would have lost.

I remember when I was young using terms like "the vanguard of the revolution". Black voters are the vanguard of the Democratic Party, but they are still a relatively small minority of American voters in general. They can't save us alone. I remember Jessie Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. I still support it. I am under no illusions about white voters in general - most of them are against us. But not all of them. There is no purpose served in airbrushing those whites who reliably vote Democratic out of the picture when we celebrate the coalition that won Jones his Senate seat. And i am thrilled to increasingly see African Americans stepping forward to provide leadership to our Democratic Party. They earn it every day.