Uma rtigozinho para saber como pensam os direitosos americanos
How We Vote, Who We Are
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
The winner of Election 2000 is decided, but the chief lesson
of the contest is that most everything else is irreconcilable.
As a nation we are split down the middle, two nations under
one government. Neither side understands how the other can
think the way it does.
This is an observation that goes deeper than the superficial
fact that half the country voted for George W. Bush and the
other half for Al Gore. Exit polls on Election Day reveal
that those two populations are more dissimilar than at any
time in recent memory. Geography and culture divide us as we
have never been divided before.
First geography. Gore country--the Democrats' terrain--encompasses
the entire West Coast and the northeastern part of the East
Coast. Add the Mid-Atlantic states and a cluster of states
around Chicago and you have the whole picture of where
Democrats dominate. The rest of the country--the Southeast,
the Southwest, and the Mountain West--is Bush territory.
There are many more miles of Bush land than of Gore
land.
More to the point, Bush voters tend to be small-town folks
and Gore voters city people. The bigger the town, the more
likely voters are Democrats. The more rural, the more likely
they are Republicans. The middle point is the suburbs, which
voted evenly for each man.
This city-Gore versus country-Bush division bespeaks a
broader, more significant distinction, and it's not
economic. Not long ago, you could tell a Republican by his
or her salary. The higher the income, the more likely a
person was a Republican. This is still true to some extent
but not as blatantly as it once was. Educational attainment
was another leading indicator, but that too isn't as
differentiating. In fact, a person who has a post-graduate
degree is more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican
these days.
What separates us is culture, not economics. The more
frequently a person goes to church, the more likely he is a
Republican. If a person has a gun in his house, he is
probably a Republican. A person who is pro-life on the
abortion issue tends to be Republican as well. Union
households are majority Democratic.
Gender also plays a role. A majority of men voted for Bush.
A majority of women voted for Gore. Beyond that, culture
clicks in. Any person who is married is more likely to vote
Republican than Democratic. A married person with children
is an even more likely GOPer. Single women and working women
lean Democratic.
The most tragic schism deals with race. Blacks voted 9-to-1
for Gore. Hispanics voted 2-to-1 for Gore. Whites voted
54%-to-42% for Bush. The only good news is that Bush
attracted more Hispanics than Republican presidential
nominees usually do. But the divide in the African-American
vote is a serious problem. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP are
stirring resentment and complaining about disenfranchisement.
The goal, apparently, is to make sure that blacks never even
consider voting for a Republican again. In other words, more
division.
If Bush acted like a normal politician, he wouldn't care.
Victors often turn their back on voters who spurned them.
But Bush isn't that way. Far from ignoring the pleas of
African-Americans, he has gone out of his way to place
blacks in prominent posts. With his efforts to improve
public education, Bush also appears to be trying to bridge
the gap with policy proposals, not just the patina of
patronage jobs.
The question remains can anyone unite so disunited a nation?
Jesse Jackson's Politics of Anger is designed to keep us
apart. But the heat of its passion may flame out in time to
give the quieter Politics of Inclusion a chance. We can only
hope.
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Pagina, Jornal e Forum do Voto Eletronico
http://www.votoseguro.org
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