African American Vote Scenario

[Lincoln Republican]

If African Americans had not supported the Democratic Presidential candidates in such massive percentages, and had voted consistently more or less, say 20-30%, for the Republican Presidential candidates, which Democrats do you think would not have been elected say, since 1932?

Given this same vote percentage more or less by African Americans for Republicans for Senate elections, what do you think the current make up of the Senate would be? 

Can you name any current Senators who may not be Senators today given this scenario?   

[AuH2O]

The black vote is generally overrated, because a small change isn't enough to really be significant except maybe in PA/OH/MI.

Certainly Stabenow wouldn't be in the Senate, just to name a recent one, if she lost any appreciable number of black votes. But in a close race any group would, in theory, be a candidate's downfall if they didn't perform normally.

[Ebowed]

I don't think Kennedy or Carter could have won without the black vote.  The same goes for Gore with the popular vote.  I'll also add that I don't think George McGovern would have recieved more than 5% in Mississippi without the black vote.

[J.R. Brown]

I don't think the black vote really began to come into play until after the 1960s. Since suppression of black voters in the south began to decrease after the civil rights movement.

[Citizen James]

On the flip side, how might things turn out if everyone had equal access to voting, and having their vote count?  You don't see eight hour lines to vote in upper class suburbia, do you?  Only in the poorer inner cities.  And the purging of voter lists of anyone who's name is similar to a felon's - especially 'ethnic' sounding names, just by the nature of the prison population.  To say nothing of the 'challenging' of voters to force their vote to be set aside, and discouraging people from standing in line for hours to cast a vote that won't be counted anyway.  Jim crow laws may be illegal, but there are still people working hard to find ways around them.   The continued survival of the Republican party counts on it.

[dazzleman]

On the flip side, how might things turn out if everyone had equal access to voting, and having their vote count?  You don't see eight hour lines to vote in upper class suburbia, do you?  Only in the poorer inner cities.  And the purging of voter lists of anyone who's name is similar to a felon's - especially 'ethnic' sounding names, just by the nature of the prison population.  To say nothing of the 'challenging' of voters to force their vote to be set aside, and discouraging people from standing in line for hours to cast a vote that won't be counted anyway.  Jim crow laws may be illegal, but there are still people working hard to find ways around them.   The continued survival of the Republican party counts on it.

It doesn't seem to matter to you that in many cases, the voting procedures in inner cities are administered by blacks.  Everything is not a grand conspiracy; sometimes there is just governmental incompetence.  Every problem in the inner city is not inflicted on it from without; most or many of the problems come from within.

I don't think people should have to wait hours to vote, but that didn't happen only in Democratic areas as you are implying.  And it didn't happen only in poor areas.  There are often long lines to vote in rich areas of Manhattan, where the Democrats run everything.  I guess that's a conspiracy inflicted on New York City by some Christian fundamentalist down in South Carolina?  Get real.  Mess-ups happen, but it's not a grand partisan conspiracy.  Just as many of the mess-ups and problems are caused by Democrats as Republicans, maybe more.