Rich Benjamin is a senior fellow at Demos, a research and advocacy organization based in New York.
As candidates from both parties dance the electric bugaloo toward the political center, the needs and perspectives of white suburban and exurban voters are exerting extravagant power over the election. Barely after the sun rises on Wednesday morning, party apparatchiks will dissect the voting data to determine who captured politics’ golden chalice—suburban and exurban white voters—and how.
White voters with no college education comprise roughly half the electorate. Will Democrats pick Republican’s lock of support among middle-class and church-going whites this election? Poised to regain control of the House and possibly the Senate, Democrats might decisively narrow the sizable popularity gap George W. Bush typically enjoys among such voters.
In winning re-election, President Bush carried 97 of America’s 100 fastest growing counties by sizable margins. The majority of these counties qualify as exurbs, the communities spreading beyond mature suburbs. Among the most discussed “lessons” of the 2004 elections is Bush’s commanding victory in the exurbs.
These places are having a big impact in the three Senate races that matter most to both parties: Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri. These very “exurbanized” states rank among the top 10 states for the largest percentage of their residents living in exurbs.
Who are these folks? "Finding Exurbia," a fascinating new study from the Brookings Institution, reveals that exurban counties have disproportionately white populations (83 percent), with “middle incomes” ($40,000 to $100,000), and contain higher percentages of “nuclear” families and homeownership.
Active racism once sparked these families’ domestic migration. Now we see something more subtle, but no less disturbing. We see a centrist, conservative-leaning ethos, championing private property values, taxpayer rights, children’s educational choice and white racial innocence. Racism historically dictated both parties’ flirtations with suburban and exurban white voters—“End Forced Busing!” “States Rights!” “Contain Urban Crime!”—but now centrist racial politics do.
Occupying the middle lane, centrist racial politics try to be the most amount of things to the most amount of (white) people. This outlook soothes the guilt of some whites, skillfully panders to the racial fears of others, and generally serves to woo the moderate “swing” white voter.
Try as they might, the Democrats cannot conceal their ambivalence about issues facing racial minorities. The New Democrat verdict echoes with clarity: Deep-six the dubious distinction of being the party linked to racial minority interests to “win back” white voters. This election, public solidarity with racial minority groups and progressive stances on race-related issues—like affirmative action and immigration—are radioactive to Democrats.
Meanwhile, the GOP spotlights its big-tent campaign to woo black voters, “If You Give Us a Chance, We’ll Give You a Choice.” Conveniently, these efforts also smooth the party’s rough, conservative edge. The GOP doesn’t woo minorities just for their own sake, but also to reel in the larger prize: The national mass of more moderate white voters.
Centrist racial politics produce some troubling moments, but also delicious comedy—especially in the crucial “toss-up” Senate races.
The Old Dominion State
Accusations of racism and a notorious macaca “greeting” battered Sen. George Allen’s Republican reputation, but mostly in the minds of the political and media establishment. Allen’s dip in the polls likely resulted from intense media coverage of his several gaffes and his distracted, over-taxed campaign, more than from voter distaste for his reportedly racist sentiments. The evidence of how much most white voters actually care about the comment is revealed by his dip reversing, not persisting.
James Webb, the Democratic challenger, does his own racial centrist jig. In 2000, Webb called affirmative action "state-sponsored racism.” This year, he began supporting it, but only for blacks. Experts believe Webb must secure 80 percent of Virginia’s black vote, which is roughly 14 percent of the electorate, to prevail. Yet he must also amass those exurb votes in Fauquier, Loudon, Stafford, King George, Prince William, and Warren counties. So Webb links himself—very publicly—to Doug Wilder, the black, self-described “conservative” former governor. And Webb’s allies try their best to keep stories alive that chronicle Allen’s apparent soft spot for the Confederate Flag.
Irony of ironies. “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” declared Howard Dean during his 2004 presidential bid. By this measure, Sen. Allen fits the Democrats’ target voter profile quite nicely. Poor country doctor. Dean got tarred and feathered for bluntly saying what most Democratic politicians privately hope. Centrist racial politics encourage Democrats to want such a thing and discourages them from saying it!
The Volunteer State
By now, everyone knows the Republicans released a TV ad stoking coded anxiety over jungle fever. “Harold, call me,” purrs the white blonde to the black Democratic candidate, Congressman Ford. The centrist racial mood requires the Republican candidate to demand the ad’s retraction, though never apologize for its content. Ford also studiously refuses to call the ad racist. (The race card, in this environment, is never an ace). But Ford does like to call the ad “smutty,” shrewdly turning a racial kerfuffle into an opportunity to trumpet his moral values to Tennessee’s exurban and rural voters.
The Show Me State
Claire McCaskill, the white Democratic challenger, blurts “George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black.” Bill Frist, Elizabeth Dole, and the Republican establishment fuel a maelstrom, demanding an apology. McCaskill’s comment is technically false, but essentially true. In America, there is still a direct relationship between the quality of service this administration delivers and the color and class of the recipient, a problem absent from the Democratic Party's campaign material.
The subsequent controversy tied McCaskill’s tongue in knots, as she alternately qualified her remark, disavowed it, then raised the classic “taken out of context” defense, depending on the audience. Once again, the centrist racial outlook exerts its not-so-invisible hand, in the backlash against McCaskill’s remark, and her doggedness to confront the president on every standard but race.
Our Exurban Future?
White voters in the emerging suburbs and exurbs in a handful of states may determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. And their brethren nationwide, strategists believe, hold the keys to the 2008 presidential election.
The rest of America, beware: Centrist racial politics in Exurbland are transforming its voters’ hobby horses—school “choice,” taxpayer and private property rights, gated communities and “color-blind” indifference—into sacred shibboleths.
