Return?

I'm not sure The New York Times really needs to worry that anything might "return Mississippi to the days of racially polarized politics". Things seem plenty polarized. Check out this exit poll from 2004 -- Kerry got 90 percent of the black vote, and Bush got 85 percent of the white vote; there are so few Latinos and Asians that they can't even be measured.

Comments

I don't see how it makes things less "racially polarized" for conservative white dixiecrats to control the Democratic and republican parties.

But I guess I'm not a Sensible Centrist who is smart enough to understand the New York Times.

Posted by moron | July 18, 2007 1:09 AM

I'm not smart enough to understand lots of things, but I know that when someone says "things seem plenty polarized" even without a possible change, that is not the same as saying that this change would "make things less racially polarized".

MY didn't claim the change would make things less polarized. He just said they seem plenty polarized as it is.

And only in the political landscape of my dreams is MY a centrist. Alas, in the actual landscape he is a dirty fucking hippy.

Posted by rubbin | July 18, 2007 2:05 AM

The article is about local offices, not state- or nation-wide ones.

Posted by washerdreyer | July 18, 2007 2:10 AM

I think mormon's comment was not directed at MY, but at the Times article.

He meant that allowing white, strongly republican-leaning conservatives (ruling the Republican Party) to vote in Democratic primaries and thus strenghening the stand of (mostly white) conservative Democrats inside the Democratic Party to the disadvantage of liberal (and mostly black) Democrats is no sign of a lesser degree of racial plarization.

And I tend to agree. The change in rules does not make politcs more racially polarized. It only reveals how polarized it already is: conservatice whites (Republicans or Democrats) vs. liberal (at least in areas of economic and social policy) black Democrats

Posted by Patrick | July 18, 2007 6:44 AM

The Times is not being stupid. As someone who worked as a journalist in Georgia from 1987 to 1096, I'm very familiar with this discussion, and I can tell you that it makes a huge difference inside Southern states for there to be white centrist or center-right Democrats who can be elected with a coalition of African Americans and white moderates. If you doubt what I'm saying, take a look at what has happened in Georgia since the Ralph Reed-led GOP took over state government in 2002.

Posted by directorsilk | July 18, 2007 8:21 AM

I agree a bit with Silk. At a minimum, MY is misreading the article. That whites and blacks are polarized in the national elections does not mean that they would be the same in the local elections. I don't know if the decision is a good thing or a bad thing. I certainly don't think it's as clear as MY seems to indicate.

That said, I can't wait to see the DLC response to the decision.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 18, 2007 9:20 AM

This would seem to be an important point:

Not for the first time in the South, Republicans and blacks have achieved a de facto unspoken alliance of common interests that has been particularly evident in the drawing of Congressional districts, where blacks are packed into majority-black districts, leaving little space for moderate white Democrats to be elected.

That's part of the reason for the stark polarization you see in the 2004 stats MY cites: most of the local races are really lopsided.

From a policy perspective, black folks in Mississippi aren't going to get a hugely better deal from a moderate white guy than they are from the status quo. But there's the hope that the political culture would change if candidates for state senator, U.S. rep, etc., had to appeal to both blacks and whites. Such districts would hopefully be the proving ground for candidates for statewide office.

Posted by kth | July 18, 2007 10:11 AM

So, basically you're complaining about semantics. I agree, warning of a "return" to racially polarized politics sounds a bit strange. However, if the NYT said it had the potential to exacerbate racially polarized politics, I wouldn't see anything wrong with that.

Posted by ibid | July 18, 2007 11:21 AM

Nah, you're missing the point of the NYT's article, which is that lots of those horrible racist conservative white Mississippi voters are still registered as Democrats because they hadn't gotten around to switching, and the NYT wants to keep them that way. The may be KKK-loving bigots, but they are nominally Democratic KKK-loving bigots, and that's a good thing because it helps the Democrats in some minor way.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 18, 2007 2:47 PM