Why Obama Wins All-White Areas

The media have come up with different theories to explain the outcome of the Democratic primaries so far.

One theory is that wealthy whites and blacks both support Obama, while lower-income whites and Latino voters support Clinton.

However, this theory doesn't explain why Obama would appeal to wealthy voters, and Clinton to those less well-off, or why Clinton would appeal to Latinos instead of Obama. It also doesn't explain why Obama has swept the entire region of the country between the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes, which is teeming with lower-income, rural whites.

I have a different theory, one which is broadly based on some controversial, but pretty in-depth, recent research carried out by Robert Putnam of Harvard University. Putnam is the author of the influential book Bowling Alone, which tells the story of why America's sense of community has faded in an age beset by withdrawn, couch-potato individualism.

Putnam's studies, published in an article titled "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century", lead to the conclusion that the phenomenon of social withdrawal may be a reaction, in part, to racial diversity. According to Putnam's research, people in racially diverse regions of the country tend to identify less strongly with their community.

They tend "to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less ... [to] have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."

Putnam's studies might explain - even predict - the outcome of the Democratic primaries.

His research is based on comparison of communities that are homogeneous to ones that are racially diverse. And the results of the Democratic primaries, so far, support the conclusion that local diversity (or lack of it) might be the decisive factor in explaining how Democratic voters behave.

Sixteen U.S. states are more than 85 percent non-Hispanic white. These are the kind of states where a snowstorm renders the population invisible. Nine of these states have held primaries so far, and Obama has won eight of the nine.

The only exception - New Hampshire - voted for Clinton by a narrow margin (2.6 percent). New Hampshire is the only state in the group where a large percentage of the population commutes out-of-state every day to work, into the neighboring Boston area, which is much more racially diverse, and obtains much of its media from that neighboring region as well. And indeed, a map of county-by-county results shows that Obama swept the homogeneous rural backwoods of New Hampshire, while Clinton swept the commuter-belt neighboring Massachusetts.

Overall, Obama has won 20 landslides – defined here as a primary victory with a margin of more than 10 points – while Clinton has ridden this kind of wave in 5 contests. Each candidate won the states where they have the strongest personal connections - Hawaii and Illinois for Obama, Arkansas and New York for Clinton.

Eight of Obama's 18 other landslides have been in the homogeneously white states mentioned above. What about the others? Seven of the remaining 10 have been in states where black Democrats were numerous enough to push Obama to victory despite the opposition of white voters.

The only other Obama landslides were in Alaska, Colorado and Washington, and none of these three states has a large black population. In the fictional town of South Park, a character named "Token" becomes the first black student in a homogeneously white elementary school – and that's pretty accurate in Colorado – which tops these three states, with a black population of 3.7 percent.

Meanwhile, two of Clinton's three external landslides took place in Oklahoma and Tennessee, two states that have a history of interracial tensions, but where the black populations are too small to make up a majority of Democratic voters. In other words, whites didn't want to vote for Obama, and whites were the overwhelming majority of voters. Arkansas and New York, her two home states, also have medium-sized black populations (15-16 percent), large enough to keep the state from being homogeneous, but not large enough to push through an Obama victory despite this fact.

Obama wins homogeneous states, and states that are diverse but where most Democrats are black. If this theory turns out to be true, then Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wyoming, Montana and Vermont, none of which have held their primaries, all should turn out to be Obama landslides. In Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana, it is hard to say whether the black population is small enough for Obama to pull off a victory.

There are two intuitive explanations for why whites in homogeneous areas might be more inclined to support Obama. One is that diverse areas are more likely to have a history of racist tensions and interracial crime, and white people in those kinds of areas are more likely to be familiar with the media image that "young black men are dangerous thugs," and therefore be less likely to cast a vote for a young black man. Voting, at its roots, involves trust.

This is just a theory, however, and the fact that it is a convenient explanation does not make it true.

The other possibility is that if diverse regions are indeed filled with socially withdrawn, mistrustful pessimists – as Putnam's research suggests – then homogeneous regions ought to be filled with relatively high numbers of cheerful, civically engaged optimists. Utah, anyone? That is certainly the kind of voter that would be more likely to buy into the "audacity of hope," which has been Obama's central message.

According to this theory, this year's primary might actually be dividing Democratic voters into optimists and pessimists. Obama is traveling the country with a big sign that says "optimists follow me," leaving Clinton with the grumbling remainder.

And indeed, the type of charges being leveled against Obama – that he isn't tough enough for Washington, that he's too naive, that he's peddling empty promises – could well have been invented by Oscar the grouch.