Nearly every major development of the past generation worked to push
white men away from the Democratic Party. For some, the civil rights revolution
was the trigger; for others, it was the rise of feminism and its institutionalization
in the party's official structure that drove them away. The rhetoric employed
by high-profile extremists in these movements, who denounced white men
as racist and patriarchal oppressors, exacerbated these effects. Conflict
within the Democratic Party sparked by the events of 1968 led to rules
changes that diminished the power of labor unions, for decades centers
of white male political influence and social standing.
Developments in foreign and defense policy also played a role. The Democratic
Party became the epicenter of opposition to the Vietnam War, a stance
that spilled over into a broader critique of the Cold War, the defense
budget, the foreign policy establishment, our assertive internationalism,
and of the United States itself. These developments offended many white
men who were traditional patriots and favored a strong national defense.
Gun control, which many white men saw as the translation of defense dovishness
into domestic policy, made matters worse and helped cement the Democrats'
image as the party of weakness.
At the same time, the role of government shifted. As Anna Greenberg and
others have pointed out, white males were the principal beneficiaries
of New Deal policies. By contrast, Great Society programs largely aided
women and minorities. And for two decades (1973-1993), the federal government
failed to address the problem of wage stagnation, which hit less well-educated
white men especially hard. Even the more successful economic strategy
of the Clinton years did relatively little for men in the heart of the
middle class. Instead, those policies improved the status of the working
poor (through the Earned Income Tax Credit), helped minorities who found
jobs for the first time in tight labor markets, and benefited professionals
whose skills were in increased demand. By the 2000 presidential election,
the majority of upscale white men came to believe that they needed nothing
from government except to be left alone, while many downscale white men
concluded that government either did not understand how to help them or
did not care enough to do so. Because differing attitudes toward the role
of government continue to define the left-right continuum in American
politics, the rise of anti-government sentiment among white men produced
a shift toward ideological conservatism. And because the major political
parties have become more ideologically polarized, this shift in white
male sentiment led inexorably to a move away from the Democrats.
These trends came to a head in last year's presidential election. Al
Gore received only 36 percent of the white male vote, less than Bill Clinton
in either 1992 or 1996, and no more than Michael Dukakis received in his
eight-point loss to George H.W. Bush in 1988. Gore's showing is even worse
than it looks. The Perot insurgency siphoned off 22 percent of the white
male vote in 1992 and 11 percent in 1996. The collapse of the Reform Party
in 2000 freed up a substantial bloc of white male voters. In effect, Gore
picked up none of them.
The Gore campaign's much discussed populist turn in the late summer and
fall of 2000 was at its heart an effort to bolster the candidate's support
among white male voters, especially those with modest income and education.
But as Ruy Teixeira, a longtime advocate of this strategy, has written,
Bush won 63 percent of white men without a four-year college degree, a
29-point margin over Gore (up from Bob Dole's seven-point edge in 1996).
Similarly, Bush carried white men with incomes under $75,000 by 23 points,
up from an eight-point margin in 1996.
While Bush's gains among white males were especially striking for the
middle and working class, they extended across class lines. He won 61
percent of college-educated white men and 62 percent of those with incomes
in excess of $75,000. By contrast, Gore did better than Clinton among
black men and fought Bush to a draw among white women. For white men,
race and gender trumped class divisions.
The pro-Republican surge among white males was not confined to the presidential
election and thus cannot be interpreted simply as a personal rejection
of Gore. White men favored Republican House candidates by 59 percent to
38 percent, Republican Senate candidates 60 percent to 38 percent, and
Republican governors 60 percent to 39 percent.
Today, white males form about 39 percent of the electorate. The Republican
margin of 20 to 25 percentage points among white males thus translates
into an edge of between 8 percent and 10 percent of the entire electorate.
By comparison, African-Americans form 10 percent of the electorate, and
the Democrats' 80-point margin in this group translates into an eight-percent
edge in the electorate as a whole. Republican strength among white men
more than offsets Democrats' dominance of the African-American vote.
Prior to the cliffhanger in 2000, the most recent close presidential
election occurred in 1976, when Jimmy Carter edged Gerald Ford by two
percentage points (50 to 48) in the popular vote. A comparison of the
narrowly divided electorates in these two contests illustrates the changing
role of white males in American politics.
A familiar feature of contemporary politics is the gender gap, and last
year's presidential election was no exception. Al Gore prevailed among
women by 11 percentage points (54/43) while losing men to George Bush
by the same margin (53/42). By contrast, there was no gender gap whatever
in 1976; Carter's margin was the same among men and women (50/48). The
gender gap is more a reflection of men leaving the Democratic Party than
of women joining it.
Another familiar feature of our politics is the racial gap. George W.
Bush carried the white vote 54 percent to 42 percent while receiving only
8 percent of the black vote -- the lowest percentage ever recorded by a
Republican presidential candidate (even Ronald Reagan did better). In
1976, Carter lost the white vote by only five points (52/47) while racking
up 83 percent of the black vote to Ford's 16 percent (twice Bush's share
in 2000).
The widening of the racial gap was shaped by gender. Gore did slightly
better than Carter among white women (48 percent versus 46 percent), but
this was more than offset by his drop among white men from Carter's 47
percent to only 36 percent.
The significance of geography has shifted during the past quarter century.
Jimmy Carter received roughly the same share of the white vote in every
region of the country, ranging from a high of 49 percent in the East to
a low of 44 percent in the West. (His share of the Southern white vote
-- 47 percent -- was identical to his national total.) By contrast, Gore's
performance among whites was strongly affected by regionalism. His share
of the white vote in the East was three points higher than Carter's (52
percent); his share of the Midwestern and Western white vote was almost
the same as Carter's; and his share of the Southern white vote was fully
16 points lower (31 percent) than Carter's and 11 points lower than his
national total among white voters. White men were largely responsible
for this Southern shift (Gore got only 27 percent); after the turmoil
of the 1960s and early 1970s, support for Democrats stabilized among Southern
white women.
To the extent that the flight of white men from the Democratic Party
reflects the lingering effects of the civil rights and women's rights
movements, there is little that Democrats can or should do to reverse
the tide. Racial and gender equality are fundamental organizing principles
of the contemporary Democratic Party and represent irreversible moral
commitments. Nor is the party likely to change its core position on abortion,
although it could do more to signal that it welcomes a range of views
on this subject and could relax its intransigent opposition to what many
moderate voters see as reasonable limits. The exclusion of pro-life Democrat
Bob Casey from the convention podium in 1992 rankled many voters who were
only moderately opposed to abortion; the same goes for the party's current
stance in favor of "partial-birth" abortion procedures.
For the foreseeable future, Democrats cannot regain the position among
white men they enjoyed in 1976 any more than Republicans can regain their
standing as the party of Abraham Lincoln (or even Richard Nixon) among
African-Americans. While more nuanced stances on hot-button cultural issues
may help, particularly when combined with progressive New Democrat positions
on the role of government and the economic prospects of the middle class,
Democrats cannot hope to compete on equal terms in small towns and rural
areas. Taken too far, moreover, efforts to move in that direction could
backfire among moderate suburban voters, the most rapidly growing sector
of the electorate and one in which Bill Clinton scored substantial gains
in the 1990s.
In sum, the most realistic strategic objective is to diminish the intensity
of white male opposition to the national Democratic Party while retaining
the support of key minority groups and bolstering suburban gains, especially
among white women. To execute this strategy, embracing moderate positions
on cultural issues based on mainstream values is a necessity. But for
today's Democratic Party, neither cultural conservatism nor an anti-government
stance is an option. If that is what it takes to regain full competitiveness
among white men, the price is too high.
How can Democrats cut their losses? In many respects, white men are looking
for the same reassurance that the Democratic ticket failed to provide
voters in the 1970s and 1980s, but successfully conveyed in the 1990s
-- that Democrats share their values, look out for their economic interests,
and will stand up for America's role in the world. In 1996, that message
helped Bill Clinton to carry white voters in the East and Midwest and
to nearly do so in the West.
In 2000, the dynamics of the primary campaign led the eventual nominee
toward stances on gun control and gay rights that did not serve him well
among most white male voters in the general election. While many Democrats
-- including this writer -- fully supported Gore's stance on these issues,
it is clear that such principled positions entailed significant political
cost. Looking toward 2004, committed advocates must ask themselves whether
pressuring candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination to adopt
the most extreme versions of their favored positions really advances the
causes for which they are fighting. Potential nominees should weigh their
primary strategies in light of the requirements of the general election.
And they should realize that tone matters as well as substance. If Democrats
speak about gun control and gay rights in ways that imply that no decent
and reasonable person could have a different view, voters who feel marginalized,
even demonized, by this kind of rhetoric will be bound to retaliate.
It is clear from the evidence that white men have a distinctive cultural
outlook. Even more than most Americans, they prize independence, individual
choice, and personal integrity and strength. Men gravitate toward candidates
they see as having the courage to stand up against the odds, even against
the majority (witness the strong white male support for Ross Perot in
1992 and John McCain in 2000). White men care less about verbal facility
and eloquence than they do about the reliability of words spoken. Gore's
poor showing among Perot's former followers and McCain's disappointed
supporters substantially weakened his candidacy. And by defying conventional
wisdom about the irrelevance of defense issues in the post-Cold War era,
Bush parlayed his advocacy of a rebuilt military into a perception of
firmness and strength that fortified his standing among white men.
In the next election, Democrats must give more consideration to choice-based
policies that invoke the value of independence; to considerations of personal
integrity, especially scrupulous and conspicuous truth telling; to defense
and foreign policy; and to the imperatives of reform. Perot and McCain
demonstrated the power of reform rhetoric linked to compelling issues.
The next Democratic nominee would do well to focus on a new generation
of reform issues -- government operations, the tax code, health care, and
entitlements -- and to articulate bold positions in common-sense terms.
Democrats should flesh out a progressive position on the role of government
with an agenda that speaks to the interests of the still-forgotten middle
class. The economic changes of the past generation have greatly improved
the income and wealth of the upper middle class, and public policies such
as welfare reform and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit have begun
to address the problems of the poor and near poor. But while the rapid
income gains of the second Clinton term were more broadly shared than
at any time since the early 1970s, the heart of the middle class has continued
to struggle during the past two decades under the burden of stagnant wages
and incomes and the continued erosion of unionized employment, particularly
in manufacturing -- all trends that have hit white men especially hard. New Democrats will not be able to sustain
an economic agenda of competition, technological change, and globalization
without dramatic and credible policies in areas such as job training and
retraining, wage insurance, and benefits that continue through periods
of unemployment.
For white men, as for many other Americans, the role of government is
in part an issue of values. The New Democratic stance on this issue --
that government should equip people to solve their own problems -- enjoys
substantial majority support. Unfortunately, more voters saw Bush as closer
to this position than Gore, who came to be regarded as an advocate of
the traditional liberal stance that government should solve problems and
protect people from adversity. While attractive to many minorities and
women, this stance is guaranteed to repel most white men. The Democrats'
next nominee would do better to return to a position on the role of government
that, rather than polarizing groups along ideological lines, helps rally
a broad coalition of the center.
