BrianGarst.com

The narrative for the general election is being cast and anyone who doesn’t immediately jump on the Obama bandwagon will be accused of racism. CQ Politics frets that Obama will face a “racial challenge” in the general election. To substantiate the proposition that people who don’t support Obama are all just evil racists, the article rests heavily on Newsweek poll, an organization with a history of using shoddy polling methodology.

While Illinois Sen. Barack Obama runs dead even with Arizona Sen. John McCain in a new Newsweek poll at 46 percent each with 8 percent undecided, the survey took a hard look at the race factor by employing what it called a “Racial Resentment Index” to further analyze voting blocs and it concluded that, “Obama’s race may well explain his difficulty in winning over white voters.”

Questions in the poll that tested voters on issues that involved race included views on affirmative action, whether blacks or whites lost out more because of racial preferences in things like hiring or school admissions, whether racial discrimination or personal responsibility accounted for problems facing black Americans, opinions on interracial marriage and dating and reaction that white voters would have if a black American with equal education and income moved into their neighborhood.

Measuring people’s motivations is admittedly a difficult task, but this is a horrible conceptualization of racism. Newsweek’s “Racial Resentment Index” doesn’t measure racism, it measures liberalism! The only questions that possibly have anything to do with racism are the last two; the rest are just direct measures of an individual’s proclivity toward liberal policy. Support affirmative action? If so, you’re a good non-racist (liberal)! See everyone as victims rather than in control of their own destiny? If not, you must be a racist (and an evil conservative)!

Be prepared: the media will, at the behest of the Obama campaign, continue to assault non-Obama voters and insist on labeling them all racists, with ever greater frequency, the closer we get to the election.

Barack Obama Election '08 race issues