07-25-2010, 08:51 PM
(07-25-2010, 06:56 PM)kandrathe Wrote: How much of the anti-Obama sentiment is due to; partisanship?, performance?, unkept promises?, lack of change?, economic hardship?, and race? While, race may play a role in coloring a slim minority of people's opinions (e.g. looking for a reason to protest or hate him), I'm not sure it's as high a factor as the leftist pundits and bloggers are portraying.
Of the above, the most important is economic hardship. After that, it's economic hardship, and economic hardship. This affects practically everyone, dampening his support with his supporters and detractors alike.
Once you've finally plowed through that, the question is not what's causing what, but who cares about any given problem. Some people want more change. Some people are furious at how much change there's been.
Is race a big factor in his overall levels of support? Depends on what you mean. It's probably not changing his approval numbers much. How does that square with race still being important? Well, the overwhelming majority of African-Americans support him, but then, they are also almost all Dems who would support any Democratic president. Likewise, the Tea Partiers are almost all Republicans or conservative Republican-leaning, who would oppose any Democratic president.
So, different questions: "How important is race as a motivator for Tea Parties" vs. "How important is race in Obama's approval numbers." For motivating the Tea Parties, I think (again) economic hardship is no. 1, followed by political opposition to his policies, and then race. But I also think it's a "critical mass" scenario - a protest movement needs a certain amount of enthusiasm, or it dies. Would a white president be seeing these protests? Or this persistently? I think not, but it's impossible to say for sure.
-Jester