One-minute book: Earl and Merle make your head swirl
Looking for a book full of insights about the next general election, but don't have time to do the booksore browse? Here's a highly abbreviated tour of Divided America: The ferocious power struggle in American politics, by Earl Black and Merle Black:
Page 1:
America's tight national battle results from opposing political developments in five different regions.
Page 4:
As late as 1976, the Democratic Party included almost as many white conservatives (19 percent) as white liberals (22 percent).
Page 9:
White Americans have a plurality—rather than a majority—party.
Page 16:
If the Republicans continued to lose moderate whites by large margins, and if they lost liberal whites and racial/ethnic minorities by even wider margins, even the most solid bloc of white conservatives could not possibly overcome Democrats' strength in the rest of the electorate.
Page 25:
The most Democratic groups are African Americans, non-Christian whites, and New Minorities.
Page 36:
Blatant obstacles to blacks' voting, low turnout rates among whites, and the absence of real two-party competition made the South the most undemocratic area of the United States.
Page 49:
Large majorities of white voters in the two Republican strongholds, however, believed that the war had improved the nation's long-term security interests.
Page 64:
Republicanism has become the party of respectability and influence for college-educated white Protestants in the South and the Mountains/Plains.
Page 81:
A prominent Baptist who openly practiced his faith, Carter was nonetheless rejected by his fellow white Protestants, 58 percent to 42 percent.
Page 100:
Republican victories in the rural areas and suburbs, combined with greater-than-usual strength in the large cities, gave the Grand Old Party success throughout the Northeast.
Page 121:
The liberal wing of the Democratic party is 64 percent, fifteen times the size of its white conservatives and considerably larger than its white moderates.
Page 169:
The establishment of exceptionally strong Democratic bases in the Northeast and Pacific Coast is a momentous development in presidential politics.
Page 196:
After the 2004 elections, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in seven of the Northeast's eleven state delegations.
Page 225:
The Senate party battle in the Midwest, unlike the trends in the Northeast and Pacific Coast, reflects transient partisan advantage rather than the emergence of a stable Democratic superiority.
Page 256:
An overwhelmingly white party remains an overwhelmingly white party.
Last sentence:
Under such conditions, governing the United States will remain an extraordinarily difficult challenge.
Softly, in a pleasure.
And always a
blackbird appears
in the sky like
a gentle caprice
in the pain of
a feature; a beautiful
sunset returns
in the air, a crying
overcomes and
softly, in a dream,
the light of a
candle describes
an emotion.
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by: Francesco Sinibaldi | June 02, 2007 at 12:08 PM