Nate Silver Of FiveThirtyEight.Com Takes On The Question - Why Are There No Black Senators?
Nate Silver makes an interesting argument here , but in typical nerd boy fashion is a bit light on the socio-cultural analysis. Silver seems to assume that all black candidates for office are running as Democrats and that is a limitation to his argument. He raises an excellent point that maybe black politicians have not developed a message that will sell to whites in order for them to vote for a black candidate, but what about black Republicans that run for office? Their first audience is clearly white folks, why can't they get elected either?
And I'm not buying the excuse that white folks voted for a black president, so racism isn't really that big of deal when considering the lack of black senators. That bull. Obama got elected in one of the most unique moments in American history. If the economy was not tanking and if McCain had not ran such a lousy campaign, Obama easily could be sitting in his senate seat right now. Also, I don't think its a great idea to mix the presidential race with senate races, these are two different things, requiring different things to get elected.
Senators represent their state and a lot of folks consider that when voting. White folks clearly like their senators to look like them regardless of their politics. When you take a look at some of the white folks that have become Senators or House Represenatives, I have to wonder why a black candidate would not have been more appealing. Al Franken can get elected senator, but a black person can't? Remember Michele Bachman got re-elected and she's crazy as hell. So, I respect Silver's number crunching, but I think the issue is more complex that the argument he presented.
