Carnal Reason

Over at Hufpo, Nora Ephron turns her penetrating intellect on the role of White Men in the PA election.

But now there are two [candidates] and we’re facing Pennsylvania and whom are we kidding? This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don’t mean people, I mean white men.

Ms Ephron, I’m not sure how the white males in PA will manage to swing this election, but if you say so, it must be true. Women and people of color may as well stay home on election day. But speaking as a white man, I want you to know that you cruelly misjudge us. It is true that there is not a white male alive who votes on any basis other than emotion. But we are just a bunch of teddy bears. We are lovers, not haters. This election is about whether white males love blacks more than they love women, and it’s a really hard choice for us. Try to be supportive. Give us the benefit of the doubt, for once, or we might conclude that you are a whiny menopausal bitch.

How ironic is this? After all this time, after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are and how they can’t even get into college because of overachieving women and affirmative action and mean lady teachers who expected them to sit still in the third grade even though they were all suffering from terminal attention deficit disorder — after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power. (As they always did, by the way; I hope you didn’t believe any of those articles.)

Ms Ephron is exaggerating. True, the Pennsylvania election will be held under the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 rules, so persons of color will cast only three-fifths of a vote. But white men don’t get ALL the votes. Hell, under the modified rules, white women each get three-fourths of a vote, even more than the POC’s. What more do you want?

To put it bluntly, the next president will be elected by them: the outcome of Tuesday’s primary will depend on whether they go for Hillary or Obama, and the outcome of the general election will depend on whether enough of them vote for McCain.

This is not entirely unprecedented. Many elections work under the general principle that voters cast votes, and the candidate who gets the most votes wins. Under this approach, the outcome of the general election will indeed depend on whether enough of “them” vote for McCain.

Posted on April 21st, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: politics