Political competition, not racism, changes voter alignments

Republican presidential candidates have never won more than Mitt Romney's 59 percent of the white...

Michael Barone| April 20, 2014

Have the Republicans become the white man's party? Are the depth and bitterness of Republicans' opposition to Barack Obama and his administration the product of racism?

Those are questions you hear in the clash of political argument, and you will hear plenty of answers in the affirmative if you click onto MSNBC or salon.com with any regularity.  You can find a more nuanced and thoughtful analysis in Jonathan Chait's recent New York magazine article “The Color of His Presidency.”  Chait, a liberal, starts off by noting that the post-racial America that Obama seemed to promise in his 2004 national convention speech and his 2008 campaign has not come into being........Many liberals see racism in every criticism of the Obama presidency, even though, as Chait points out, Bill Clinton met with similar and in some cases more strident opposition......To Read More.....