Racists for Obama

In a survey that “wouldn’t fly with Gallup,” we found that 75 percent of white supremacists support Barack Obama, said David Peisner in Esquire, and black nationalists are voting for John McCain. Three of the four neo-Nazis and white-power extremists we talked with are voting for Obama, because they think he's race-conscious, and that he dislikes President Bush and corporations. Our one black supremacist thinks Obama will sell out black people.

There are also white supremacist leaders, like David Duke, who think the whirlwind of interest in Obama is “a rising tide that will lift their sagging boats,” said Max Blumenthal in The Daily Beast, bringing new members, money, and “mainstream influence” to their cause.

Certainly, “openly racist white people for Obama” is “the hot new trend of late October,” said Alex Pareene in Gawker. But really, is there anything to it other than “random tales of canvassers” and other “illustrative anecdotes”?

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Judging by the polls, it looks like there might be, said Martin Kettle in Britain’s The Guardian. Are there racists? Sure. But if Obama wins, the surprising lesson might be this: “The assumption that an inner racist demon lurks latent and uncontrollable in the souls of all white Americans, waiting to jump to the Republican dog whistle, is simply untrue.”