Soccer Dad

The following is some politically incorrect history of life and times in Ohio.

Dennis Kucinich's district is, more or less, "west of the River," the Cuyahoga River if I remember correctly, in Cleveland and its inner suburbs. This part of metro Cleveland is heavily Eastern European in origin. Croat-, Slovak-, Slovenian-, Serbian-, Bohemian-, Moravian-, Carpatho-Ruthenian- and Polish-Americans predominate the demographics of this region, as reflected in the Roman Catholic and so some extent Eastern Orthodox parishes in that area.

Now today, Kucinich would probably get Al Sharpton's endorsement as a bona fide social democrat if not outright socialist. But in his heyday, Kucinich ran explicitly race-baiting campaigns, appealing directly under the banner "Civilization: Polka, Bowling, Kielbasa!" to the ethnic roots of his constituents, explicitly contrasting them hostilely with those of the "East of the River", largely African-Americans along e.g. the famous Euclid Avenue and elsewhere.

To this day, the cultural and attitudinal divide obdures not only in West Cleveland but certainly there. I have more respect for the 20% explicitly race-based voters than for those who voted the same way for the same reasons. I do not see the race-based voting for Obama in the same way that I do for Clinton. Euro-Americans, though probably none of more than very remote Eastern European origin, have attained the Presidency before.

While some African-American Obama supporters may be voting with "invidious hostility" to Clinton or others as Euro-Americans, I can understand the desire for Black parents to want a concrete example of how a person of African ancestry, distinct from that of most African-Americans but nonetheless, can reach the top. Were Kucinich rather than the Welsh-American Hillary Rodham running now, I would feel the same way about West Cleveland's ethnic pride. But I doubt that the voters who picked the "White" Clinton on explcitly race-related grounds felt a great deal of ethnic, cultural connection to her. They just wanted to slap down a Black candidate.

Ancedotal reports from New Jersey report similar sentiments among some Italian-American Democratic voters, who remember Amiri Baraka and the Newark riots in a largely Italian-American community in one of Newark's wards, thereafter decimated and "Interstated."