Many of you followed with me the campaign here in North Carolina over the past few weeks. I have to say that it was very disappointing for me, but it also was emblematic of the divide that Obama’s campaign/supporters have wrought amongst democrats in NC and across the country. They have forged an unholy alliance between hyper-educated, well-off white Democrats and African American Democrats. It is not as easy to see the rich white vote in exit polls, but the AA vote stands out like a sore thumb. In NC some exit polls had it at 91% Obama to 6% Clinton. In an attempt to appeal to black voters, Obama claimed that the Clintons were somehow trying to pull a fast one on the AA community, saying on the campaign trail:
“They’re trying to bamboozle you. It’s the same old okie-doke. Y’all know about okie doke, right? … They try to bamboozle you. Hoodwink ya. Try to hoodwink ya. Alright, I’m having too much fun here. … “ - Barack Obama
Well you know what? I think it is the other way around. I think Obama and his elitist rich white supporters are the ones bamboozling the black community. I have been asking my partner John since SC, what exactly is Obama promising to the black community? I mean, that’s how politics works, right? You make promises to your constituencies and in turn hope they vote for you. But Obama didn’t promise the African American community anything. All he had to do was push a few racial buttons and the entire (almost) African American community fell lockstep in line. I think they are being used, and a closer look at two counties in NC might give you a better idea of why I think that way.
Durham County and Orange County are two relatively small counties in central NC that together make up the Durham MSA (metropolitan statistical area) according to the US Census. We are considered a distinct metro area from Raleigh, even though it is just a couple miles down the road. Here is a map of the two counties:

You may not be able to tell, but it is geographically not a very large area. I remember when I went to school at UNC they used to ask “How far is it from Heaven to Hell?”, answer-”9 miles”. That’s the distance between the UNC campus in Chapel Hill and the Duke campus in Durham. These counties both voted heavily for Obama, but their demographics are shockingly different. Let’s take a look. First of all, the vote. In Orange County, Obama took 70% to Clinton’s 29%. In Durham, it was Obama 73%, Clinton 23%.
Now let’s take a look at the demographics of the two. According to the US Census bureau, Orange County is 74% white, 21% black, about the average for the state. Durham County, however, is 56% white, 37% black. If you look at the two largest municipalities in the counties the contrast is even starker. Chapel Hill is 78% white, 11% black, while the city of Durham is 45% white, 43% black. Keep in mind that these two cities are contiguous. Chapel Hill sits at the southern end of Orange county and literally bleeds into Durham County where it meets the boundry with the City of Durham. Now take a look at the median house value between the two. (I think this is the best indicator of economic well-being because the large number of students in Chapel Hill skews the other info like median income, etc). In Chapel Hill median household value is $229,000. In Durham it is $126,000, or a little more than half. What I am trying to demonstrate is that while they are very close geographically, Orange/Chapel Hill is much wealthier and much whiter than Durham. Yet they both went for Obama. They demonstrate in a very real way the two components of the Obama coalition in this primary season. It also shows, in my opinion how the one group (rich whites) pays lip service to the other (poor and working class blacks), but whose actions don’t match up to their rhetoric. Let me give you an example.
When John first started working at UNC he told his co-workers that we were looking to buy a house (we still are) in the area. The reaction from all of these “creative class liberals”? Don’t buy in Durham! They went out of their way to describe the city as having “bad schools”, “high crime”, and “bad resale values”. Now we all know what these coded phrases mean: It is a black city, don’t move there. So obviously, they want to form a coalition with African Americans, they just don’t want to live near them. We, on the other hand, felt that it was not only economically a good idea to buy a house in Durham, we would also be doing our part to forge a larger, more diverse community (Oh, but we voted for Hillary, so we must be racist). Let me show you a picture of a house we wanted to buy (somebody beat us, and it was already under contract when we made an offer):

This house, in downtown Durham, was listed at $29,500. It was 4200 square feet. Granted, it needed a lot of work, but we thought it was a steal. Houses like this line the streets of Durham, boarded up, or split up into run-down apartments. When we went to see this house (and many others), many realtors/inspectors thought at first we were buying properties to set up as rentals (they assumed we were slumlords). When they found out we actually wanted to live in the house we were buying the reaction was of shock. Keep in mind that most of these people were white, and from either Orange County or richer, whiter enclaves of Durham. In fact, I called an inspector to come to this house above. Instead of telling me about the condition of the house, he told me point blank that I did not want to live in that neighborhood. When I responded that I indeed did, and that I was paying him to inspect the house, not give me advice on where to live, he continued to try to convince me that we were making a mistake. I got so angry I told him I didn’t want to have anything more to do with him, to just finish the inspection and leave. This is anecdotal evidence, and I have no way of knowing how these people voted, but I would venture to guess that most consider themselves liberal and open-minded, and at least some voted for Obama.
Now, in contrast, here is a listing in Chapel Hill:

I chose this one because it was the cheapest detached house I could find in Chapel Hill on a popular realtor’s website. It costs $158,000, has 800 square feet on less than 1/5th of an acre. Not much house for the price if you ask me.
Just one other note on this issue. We currently rent a house in Chapel Hill. It is your standard split level 70’s style suburban home. It is repeated in various forms throughout our neighborhood and we have seen at least one for sale at $289,000. We happened to find an identical house (same floorplan) in a Durham neighborhood for $69,000. You can’t get a more direct comparison than that.
My point is that while many of the “creative class” whites are tripping all over themselves to vote for a black guy in order to make up for their “white guilt”, their words are not born out in their actions. It doesn’t help that the (mostly) black leadership in Durham is itself corrupt and pandering to the black community (remember the Duke lacrosse case?). The status quo remains, and once again, it is African Americans that get the short end of the stick. In the end the only thing they get out of a Barack Obama candidacy is the color of his skin.