The Neglected Voter

Description

In the 1960s, the Republican Party began to win over a crucial demographic: white male voters. Presidential politics was transformed for a generation.
David Paul Kuhn explains this fundamental fact behind the rise of the Republicans and the decline of the Democrats, and reminds the political left that midterm victories (1986, 2006) do not always equal sustainable success. In revealing, lucid prose, Kuhn explains how America’s conservative party came to win a majority of workingmen and the White House. Grounded in practical politics, The Neglected Voter presciently reconfigures the American political landscape. Equipped with unprecedented research data, reporting, and exclusive interviews with such figures as Jimmy Carter, Norman Mailer, Mark Warner, and Pat Robertson, Kuhn examines the role of gender and racial identity in presidential politics through the social changes that have defined the last half century.

David Paul Kuhn covered the 2004 presidential campaign as Chief Political Writer for CBS.com, and is currently a Senior Political Writer and news analyst for The Politico. He has also written for The Washington Post Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, and the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Shimbun. He lives in New York City.

Forget Soccer Moms and the key demographic du jour. Winning elections means going back to basics

Up From the Ashes, the New Conservatism, and the White Everyman * The Apex of Liberalism to the Dawn of the New Conservatism (1962-1972) * Southern Man * Blue Collar Backlash: Nixon and the Men he Understood * The Disjointing of the FDR Coalition and the False Dawn of Carter (1972-1979) * The Measure of the Man: The Politics of Personal Manhood * God, Manhood, and Moral Values * The Strategic Rise of Reagan and the White Male Gap (1980) * Millett versus Mailer: Vietnam, Feminism, and White Manhood as Vice * The Peculiar American Conservatism, Patriotism, and the Classic Male * Echo Chamber Journalism and Living with the Likeminded * The Value of Grit * Against God and Country: The Perception of the Effete Liberal Elitist * “Those Who Work Hard and Play by the Rules” (1992) * The Angry White Male: Kicked Out and Charged with Abandonment * The Hard Way and Soccer Moms: The Race of 1996 * Politics of the Common man and Gun Culture * The “Feminine Party” in Wartime: Bush, Kerry, and Bravado * The Political Culture of White Manhood: Taxed, Downsized, Emasculated, Dreaming, Believing, and Antagonized * Conclusion

“Archilochus once said, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’ David Paul Kuhn, a seasoned and compelling political writer, obviously knows many things…The Neglected Voter is a smooth, fast-moving tour through presidential election history since 1960, sprinkled with interesting voter statistics. It’s entertaining, full of pithy quotes from winners and losers, hard to put down. I enjoyed it, and so would anyone interested in presidential politics.” —David C. Acheson, The Washington Times, November 11, 2007“Democrats will not get very far by blaming the voter. David Paul Kuhn, author of “The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma” points out that moral issues cannot easily be separated from economic ones. Poor people fret more about family breakdown because they see more of it than rich people do and its consequences, for them, are worse.” —Economist“A must-read for Democrats that want to win.” —James Carville“If you follow politics, you already think you understand the “gender gap”– but you’re wrong. You won’t really comprehend its massive implications until you read this book. We know a lot about why women vote disproportionately Democratic, but until David Paul Kuhn undertook this sophisticated, absorbing study, no one had adequately explained why men vote disproportionately Republican. Using a masterful combination of first-person interviews, polling data, and personal insight, Kuhn shows why millions of white men in America broke their ties to the Democratic Party and made Republicans the majority party for two generations. But Democrats needn’t despair, because Kuhn also shows them how they can win white men back.” —Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia ‘s Center for Politics and author of A More Perfect Constitution“A brilliantly insightful analysis of American politics at the national level. Every Democrat should read this book.” —General Wesley K. Clark, author of A Time To Lead“Kuhn accurately links the Republican dominance of the past 40 years to the loss of the Haggard vote…[and] wisely suggests a ploy similar to John Kennedy’s in 1960: Make the argument that we’re weaker because of the Republicans.” —Joe Klein, Time Magazine:

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