The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: white workingman, dogmatic liberals, feminine party, Democratic Party, United States, White Male Gap (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliantly insightful analysis of American politics at the national level. Every Democrat should read this book." --General Wesley K. Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, Europe, and author of A Time To Lead"America's single most important voting bloc may also be its least understood. David Kuhn rectifies that. The Neglected Voter tells you everything you always wanted to know about white men but were afraid to ask. This is a very smart book."--Tucker Carlson, MSNBC Anchor"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. 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 J. Sabato, author of A More Perfect Constitution and Director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics"The premise that the Democratic Party's failure to address the interests, convictions and concerns of  white male voters has been the root cause of its decline since FDR days is persuasively presented in this  provocative wake-up call to American liberalism."--Jules Witcover, author of Very Strange Bedfellows and The Year the Dream Died"The Neglected Voter is an original and insightful analysis of a great topic: the Democratic party's White Male Gap in presidential elections.  David Paul Kuhn explains the repeated failures of Democratic presidential candidates to appeal to white men and suggests how the party's nominees might be able to win these voters in the future."--Merle Black, co-author of Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics  

Product 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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403982740
• ISBN-13: 978-1403982742
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,087,281 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A refreshing look at the gender gap, October 3, 2007

By	sara mancini "sara" (sara) - See all my reviews

I read this book in two days. It's intense, a really good read, and the best writing is, as others have said, when the author brings you inside the presidential races, most potently the ones that I never lived through but shaped so much of the politics I now do indeed live through, the late 1960s. Perhaps it was the polling data, which he does do a strikingly well job weaving with the narrative, but I had never looked at the gender gap this way. It's crazy but I cannot recall ever reading about the MALE side of the gender gap (and I read much of everything on politics): what Kuhn calls the White Male Gap. This is, straight away, a book about white guys, more than a third of our voters (which surprised me). At times I felt like I was reading about my father, who left Democrats with Reagan and as upset as he is at Bush, still can't get his heart around voting for a liberal. After reading this book, I finally understand why, why it all went down, why it is all around me when i'm talking politics, and why when these men in some sense abandoned the Democratic Party they took its ability to win a majority of Americans with them. This is the metaphor Kuhn uses, one of a divorce between Democrats and white men. It is indeed worth pondering... I recommend this book very much.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a powerful book, October 3, 2007

By	Jessie A. Schweller "jess" (nyc) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is really a powerful book. I went in skeptical and went out having been thoroughly been changed by it. It moved me... and I thought i would just be mad at it. I purchased this book by accident. I had walked into a barnes and noble, saw it, and perhaps it was my womens studies minor but I was almost offended that any book had been written about white men. then I read it. and I read on. this book was wonderful. I know it may strike some of my profs, but in some sense it's like the "Second Sex," in that it makes you reconsider so many conceptions of men, and white men in politics you took as Gospel. for me, it not only struck me how the Democrats lost their majority overwhelming because of the loss of white working and middle class men but that the gender gap was so misunderstood for so long -- that the gender gap was as he says, due to men, that it was the White Male Gap that undid liberals, my people if I dare say. But it was somewhere deep in the fourth chapter, when we were living in 1968, that I came to understand how the regular workingman man experienced the activism around them, those men who just wanted to support my mother, and friends mothers. The thing is, I realize so many angry online types, of this blogger world, will jump on this book. but they should read on. Most of all, I think feminists should read this book most of all. I think they should read it with an open mind. he takes on Second Wave feminism but not Third Wave. And for that reason, I felt no need to take him on. I just walked away, well, moved, and moved because I expected this book to leave me angry. it really left me in exactly the opposite way.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating reading, December 18, 2007

By	C. Edwards - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a Republican, I found this book very interesting and must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading page after page about how the Democratic Party has failed at the polls because it has repeatedly attacked white men and failed to appeal to them. I greatly enjoyed every word of every sentence! Although the book's author is a Democrat, he very accurately describes the reasons why I and other white men I know vote Republican. In addition, the book's recommendations for getting the Democratic Party to attract white men are good ones. (Let's keep them a secret!)

Regardless of the political views of the reader, this book is extremely well written and researched and is very compelling. I would highly recommend it. Anyone who is interested in politics or current events should buy it.

(PS: Seth Kramer's review on this page is not based on a careful reading of the book, which does not blame the Democrats for Southern racists fleeting the party; rather, the book states that white men both in the South and elsewhere have shifted away from the Democrats and exhibit similar voting behavior.)