{"id":8,"date":"2008-11-05T08:21:41","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T08:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2008\/11\/he-won-it-in-the-suburbs.html"},"modified":"2008-11-05T08:21:41","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T08:21:41","slug":"he-won-it-in-the-suburbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/11\/he-won-it-in-the-suburbs.html","title":{"rendered":"“He Won It in the Suburbs”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Obamavictory.jpg\"<\/span>So said Chuck Todd<\/a> this today on Morning Joe<\/a>.  Consider my hometown<\/a> Exhibit A.<\/p>\n

I live in Edina, Minnesota, a quintessential suburb.  Southdale<\/a>, the first-ever enclosed shopping mall was built here in 1956.  During that same era, when my mom was growing up here, Edina was a “Sundown Town — non-whites were required by law to be out of town by sundown<\/strike> kept out of town by real estate covenants and supposedly asked to leave town by sunset.<\/p>\n

Edina is 94% White and 0.13% African American.  That means there are 752 Whites for every Black person in my town.<\/p>\n

The median household income is $66,000, versus the Minnesota state average of $47,000.<\/p>\n

Edina is represented by Republicans in the state legislature, state senate, and U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n

Get the picture?  Edina is a rich, white, Republican suburb.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama won Edina 55% – 43% (17,399 – 13,669).<\/p>\n

And Obama won my polling place<\/a> 52% – 46% (916 – 813).<\/b><\/p>\n

And maybe the most noteworthy statistic is that 95%<\/b> of the registered voters in my precinct voted yesterday.<\/p>\n

What happened in Edina?  Was it a referendum on Bush 43?  An anti-war vote?  Fear of the economic downturn?<\/p>\n

Probably all of the above, but I think it was primarily something else: Barack Obama ran the most effective, impressive political campaign in history.  His calm overwhelmed the Clinton machine; his embrace of Internet fundraising literally shifted the balance of power from big money donors to 3.5 million individuals giving an average of $83 each; and his caucus strategy (in Minnesota, for instance) will be studied for years.  Edina is simply indicative of Obama’s brilliance as a politician and, we can hope, as a leader.<\/p>\n

As I write this, Cokie Roberts is talking on NPR about “the white vote,” which is the Republican stronghold, particularly white men.  But thankfully, that demographic (of which I am a part) is now a minority in our country.  And, even so, we voted for Obama.<\/p>\n

It’s a new day in America.<\/p>\n

Know Hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So said Chuck Todd this today on Morning Joe.  Consider my hometown Exhibit A. I live in Edina, Minnesota, a quintessential suburb.  Southdale, the first-ever enclosed shopping mall was built here in 1956.  During that same era, when my mom was growing up here, Edina was a “Sundown Town — non-whites were required by law…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n"He Won It in the Suburbs" - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/11\/he-won-it-in-the-suburbs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""He Won It in the Suburbs" - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So said Chuck Todd this today on Morning Joe.  Consider my hometown Exhibit A. 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