The palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

—Herman Melville, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” Moby Dick, 1851.

It’s not a traditional America anymore....The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?

—Bill O ’ Reilly, Nov. 6, 2012

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Fred Barnes says the GOP should get over its hangup about being the party of white people. The white vote’s “share of the electorate is shrinking,” he writes in the Weekly Standard, “but slowly."

Whites are the nation’s dominant voting bloc today and will be for many elections to come. In 2008, 74 percent of voters were white. That percentage might have held in 2012 as well, if millions of white voters from 2008 hadn’t stayed away from the polls last week.



In any event, the white vote is a Republican stronghold—and not because of racism. In 2008, Obama fared better with white voters (43 percent) than Democrat John Kerry had in 2004 (41 percent). In 2012, Obama’s white support fell to 39 percent.... Republicans shouldn’t feel guilty about their white support.