Wrestling And The 2008 Election



It is curious how little has been written about how the wrestling demographic affected the 2008 Presidential election. As Mickey Rourke appears to be making his victory lap for best male actor in Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," perhaps more attention should be paid as to the "sport's" role in contemporary American society.

Perhaps the press' virtual silence on how the wrestling demo affected the election has something to do with the fact that the chattering classes clustered in NY. DC and LA simply do not watch it, have never watched it, and are wholly ignorant as to its importance in American history and in the minds of the working class -- men, especially. That having been said, it is important to note that at the end of April 2008 (in the thick of it), Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all offered up their insights into why WWE fans should vote for them (see above). The "promos" cut by those three pols, was as amusing as they was instructive.

In 1998, The Rock was the first African-American WWE champion. According to the WWE statistics -- essentially a monopoly after the demos of the WCW -- 86% of their viewers are male. The Mean Age is 24 yrs old. 58% are ages 18-49 and, interestingly, 40% are males 18-34. Two places in particular -- where the WWE and the American wrestling tradition are strong -- Pennsylvania and Ohio -- grab our attention. Obama performed 3 points higher in Ohio in 2008 than Kerry in 2004 with whites without a college degree and 4 points better among men (and won the state, where Kerry lost). And in Pennsylvania Obama won the male vote 51-48, reversing the margin of victory among that demographic that Bush won in 2004. Clearly, Bush in 2008 was much more unpopular. McCain didn't have Rove's machine. McCain ran a lackluster campaign that was low on cash. But Obama was an African-American and, one wonders, what effect did the fact that the wrestling demographic was not unfamiliar with an African-American at the top of the ticket, so to speak. Curiously, Barack Obama's "Promo" included a self-conscious reference to that historic first ("Can you smell what Barack is cooking")

We find this obscure subject interesting particularly because as a Gen X African-American there are two pop-cultural institutions that have undergone a dramatic sea-change from my childhood to the present from the 80s to the 21st century. One is soap operas. As a child, I watched soap operas somewhat religiously (Mom, a diplomat's wife, has been addicted to soap operas). Before kindergarten, afterschool and in the summers before discovering baseball as a teenager, I watched everything from Ryan's Hope to The Young and the Restless to The Edge of Night to All My Children and One Life to Live. Americans do not like to spake about this (or are perhaps entirely nebulous to it) but soap operas -- in the early to mid 80s -- were tremendously segregated. African-American played cops, detectives, ex-cons or maids. That's all.

The African-Americans on soap operas in the 80s had roughly one fifth or so of on-screen time, and those story lines were almost entirely self-contained. There was little intermingling (except, of course, the cliche long-suffering family maid and the rich family central to the storyline) Interracial love stories and even deep friendships developing between African-American characters and white characters didn't develop until the mid to late-1980s. Wrestling, similarly, is the second pop-cultural institution that developed an evolved sense of race quite late in American history. Those "story lines" -- wrestling is a scripted male sopa opera -- were also self-contained with whites seen as championship material and African-Americans and latinos generally on the undercard. I remember, in particular, a match on April 17, 1984, where Adrian Adonis and "Captain Redneck" Dick Murdoch defeated Tony Atlas and Rocky Johnson to win the WWF tag team titles. The match took place in Hamburg, Pennsylvania and -- even on television -- it was astonishing the racism going on. The fans were booing Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas mercilessly. The really sad thing is that Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas were, aside from being African-Americans, the good guys. It would be 14 years later that Rocky Johnson's son would break the race barrier and become chosen by Vince McMahon, Jr -- also second generation -- as first African-American to become WWE champion. That April 17, 1984, however, the fans of Hamburg, Pennsylvania cheered the team that cheated -- and, of course, that team was white.

Fast forward 24 years. Barack Obama received more political contributions in the 2008 race from Hamburg, PA that any other competitor and won the state. God bless America.