One nugget from Pew Research that I'd missed earlier: Barack Obama performed 9 points better than John Kerry among urban whites. This was not by any means the most important factor in his election, but it helps to explain the large improvements that the Democratic ticket made in states like Colorado and Nevada, where a great deal of the population is concentrated in Denver and Las Vegas, respectively, and why Republicans were at best able to tread water by targeting the rural areas of Pennsylvania, while Obama waltzed his way to winning large majorities of white and black voters in Philadelphia.
This also attests, of course, to the stupidity of bashing big cities. Roughly 82 million Americans live in cities of 100,000 persons or more, including 40 million in cities of 500,000 persons or more. This does not count smaller cities or suburban areas, which account for another 150 million Americans or so. (Don't neglect the fact, also, that many Americans who do have their residence in big cities may nevertheless work or play in them, and therefore think well of them). By contrast, only about 60 million Americans live in rural areas.
The Bush-Rove team of 2000 and 2004 understood the importance of appealing to suburban voters ... that is a viable strategy. Pitching your appeal to rural voters, on the other hand, probably will not work. They're outnumbered by the city dwellers in the first place, and if your attacks are strident enough that the suburbanites start to side with the urbanites, you've given yourself a big problem.
11.08.2008
Big City Barack
@ 8:03 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
253 comments
First!
This is great news....for NATE SILVER!
As with so many things in this campaign, I'm not sure how far the 'Fake America vs Real America' idea spread. It was certainly funny for those of us who were paying attention, but how many of those urban and suburban folk really noticed? That said, I'm sure Sarah Palin did most of the work on that nine-point gap.
You shouldn't attack one part of the United States in order to win the election, it doesn't matter how many people live in the part you attack. If just isn't American to try and divide the country like that, no matter what the Republicans have been saying and doing the past few years. (Or is that decades?)
Barack Obama, as most Democrats, appealed to many demographic groups, among them better educated and urban areas-obviously a number of cities have large black populations and Obama captured 95% of this vote. If you look at the county by county breakdown of areas that voted more Republican than in 2004, it's clear from the states and the isolated counties within those states one of the major factors was racism.
Fortunately, while urbanites are still divided about the gay marriage issue, racism seems to have turned a major corner and people of any racial background who have integrity and ambition, like Barack Obama, can succeed.
I've pointed out in many posts how difficult the road to the Presidency must have been for Barack Obama and how many doors were slammed in his face and how much ridicule and criticism he must have been subject to as he persued his dreams over the years-quite a remarkable man. He certainly could have chosen an easier route and if money were his motivation, he would have chosen a different path. I can't say enough good things about an individual like Barack Obama who not only follows his own dreams but entices others to get involved along the way.
I'm doing something similar in my writing which is very difficult-both the work itself and the part about knocking on doors and the other similar things Barack Obama has done to mount successful campaigns:
www.cuttingconfessionsfilm.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/370392338
dividing America sadly is what the republican party has been doing since the Republican Revolution. They didn't start that way (Reagan and Bush Sr really did connect the nation), they fell into it, and unfortunately for the nation and their own party, when you start to divide groups you generate fear and anger at the "OTHERS" and that fear and anger is not only bad for a nation it generates more fear and more anger.
Democrats were guilty of this also, they tried to out Republican the Republicans, a good thing for us they are very bad at this tactic and Obama brough a nation together (I hope).
The Wall Street Journal went off the deep end last week:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html
I'm really glad you guys decided to take down that other post about the personal feud and recriminations with another blogger over the yard signs. I was getting worried this blog was going downhill now that the election is over. I hope that you guys keep the content coming. What will be seeing in the future? Projections of budgetary constraints and effects of economic stimulus? Game-theory scenarios of domestic and foreign policy agenda? I can't wait.
I've been running some numbers on Obama's strongest counties. Fifty-five counties (plus DC) voted for him at 75% or more. Obviously this includes the big-haul metros like Chicago, NYC, Boston, Newark, Philly, Portland, Baltimore, DC's Maryland suburbs, certain Atlanta suburbs, Denver, New Orleans, and SF/Oakland. But the majority of the names on this list are small rural counties in places like the Deep South, Texas, New Mexico, and the Dakotas. The numbers don't add up to much, but sometimes "rural" means Democratic, usually when the inhabitants are nonwhite and otherwise disenfranchised or poor. Only a few of the 75+% counties are in between tiny/rural and large/urban, including Obama's strongest non-urban county in the blue Northeast: my childhood home of Berkshire County, Mass.
With regards to the attacks against "Fake America", I can tell you that many of us sought to repudiate that awful thinking.
To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy:
If you pay taxes, you are a real American (Virginian, too, if you live in the Commonwealth)
If you voted, you are a real American.
Thanks for this post, Nate. I've been sick to death for years, not just during this election cylcle, of politicians standing in The Middle of Nowhere, USA talking about "the real America." Of course, when the bad guys decided to come after us, it is notable that they didn't attack our corn fields. That said, C. S. Strowbridge is exactly right; real patriots do not try to divide and conquer, they unite and inspire us.
To the advice another way: Don't shoot off your mouth with arrogant, insulting statements trying to play one part of the population against another when it really isn't needed. But then Sarah Palin said that stuff because she believes it, and it plays great back home where the largest center is Anchorage that largely fancies itself a "small town" (about 1/4 million + 100K in the greater area) and the rest of the state are small towns.
Why was Sean's earlier tirade pulled?
Are you saying that, when conducting a nationwide campaign, it's not a good idea to imply that the majority of Americans are not "real" Americans? *gasp* *boggle*
Regarding a comment I left on the last entry, it does seem like the vote total is still inching up...the CBS site where I got my figures just updated again and increased the national total by 57,197 votes. On a Saturday evening. So perhaps we will still get some decent increases this upcoming week.
@ sean quinn
Having seen how some of the threads have been hijacked by hate-mongerers and cut-and-paste fiends, I am glad to see comments removed by administrator.
It is one thing for someone to say something controversial or even a little off-color. It is another matter entirely, as many of us have seen, when a thread gets flamed.
Kept up the excellent and diligent work.
It's a bad thing to try to divide the country in a way that leaves you with a winning share of voters.
It's a bad stupid thing to try to divide in a way that gives the other team the winning share.
Over and over, the McCain campaign chose the bad stupid thing. The rural thing. The Patriotic America/Real America/Real Virginia thing. Taxing increased over $250,000 as scary socialism. Child tax credits as rotten welfare. Women's "health." Nuclear power "safety."
It really looked like they found wedge issues without measuring the wedges.
As mean as Rove, but nowhere near as competent.
As for the earlier comment about the Wall Street Journal going off the deep end (several days ago, yet):
1.) You gotta consider the source....
2.) "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown"
Being from the UK, I always found it extremely disconcerting that the three largest cities in the US - New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago - and the states which contain those cities could vote so overwhelmingly for one political party yet the opposing party ended up running the country for the last eight years.
In most European nations, if you win the 3 largest cities, the election is already over before you even begin counting the votes from other areas.
From the last thread:
Martin asked for an opinion on why voter turnout hadn't increased significantly from 2004 given the current political climate. He was referencing an article on Politico.com
My response:
@martin
Does seem odd, doesn't it? The only thing I can think of is that 40% of the voting populace have no compelling reason to care. Call it the 'comfortably numb' factor. People who don't struggle financially, care more about sports than politics, aren't affected by anything that government does or does not do and therefore could care less about who is running the ship.
But can there really be that many apathetic people in this country? 40%? Maybe it's denial. "Hey, nothing's affecting my world, why should I be concerned about yours?"
An interesting question: is there a way to sample voter turn-out by income? Do the well-to-do care about who is in charge? Hmmmm
Die divisive politics!!!
It's one thing to appeal to a particular demographic, it's another to do so by demonizing another.
I think (hope) that is the lesson to be gained from the stellar strategy of the Obama team. Of course, there are other components to their success, but it starts with "appeal to everyone you can and dismiss no one."
The difference between the dominant political philosophies is essentially based on population density.
If you only live around a few people, and know most or all of the people you see in a normal day, you will favor small government because you have your own community to rely on. In local communities, the individual has a statistically more powerful voice.
If you live somewhere where you only know 1% or less of your surrounding area, your vote is how you have your say in your community, and so you favor a larger organization to facilitate getting your vote heard and acted upon.
The laws of limited resources say that our population density will be limited to what we can provide for. We've hit a wall with our energy, our food quality, our pollution, and our education, and so the current population density should stick, more or less, for a few decades (which is good for the "government can be good" thinkers). However, we are accelerating our technological advancement to move beyond these boundaries.
Consider also how the internet creates a sort of synthetic population density. We connect to most of our community today without regard to physical location.
Thanks for what you do, gentlemen. Statistics are to the media as the media is to democracy.
In most European nations, if you win the 3 largest cities, the election is already over before you even begin counting the votes from other areas.
I was under the impression that London, Manchester, and Birmingham always would go for Labour. Am I mistaken?
(Don't neglect the fact, also, that many Americans who do NOT have their residence in big cities may nevertheless work or play in them, and therefore think well of them).
Fixed that for you.
As Bill Maher said on his show 2 weeks ago:
"You know why it's political insanity to criticize big city voters? BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY MORE OF thEM!!!!!"
:)
Let's face it, we won the election because of yard signs.
As Kevin Drum points out, Obama ran 9 points ahead of Kerry nationally. So a 9-point improvement over Kerry among a particular group simply reflects Obama's better numbers overall, and doesn't say anything about his appeal with respect to that particular group.
I originally come from a rural state and have travelled this great land extensively. Generally speaking, I have always found people to be kind, generous, and forgiving. Yes, there are a minority that hate and despise, but there numbers have grown smaller and smaller over the decades I have lived (with the exception of a small spike during the Bush years).
The repubs continue to live in a day that is long passed. Just go back and view the speeches from their convention, if you can stomach it. They are almost all mean spirited and divisive.
Until the Repubs realize that the country has changed they will continue to become a smaller and smaller party. Pailin still believes all that. Look at the way she ran her campaigns for mayor and govenor. So, bring her back in 2012 at your peril. It will just continue the downward spiral of the party.
wv: unitipa - the Obama campaign strategy
anyone else think that the electoral college will be gone by 2016?
paper ballots by 2016- also predict.
this country has what can only be called the stupidest way to hold an election on the planet.
If you have two similiar candidates, two equally unispiring ones, if you like, then Karl Rove's 50 plus 1 strategy can work.
If you have a transformational candidate, like President-Elect Obama, or Presidents Clinton, Reagan, Roosevelt, etc, then negative us versus them does not work. People from all over the country spoke out large. The negativity of "fake" America campaigning was washed over by a tsunami of hope and change.
Alon Levy:
Greater London has always voted for the winner in British general elections.
With Birmingham and Manchester, it's true that the central areas vote Labour. It depends where you draw the boundaries. The suburbs of those two cities used to vote Conservative when they were in office. In my experience, the term "suburb(s)" has a slightly different nuance in America and the UK. In the UK, a suburb can be just a couple of miles out from the central area, such as Edgbaston in Birmingham, or Davyhulme in Manchester (both of which the Conservatives won until 1997 when they lost power). In the USA, suburbs are usually a lot more detached and further out from the central area.
@livemild...
Amen.
And an overhaul of HAVA. I hope that is high on Obama's list as it is the beginning of his 2012 strategy. I had hoped JFK, Jr would lead the effort on that, but looks like he may go to EPA.
wv: locoma - I guess you can't deny genetics. Miss you ma.
What did Sean write? I must have missed it...
anyone else think that the electoral college will be gone by 2016?
I don't. Constitutional amendment would be required. Not likely.
Boy, take a nap and you miss the excitement.
Regarding EVs this is the first year I ever really got how clever they are. Seeing the county by county stuff really helped.
Re: Electoral College
Every four years, there is much to-do about nothing. People talk about reforming or eliminating the electoral college. It is a system, nothing more. It is based on the same principles of a Representative Republic. It has strengths and weaknesses.
However, I concur with CA Hawkeye. We should focus our attention on the fact of the state of VOTING in the United States. It is an absolute joke that some precincts do not have enough ballots. That we do not have enough voting machines to handle turnout. That people are effectively shut out from voting because they cannot AFFORD to take hours during work to vote. That anyone could propose using electronic voting machines that do not produce a physical record.
Do you know why voting irregularities rarely occur in New England, NY, IL, PA, NJ? Because the occured with regularity in the 1800s and people STOOD UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS. There is an institutional memory of voter fraud and voters in many communities will NEVER allow it to occur again.
I've just noticed how tough it's going to be for the Republicans to win the next election: New Mexico, Iowa, Nevada, and Colorado all went to Obama by extremely comfortable margins, (including a 16% victory in NM and a 12% win in NV).
Those states are worth 278 EVs, and although that number may fall slightly as a result of the next census information, it's a pretty solid basis for another election win. All the close states he won, like Virginia and Ohio, he could afford to lose.
Blogger Sammy said...
What did Sean write? I must have missed it...
Yard signs, not good.
Someone on another site think they are great.
Lots of Obama campaign field people think yard signs not good.
Someone on another site said something snarly and unfair about a person.
Mule rider was obnoxious in thread.
wv: people misteed the thread and now it's gone --
Darn, what happened to the little trash cans for deleting a post. I think I should probably have let sleeping threads lie.
You will not see the ELECTORAL COLLEGE eliminated until the following event occurs:
1. There is a 269-269 EC tie AND a 25-25 TIe in the HOR which does not break. Unfortunately, in that event, the Constitution contains no recourse of 'terminal' step to the process. ("The HOR continues voting until it elects a President" It makes NO provision for a 25-25 tie never being resolved.) Also - the SENATE break the deadlock regarding the VICE-PRESIDENT. Now - if there is a 50-50 tie, does the SITTING VP cast the deciding vote? That isn;t in the clause.)
2. There is a HUGE differential between the POPULAR VOTE and the EC VOTE (one candidate gets 3 or 4 MILLION more votes than the 'winner')
I won't believe the EC has a chance of going unless California and Massachusetts pass the National Popular Vote bills (over their governors' vetoes). Then that movement may prove to have some momentum, not to mention a good portion of the EV's necessary to make the EC obsolete. But I don't believe it will happen, unfortunately, and I do agree with Joe that the more urgent need is to reform and equalize the way people vote across the country. Early voting can help to eliminate long lines, conveniently running out of ballots in some districts, etc. but more needs to be done.
There should be a STANDARD FEDERAL BALLOT that is used in all 50 states plus PR and Guam. It should be CLEARLY CONSTRUCTED and USEABLE BY ALL.
States can design their own state/local ballots - but the FEDERAL BALLOT should be standardized.
maybe urban whites have got a lot gayer recently?
The states select the electors yes? If that is the case then the idea of a standard federal ballot would not be easily done. Plus it could not be forced on the states by the federal government. (I am Canadian, so I may be off here).
Now it would be desirable of course, but that is another matter.
Maybe Alaska and Hawaii should hold their election a day before the rest of the country. At the moment, the result of the election is often known before voters in those states have finished voting, and many people probably don't bother to vote.
Another idea is to keep the polls open until at least 9pm, so that people have the option of voting after work as well as before it. When the polls close at 6 or 7pm, it's probably difficult for a lot of people to get to the polls after work.
"Plus it could not be forced on the states by the federal government. (I am Canadian, so I may be off here)."
Actually, it can. Federal elections are the province of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - which is why the DOJ oversees the mechanics of FEDERAL voting in the states.
FEDERAL LAW trumps STATE LAW in the United States. However, those areas where the Federal government may assert itself are limited in the COnstitution and Bill of RIghts.
But the FEDERAL election process would definitely be one of those areas.
But I;m not holding my breath on this one.:) :)
After the Civil War, the METHODS of voting have been addressed by the Federal government in various forms. Poll Taxes, blatant voter intimidation, etc were made illegal and vigorously prosecuted.
As with many reforms and rights, it is something that requires oversight and attention. When I moved to Virginia, after having voted in Maine, Massachusetts and New York, I literally SCOFFED at the idea of voting on a stupid electronic machine in 2004. I asked the election official where the paper record would be placed. I was told there would be none. I asked for a paper ballot and was told there were none. I complained in an email to my representative. Apparently, so did many others.
Now, in 2008, at least at my polling place, I was given the choice of paper or electronic. In one of the IT capitals of the United States, we found it hilarious that the voting officials thought a computer could not be hacked.
Unless I'm greatly mistaken they aren't federal elections. That is why a number of people were upset about the Supreme Court getting involved in the Florida election, as it was a state law issue.
We don't vote on President. We vote on electors who are pledged to support a Presidential candidate and are considered representatives of the state. That keeps the "federal" election as a state election, which falls under the law of the state government.
On the three biggest cities in the UK basically choosing who's in power... think of it like this. The UK has a number of cities that are comparable in size to their US counterparts. However, the total population of the UK is about 1/4 or 1/5 of the US. Therefore, it would be logical that the percent of the population that live in the 3 biggest UK cities are a higher percent then the equivalent in the US, no? I might be missing something in that, though.
Well then I stand corrected. Here in Canada federal elections are run by Elections Canada, which is a non partisan government run agency. The head of elections Canada cannot in fact vote, to maintain his unbiased stance. The chief electoral officer of the country indeed started an investigation against the Conservative party over the 2006 election over spending on ads. The Conservatives won that election.
Well regardless of whether they are federal elections, the federal government could get involved. It could use a mechanism similar to the civil rights acts: mandate that if a state does not use a certain standard ballot for certain elections, some percentage of their national highway (or whatever else) funding will be taken away. Then you'll find state gov'ts will conform to that standard right quickly.
I agree the federal government should get involved. However, the Civil Rights Act was an Amendment to the Constitution. To change the voting age to a minimum of 18 years old required an Amendment as well. It won't be easy, but its doable, and its something we should do.
The Constitution is pretty clear that the states run the selection of presidential electors, not the federal government. The states need not even hold elections if they so choose.
Dave:
Where state rights end and federal authority begins is one of those great 'gray' areas in American civil discourse.
While the individual states can set their own voting hours/locations/procedures, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT decides in all the MAJOR issues (voting age/access rights/voter ID, etc.
So individual states can design their ballots and choose the wording of propositions and when and where to establish voting precincts - but WHO can vote and HOW their votes are counted and WHEN changes to voting law can be made and enforced are meta-decisions that the federal government has final say over.
Which also explains why there are more lawyers in the US than in the rest of the world combined. :) :)
You will not see the ELECTORAL COLLEGE eliminated until the following event occurs:
In this scenario, the sitting president & vice president's term still expires at noon on Jan. 20th and with no new president or vice president elected the speaker of the house would become acting president until a president or vice president is elected.
The electoral college system in many respects is not that different than what we have in Canada and the UK. The party with the most seats wins the election. Forty percent of the popular vote in Canada will often give a party about 160 or so of 310 seats in parliament, enough for a majority. Parties here concentrate on QUebec, Ontario and BC (Alberta always votes Conservative, so there is little campaigning there). Oh and Quebec is odd as about 2/3 of it's seats go to a party that wants to remove Quebec from Canada, but that is another matter....
To be clear, there is campaigning by individual potential MPs, but rarely do national party leaders go too far from Ontario (in fact from Toronto) Quebec (mostly Montreal) and BC.
However, the Civil Rights Act was an Amendment to the Constitution.
No, it wasn't. It was a statute. It was designed to fully implement the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (100 years later BTW) but it wasn't an Amendment unto itself.
Sorry, you're correct. I was thinking of the 24th Amendment, which banned the poll tax. I think you'll agree that banning the poll tax was a significant movement in the direction of Civil Rights... and pretty much had to be done via an Amendment.
"In this scenario, the sitting president & vice president's term still expires at noon on Jan. 20th and with no new president or vice president elected the speaker of the house would become acting president until a president or vice president is elected."
True - but MY scenario involves a deaadlock that NEVER BREAKS.
The American public will NOT be willing to have a sitting Speaker of the House serve an entire 4-year term an President - no matter what the COnstitution says.
There would have to be some form ov intervention - ptherwise you would eventually see civil strike in the streets.
The OH SO SIMPLE SOLUTION - if there is a 269-269 EV tie, then the POPULAR VOTE WINNER gets the nod.
Of course, it's so simple that they didn;t think to include it in the founding documents!
Ohio has been through just about every voting permutation there is (except for the Montana register on site). In 2004, my county (Cuyahoga--where Cleveland is) used punch card ballots, yes the dreaded hanging chad . . . In addition to the whole chad problem, the ballots differ from precinct to precinct in both order of candidates and local issues so voters were limited to machines allocated for each precinct. That led to huge lines and problems reading the ballots.
Our county then invested beaucoup bucks to get electronic voting machines, to use them for only one election. Basically the same problem with limiting the number of voters who could vote at one time plus no paper trail and you're totally screwed if the machines break.
There was a huge ruckus when they trashed the electronic voting to go to paper ballots and scanners but, as this most recent election shows, it seems to work the best of the three systems. C'mon, OHIO having enough votes counted by 9 to declare a winner??? That's crazy. If I'm not mistaken, we were the first of the close states to be called only because enough votes were tallied early enough.
Besides leaving a paper trail, I find the optical scan ballot to be a great way to go because it can be marked anywhere. We had voters filling it in while standing in line for a booth or table . . . Plus, it doesn't really rely on anything electronic. While the scanners act as a backup tally, even if they go down for all or part of the day, there's still the paper ballot and the ballot box.
What have you found to work elsewhere??
The Republicans have, ironically, used the unamerican strategy of divisive, tear-down the opponent, hate-politics ever since Lee Atwater's rise to power. Karl Rove was, literally, his pupil. That's what Obama meant by changing the way we conduct politics. It was an above-it-all message, and so long as he continued to express the optimistic, hope-filled, uniting message, he could still get his hands a little dirty (or his surrogates could) and not get called on it too much. Similarly, he could ditch public funding (and break his promise on it) without being called to the table, because he could legitimately argue that a huge, broad-based, non-corporate fundraising strategy was MORE democratic (little "d") than public financing (which, ironically, is more like socialism).
In New Hampshire, we all use only hand-checked-marked ballots that are (mostly) optical scanned. In smaller towns (like mine), they are hand counted by volunteers (4 to a table, one reading, one marking and two checking the others). A few years ago, we overwhelmingly voted against optical scanners to save money and because we love the grassroots democracy of having 60 townspeople show up on election night to count ballots together.
Regarding the MN senate race and the recount: My understanding is that there are no provisional ballots in MN because they allow same day registration, so those won't be a factor. But they do use optical scanners, which means some poorly-filled-out ballots won't have been recorded on the first count. One MN blogger said the optical scanners don't record about 1 in a thousand ballots, which sounds reasonable. (In some cases the bubble is checked instead of filled in, etc.) Also, I believe MN law is like FL law in that the intent of the voter when filling out the ballot is what counts.
Anyway--if the one in a 1000 scenario is true, that means there are around 3000 MN ballots yet to be counted. So Nate--what is the likelihood that these ballots will give Franken the 200+ votes he needs to push him over the edge? Which is to say, are Democrats or Republicans more likely to mess up when filling out a ballot?
Sixty or bust.
Can we please dispense with the turn-out was disappointing in 2008 articles (currently seen on Politico to name just one). In fact, Democratic turn-out was excellent. It's Republican turn-out that sucked.
@Kennyb:
In a blog comment here, I laid out a soc/psych theory on "...why Rush/Rove-ism markets well and 'Frankenism' doesn't." Dirty politics has been around since time immemorial, but combatting this sophisticated mass-demagoguing of it will be tough. I do think the US media helped educate voters more this time around, and naturally this was part of what the McCain campaign perceived as bias (against their playbook).
No change today in the posted MN and AK Senate races---the Alaska Div. of Elections page says last update was Wed. 11/5, all statements on that page. Anchorage Daily News has a story, Alaska's voting turnout puzzling---it does mention the cold weather, as a commenter in earlier threads here said. MN news is that a judge denied Coleman's bid to delay opening 32 absentee ballots.
WV "catin": who left the catin the bag?
My hypothesis is Obama's improved performance with urban white males derived in part from the subset that follows college and pro sports, are largely moderate to conservative though not heavily ideological, and are comfortable with african americans in leadership positions whether on the court or the gridiron, or at the top of the leaderboard.
And the fact that Obama showed some athletic chops (except for the bowling fiasco) and called in to some sports radio shows on occasion, indicated to these voters that this guy was an appealing figure in many ways. I distinctly recall watching on cable television a speech on one of the primary nights that was at the Kohl Center in Madison, WI where Obama mentioned that he was speaking from the three point line and then mimed a jump shot -- clearly a dog whistle to sports fans. Not only that, he wants to junk the BCS and go to an eight team playoff for college football!
There's no reason why counting votes the old-fashioned way should take a long time. In UK general elections, paper ballots are still used and are counted manually by local council workers. Around 30 million votes are counted in about 5 hours.
@andy js, yeah they have a lot of extra stuff to vote on on US ballots, that said, why not just use paper and pencil and take a few days to count I say.
We use paper and pencil in Canada as well.
wv mathlocc I think McCain watches that...
GayIthacan said...
The OH SO SIMPLE SOLUTION - if there is a 269-269 EV tie, then the POPULAR VOTE WINNER gets the nod.
Of course, it's so simple that they didn;t think to include it in the founding documents!
That would be because the popular vote (and political parties!) did not exist as such when they wrote it. If I'm not mistaken, those eligible to vote were really voting for electors who were not bound to vote (even by convention) for anyone but who they wanted to vote for, so the "popular" vote couldn't be mapped onto a winner in the way it can now. These electors were supposed to more enlightened than the common folks who even got a vote, but of course the Senators were more enlightened by far, haha.
Also, I doubt they predicted a two-party system. Look at democracies elsewhere; they usually have credible "third"-parties. What if you had an EC tie and, assuming the "popular" vote could be mapped onto the EC votes, the third-party candidate had actually received the most votes? (It could happen....)
Early on many states did not use a popular vote to pick electors.
Pew also has stuff on religious affiliation and voting: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=367
I find it interesting that those without religious affiliation (11% of the electorate based on exit polls) showed the largest change to Dems over the 2004 election (+8%) to 75% for Obama, compared to other religious groups.
[That 3 in 4 rate was similar to Jewish voters (+4% to 78% Obama), who make up only 2% of the electorate, and Other Faiths (-1% to 73% Obama), though both are substantially smaller fractions of the total voting population.]
With religious attendance on the wane overall, that 11% without religious affiliation is likely to become more important. It seems like it could have had some impact in the Dole/Hagan race (with a jump in donations to Hagan after Dole's attack).
In many elections the Jewish vote is taken very seriously. Will those without religious affiliation (with 5 times the number of voters) be taken more seriously in future elections?
New England House Delegation:
Democrats - 22.
Republicans - 0.
Thank you Nate for standing up for us city folk! The notion that small town people are somehow the "real" Americans is absurd. I feel like the line was crossed when Rep. Hayes actually came out and said this, as opposed to most Republican politicians who just imply it.
as for the issue of the speaker of the house becomming president if they're totally deadlocked and tied at 269...
what would probably happen would be: the speaker appoints whoever the nominee of the speaker's party was for vice president, then resigns and makes him president instead.
All this talk about third-party systems and such got me thinking: what would a REAL drama-filled, nightmare scenario be? I came up with something that would really stir up a fuss:
What if there were three equally viable parties under our current EC system, and the scenario arose that during a presidential race, one candidate won a plurality of the electoral vote, one one a plurality of the popular vote, and the third's parity controlled a plurality of the states in the House of Reps (or a majority, which could exacerbate the situation).
Now wouldn't that be a fun November and December?
It's not just the repubs that play the "real america is not the cities" card. If you look at Obama's 30 minute spot, for instance, it's all suburban home-owning families with kids.
I'm single, will probably stay that way, and have no kids nor do I plan to, and I don't think I've ever heard a politician of either party address my demographic :p While it's cheaper not to have kids than to have em, one income gives you a lot less flexibility than two in case of illness or unemployment.
And while I DO own a house, another political cliche that alienates me is the one about families talking about their economic problems around "the kitchen table" -- how many people of moderate means have eat-in kitchens? Very few apartment dwellers, and even among houses, plenty have smaller kitchens than that :p
So yeah. Pretty much all of em are talking to an idealized misty view of a household as at least a two-parent family with kids in a house with a big kitchen. I think those folks are pretty well off. I'd love to see a politician talk to the single, the childless, the single parent, the gay couple, the renter, the homeless... all those folks that don't even make it into Obama's more-inclusive demographic.
when will the next pollster ratings come out?
Republicans have always been the party of small town rural American and that's not going to change. They CAN'T change without changing their values, and then they wouldn't be conservatives anymore!
They are just now coming to grips with the reality that minorities and voters under 30 hate their guts and are a massively Democratic constituency. They have yet to figure out that people decide their voting habits and then keep them. So, they essentially have no hope for the future.
By the time you are 30 most people have decided whether they are liberal or conservative, whether they are Democrats or Republicans or Independents, and that choice doesn't much change. We hear stories about the Republicans who shifted parties because of Bush or Democrats for McCain, but such people are OUTLIERS.
If you were a Republican and voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, most likely you're going to STAY a Republican no matter how badly Bush screws up. And you'll vote for some other Republican like McCain and hope he does better than Bush.
So, as time moves forward, younger voters age and will just move through the generations as a HUGE BLUE WAVE (unless Obama REALLY screws up which won't happen).
And how can Republicans decide to appeal to minorities when they are addicted to code-word racist attacks, and their base are mostly white racists resentful of minority gains? McCain might not want to emphasize it, but all the Hispanics who marched with Mexican flags only to see a massive fire-storm of racist attacks in the media aren't going to forget the experience.
One party's base hates their guts for "stealing our jobs," and one party accepts them. Nothing much Republicans can do about it.
Humbly, here's a quick-and-dirty fix to the main EC problem... bump it up to 539. That would screw Nate a little but maybe prevent some serious damage to the country down the road.
Yeah Just John. Why the hell is there an even number of electoral votes anyway? I say give DC a 4th elector so then we have 539 grand total; no tie possible.
The biggest factor in winning this election is not being measured by any mean or any one, not even by our poll masters, Nate and Sean.
Here is a different perspective on how B.O. won the election. Please forgive me for westing a lot of ink, but you will like it.
I am a proud American since 1989, however, during my college years I have met 60 foreign students like me from 20 countries, covering every continent. And all but three of them have earned their American citizenship. We still get in touch every once a while. I am also a college prof. now and, thus, I asked my students and my x-foreign friends to tell me who they voted for and to list the top three reasons for their pick.
interestingly enough, 68 % of all the x-foreigners, from twenty countries, have voted for B.O. and 75 % of my college students did the same. However, the reasons for their vote for B.O, although are not exactly the same, since the foreigners think big of foreign policy effect on their old countries, yet 89% of both groups have said that the most important reason for their vote was the positive inspiration that Obama had overwhelmed them with.
I wish that Nate and Sean can study the inspirational effect on all voters by using some old or new polling data. I will bet my vote that it was the largest factor to get him elected.
For those who think that the economy and/or the wars are what got him elected, I like to ask them to think for a moment how can an unexperienced candidate, in both fields, win on the most experienced candidates in both fields. Think Hilary's 90's economic boom, and Mcsame war hero status and experience.
If you are still not convinced, then explain to me why was Obama able to flip the poll numbers to his side in state after state when ever he spoke to the people of these states, and that was in both the primaries and the general election. It is the inspiration factor that made every one so fired up and ready to go, and the rest of the reasons were just another excuse or added values to vote for a great inspiring leader.
PS.: I will be patiently waiting for your analysis Nate. And BTW Congratulation on being the best political predictor ever. Watch out for the big box coming soon toward you from party leaders who is going to be dying to hire you. Get a good agent, now Nate.
"Yeah Just John. Why the hell is there an even number of electoral votes anyway? I say give DC a 4th elector so then we have 539 grand total; no tie possible."
Unless a 3rd party candidate won some electoral votes. 268 EV for the Dems, 268 EV for the GOP, 3 EV for the Alan Keyes.
For those who think that the economy and/or the wars are what got him elected, I like to ask them to think for a moment how can an unexperienced candidate, in both fields, win on the most experienced candidates in both fields. Think Hilary's 90's economic boom, and Mcsame war hero status and experience.
I agree that Obama's uplifting and talented oratory and rhetoric with a big reason why he won.
Against Hillary, however, he was successful in framing a lot of the debate on the issue of voting for the Iraq War.
Against McCain, he had that to help hedge against McCain's foreign policy experience, and was able to frame the debate (with the help of Lehman Brothers and the Fed) on the economy.
Plus, to most people, Obama simply comes off as an extremely intelligent, thoughtful, and capable person (especially compared to McCain), his relative lack of experience be damned.
Finally, the Palin pick completely undermined McCain's experience argument, which mostly disappeared in the final two months.
mscis89 said...
"The biggest factor in winning this election is not being measured by any mean or any one, not even by our poll masters, Nate and Sean."
I agree with you, mscis89. I would add one other component...most of us realized he also is very intelligent. When the Obama campaign staffers asked my husband why he supported Barack, intelligence was his first response.
I still find it hard to believe we will have a motivational, intelligent President!
@ Just John
The real fix would be if we eliminate all 538 EV and count the popular vote only, like real democracy should be, of the people and by the people, not of the rich and popular and by the few EV, who does not even have to vote as the people did, any way, just Like Supper delegate.
Actually the EV was created because the founding slave's masters did not trust the people to vote directly for them since they were not that smart or educated. Although, some people say now that they just wanted every state to be counted. Big Joke, who is counting Alaska now?????
I know it has been five days since election days, and that this rant has nothing to do with today's post, but I have to give it up to you guys at FiveThirtyEight, I thought the election was going to be much closer, last Tuesday, while at work, when I received the text message at 11:49 am from this site, projecting Obama to win with 349 electorial votes and 6.1% popular margin, I liked what I read by still felt that I was being set up to experience the same disappointment from the last two elections. Honestly I was skeptical that many white voters would follow true to your poll numbers and vote for 'him' instead of the candidates that look like them, but I am so very honestly proud and happy, much more than I have in many years of this country and its voters who gave Obama the electorial votes that Bush did not even have in the last two elections. When it was called for Obama, here in Callifornia at around eight o' clockish, I was numbed and could not stop hollerin and hootin'. I opened my studio apt door and in my predominately Mexican-American area in the city of Whittier (Nixon) fireworks were heard and people cheering. I am so glad the my Mexican-American and Latino brothers and sisters all came out and supported Obama. I was very proud and emotional all week watching all of the footage around the world of seeing people just so goddamn happy, it was a defining moment, something no Republican can ever accomplish, not because Obama is black, but that he resonates true Hope and the promise that America used to reflect upon this planet. It was nice to see and hear the smug and moronic Sean Hannity and the Faux News cronies skin repel and become obsolete within a week. Obama really needs to do his best and we need to do our best, so that he can get a second term, and boost our nation back to greatness. Thank you ALL.
Thank YOU, Armando, for sharing your story. Personally, I haven't met anyone yet who didn't hoot and holler when the election was called for Obama.
Even our racist, staunch Republican neighbors confessed they voted for Obama and joined the cheering. This is a wonderful time for our nation.
@ Nicholas Warino and Smitty
Your reasons are very valid for a lot of people, but what I am saying is that the majority of the people had an over all great feeling about this man, that prevented the Kitchen sink strategy from working against the leader. Which, as you know, has worked in every election that has ever being held in this great country, except for JFK and now Obama, according to many historians. Inspiration is the ultimate fire wall.
Here is a little story that I have read in my 6th grade, back in my old country.
At the middle of the last century, the Chinese leader, back then, had inspired his people to beat the western counties and not be dependent on their products. So he first selected the sugar usage in China and he said that if we lower our sugar intake just by one spoon a day I promise you, my people, that with the money we save we can build enough sugar factories in our country to satisfy all of us and then some. Well, two years later, China did not need to import even one pound of sugar from any country, in fact they exported some.
Again, inspiring leader, even a communist one, will do wanders to his people and his country.
When people vote at the booth, and think of several issues, but at the last minute and with a lot of conflicting data from the media, they vote their got feeling and the positive inspiration tilt that feeling scale to the inspiring leader.
So, now that fivethirtyeight has become one of the most obsessively-read political websites of the year...and now that its bread and butter, the election, is over (save for three Senate seats and a few House seats)...
Whither fivethirtyeight? Bring on the policy analysis!
@Armando
Yep, thank you, I am moved by your feeling too. I have to admit, as a man, where I came from I am not supposed to cry, but boy, ask me if I gave a damn. I cried like a baby and my wife was proud of, still.
However, Unfortunately, some people, Right Wingnuts, that I know will never change and they were very upset. I guess they are the real Americans, yep. Thank you Sarah P.
Believe It Or Not Dept.:
On November 5 -- the day after Obama's election -- in his home state of Illinois, the evening Pick 3 lottery number was 6-6-6.
Google it if you don't believe me.
I have to say that inspiring as Obama is, I will go with the intellect every time. I always vote for the smart guy, who oddly enough is always the democrat ;)
If I can get oratory with that, I'm happy, but it's not necessary to win my vote.
As for all the anecdotes about hardcore racist republicans voting for Obama... maybe... but don't forget that plenty of people, almost half those who voted, voted for McCain. Almost as many people who can resist the silver tongue as are swayed by it.
I would love someday to see the smart guy win by a POPULAR landslide :/
what's going on in Missouri Guys ???
vw:bileve:
I "bileve" Obama will be an outstanding US president.
;)
Yes, MI22, I googled it and it's true. And Mars was out brightly that night. So?
Electoral College gone by 2016: Not a chance. I hope there is an Intrade trade on that; I'll make money for sure.
"It's the economy, stupid." No, Obama did not have lots of experience on that issue. But that isn't what moves average American voters. They have long tended to vote with the incumbent party if they were feeling good about their personal economic situation as the election approached, and against the incumbent party if they did not. There was a lot of obscuring drama this year (Obama such an unusual candidate, a wingnut female on the Republican ticket), and many factors played some part, but the charts all show quite clearly that from the week after the Lehman bankruptcy filing the tide just rolled over the Republican campaign. This election was most like 1932: FDR then was not a widely known quantity, particularly in comparision with Hoover, but the economy turned the voters toward putting somebody new in charge.
Armando and others: Tuesday night was indeed a very emotional time for many of us. My wife and I both shed tears at many points during the evening, but especially when older black voters recounted how they had never, ever believed such a day would come in their life times. And nor did we.
Republican party: It is not a given that the Republicans are the party of small-town, evangelical, right-wing America. That has been their winning edge only for (some of) the past 28 years. Before then you had Republican primary candidates like Nelson Rockefeller and Howard Baker. The party had (still has but weaker) a strong big business, large corporation, internationalist-globalist wing. The carping about Palin now going on has a lot to do with professional campaign operatives seeking to offload their failure this cyle onto Palin. But it also has to do with what will be a bruising battle to determine Repub strategy and policy emphases for 2012 and more importantly 2016.
And so -- we have had a historic moment. But history never sleeps long.
@ Alamala
Nothing wrong with an intellect who inspires people.
But, if you read and observe the history of every nation that has its chance of success, you will see that the most memorable figure in every nation was some one who inspired that nation, and yes some of them are very smart people, but a lot of them are not.
e.g. The person who lead the revolution against the communist dictator in Romania was just a labor guy who inspired all the Romanian people and they succeeded.
The same is true in Rasia, Nelson was hardly an intellect.
In France, the revolution was led by the workers and the poor lead by an inspiring leader.
In America, not many people think that JFK was an intellect, but he inspired us and we went the moon.
In Afghanistan, believe or not, the people gave in to the occupier, the Soviet Union, but then with our arms and Osama Ben Ladin inspiration to the Afghani people they defeated the soviet Super power.
In Iraq, an average guy, named "Moqtada Al Sader" inspired his people to rise against the occupier, US, and they now see us deciding on when to leave, not if.
I can go on and on and on, but the stories are the same every where. Do not let any one foul you, people around the world blow them self up not because it is a fun game, but because they were inspired by some one, just like our brave solders dye every day because they have been inspired to defend our freedom.
Note that I said that Obama has positively inspired us, because you can inspire people negatively too, think of Hitler, although he was an intellect, according to historian.
Also, think of Sarah Palin, who has filed for intellectual bankruptcy, and yet she inspired millions of American to vote for her ticket.
So, please do not read me wrong.
SurveyUSA is posting state-by-state pollster accuracy.
http://www.surveyusa.com/
interesting.
I was wondering when people would start noticing this point.
Also, let me point out Northern Virginia is suburban not urban. That was what made it extremely stupid. In additon to insulting a key region of a key state, they insulted every other suburb as well. For all of the media's talk about Scranton, the true swing voter lives in the suburbs. The GOP lost them and its hard to see how they get them back. Increasing the Rush Limbaugh "true conservatism" isn't likely to do the trick.
president G.W.Bush in planning to write a book about His presidency
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/08/bush_advised_to_wait_on_book.html
balls deflate !!!
:(
Assuming Obama is modestly competent by 2012 things should be a lot better in this couuntry. I figure Obama will win a Johnson like re-election especially since the GOP really doesn`t have much to work with.
Until the republican party gets off the culture war they will never regain power. If Obama helps the middle class the GOP is doomed.
Well they can always hold in to Utah and Kansas.
Barack did better in big cities because with more people around they are more exposed to and open to the possibility of change
I am pretty sure people here will enjoy this set of maps put together by an academic geographer:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/?map
Cugel said: "Republicans have always been the party of small town rural American." It's not as simple as that. If you look back map by map at the electoral college result over the last fifty years or so you can see quite a remarkable shift in where the parties got their support.
Andy JS said: "I always found it extremely disconcerting that the three largest cities in the US - New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago - and the states which contain those cities could vote so overwhelmingly for one political party yet the opposing party ended up running the country for the last eight years." I have to disagree there. Even though I'm an urbanite myself, I respect the fact that if the "rural" opinion is in the majority, so be it.
Alon said: "I was under the impression that London, Manchester, and Birmingham always would go for Labour." This is true for Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow but not for most of Britain's cities. London has a Conservative mayor, and though Labour holds most parliamentary seats there that is not always the case. In 1987, for example, the Conservatives took 57 out of 84. And Birmingham has had a Conservative council for the last five years.
First off, on the cities thing. I think that the progressive wing of US politics has always been an urban thing, fighting against the rural and more conservative parts of the country, (I am aware that this is not perfect, and plenty of early 20th century progressives sought agriculture reform for instance). I think its one of the dangers to the Republic when one part of the country tries to go further than another is ready for. (slavery, prohibition, civil rights as examples)
I think in a sense the Republican party is currently struggling because they have ignored those who don't see abortion as a big deal, and dont see any social issue as a big deal. Personally I think there are real dangers for the Democratic Party in pushing ahead tooo quickly and too aggreassively in liberalising social issues, like gay marriage, but gun control for instance as well.
Gun control is a good example, it means different things in a different parts of the country. In rural areas its a threat to a way of life. In some urban areas gun control is necesary.
My point is that as much as we progressives might want to see a Democratic Party administration as a mirror of the Bush administration and just do whatever they want without worrying, thats not sensible public policy. President Obama will need to be smarter and more sensible than that. Have priorities and sell those to the country (all parts of it) and be prepared to lose some battles on the smaller stuff now if it means not taking them off the table for the future.
I think it might be in the long term interests of the GOP to go through a period of soul searching. How many moderates are in a position to assume party leadership positions right now? I can't think of many, but I don't see the GOP making real inroads, if Obama is anything like a good president, until the moderate wing of the GOP makes a recovery. But in turn that means that the right of the party has to be wise enough not to offend moderates too much and push them out of the party. Tough times for the GOP if they are not careful.
joel said...
Until the republican party gets off the culture war they will never regain power. If Obama helps the middle class the GOP is doomed.
November 9, 2008 5:44 AM
Agree.
For instance:
Poland is already pushing Obama to carry out the missile shield in their country.
I don’t think this is a good idea.
This could only piss off Putin and I happen to think that Russia and America right now are facing a common enemy:
Terrorism Islamic.
So I think these to big super-power nations need to work together for the sake of the entire world.
Placing US missiles in Poland is a direct,useless, threat to Russia, hope Barack realizes that.
You just imagine if USSR place missiles lets say in Venezuela or Cuba, what would You say ??
Plus: wouldn’t be a better move is this very moment of crisis,placing resources on people instead of weapons ??
You can’t eat ammo, would you ??
markymark said...
Gun control is a good example, it means different things in a different parts of the country. In rural areas its a threat to a way of life. In some urban areas gun control is necesary.
*************
soooooooooo right.
In my humble opinion is unbelievable how many people carry guns in US.
I am aware of your 2th amendment , anyway I consider a step forward to define who really need to carry a weapon and who can do without.
Nate, a follow up question on the off chance you get this far into the comments. What happens if you remove young people from your analysis of urban whites? Given that Obama won among young people by such an overwhelming margin, and that urban whites tend to be predominantly young people, I wonder if the preference for Obama we're seeing is a function of areas with different population densities or a function of age?
matador,
the problem is reconciling the two. I think it requires common sense from both sides. NRA types need to understand that gun crime is a serious social issue in many parts of the country, and needs sensible, intelligent discourse to try to help to handle it. Those pushing gun control need to be sensible in understanding that many people who go hunting, say, do not have any malicious (at least to humans) intent with their gun.
Actually I think this is one area where having an African American President might be helpful. He might be able to use the bully pulpit to persuade many in the inner cities that gun crime is ripping communities apart.
He will try to take the middle road on most issues, including gun control.
"Bright Lights, Big City
They've gone to my barack's head x2
I tried to tell you Silver, you won't believe a change that he said
It's alright, pretty barack yeah, you'll need my help someday
It's alright, pretty barack, you'll need my help someday
You're gonna wish you had listened to some of these things that I said"
The Animals, 1965 (with changes in italics)
@ Armando,
If only those same people in your neighbourhood hadn't also jumped on the chance of spreading a little (prop) h8te at the same time, it would've truly been a great day. Apparently minorities voted for change - and inequality at the same time. Don't know what I'd rather see; a McCain presidency in a decent country or an Obama presidency in Bigotryville.
I'm married. Why should I care if gays marry? What possible difference does it make to me? Let them marry!
The electoral college gone by 2016? Not a chance. But irrelevant by 2016? Quite possibly. This plan for electing the president by popular vote is making amazingly steady progress.
sherwick said,
'I'm married. Why should I care if gays marry? What possible difference does it make to me? Let them marry!'
-------------------------
This is my point about not going to fast or to reckless (and sorry to sherwick if it seems like i am picking on your comment.)
I think any progressive would think like that. BUT the US isn't chock full of progfressives. Many people have socially conservative views on issues like this. But personally speaking, my own view is that healthcare reform is more important, and i don't feel that upsetting social conservatives over this issue is worth risking healthcare reform over. I think in a sense thats the mistake the Clintons made, especially over Gays in the military.
Also lets remember that even California voted against gay marriage. Maybe take that as a sign of what it is. The country is not yet ready to have it foisted upon those who are uncertain about it. It needs to be handled very carefully as an issue. (I think the same is true for a lot of these social issues, but if they are done right, they can be taken off the table for a couple of generations, and we can get back to proper converstations about how the country is run, without distractions.)
The rural/suburban/urban ultimately boils down to "stranger danger". Small towns are notable for their sameness day in and day out. They know who, to quote Bible Spice, the stinkers are. How many of them travel much, in the US or internationally? Given the obscenely low percentage of Americans with passports, I'd have to say very few. Thus, most of the world falls into the stranger danger category--which was exploited to the max by Atwater/Rove.
Cities and suburbs have more fluid interactions. What qualifies as strange in NY or LA??
Breaking News!
Election Officials in Georgia, MN, Alaska and Florida promise to finish counting the votes in "about three years, give or take..".
Oh and MO too.
Any chance we can get Lieberman recalled if he turns to the repub caucus? What is the recall process in CT?
For the analysis-starved:
Barack Obama and The Integral
There is no recall process in CT, even for state legislators, methinks. Is it Constitutional to recall a U.S. senator?
Hi other Fred!
@ clarkejeffrey
You are quite correct about Northearn Virginia not being urban. Even though Nancy Pfotenhauer is a Virginian, she did annoy a lot of Virginians from both parties with her comments.
This is because Northern Virginia, you know, the fake part, does bring a lot of money into the state. This is because Robert E. Lee LED THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. People around here have a long institutional memory, just like transplanted New Englanders like me.
The policy of divided the electorate does not work when you have a transformational candidate.
@ sherwick
Funny commentary about the 3 year vote count plan. To get the Drudge mock tone correct, add "Developing....." at the end of your post. ;)
What have you found to work elsewhere??
Can't resist this one.
I'm Belgian, and have frankly been stunned by the voting problems reported from the US election.
In Belgium, it's mandatory to vote (well technically, you are obliged to turn up; it's nobodies business what you do inside the booth), with a mail-in alternative for those that are unable to go to the polling stations (health, work, abroad, ...). Depending on where you live, one of two voting systems are used: either the old fashioned paper and pencil, or an electronic system with touch-screen computers that produces a magnetic-strip card as a physical record. The latter was introduced when people got fed up with the larger cities reporting very late. By "very late", read 4am on Monday morning (all elections are held on Sundays over here).
That systems works rather well; lines are never longer than say 45 minutes or so, and elections are called within 24 hours (including any recounts).
While it may not be effective to target rural voters for electoral purposes, I certainly hope the Democratic leadership offers some help to our rural communitities and families.
As our economy struggles and may yet collapse, our bulwark against falling into true third-world status is our agricultural production; so long as we can all eat, we will survive.
So let's take care of the folks who put the food on our tables. We need to support agricultural innovation, give incentives for medical professionals to serve small towns, and strengthen small town businesses (not Walmart).
Obama rural plans will help everyone, and not be a trickle down program creating ranchers and farmers worth millions while the rest of the rural economy goes to crap.
Re: Infrastructure and rural communities
The assumption that is often made about infrastructure is that the money is spent and benefits urban and suburban communities more. In fact, many infrastructure programs benefit rural communities more, because they provide access to markets. The St Lawrence Seaway, the canals and locks on the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers, regional airports, the Interstate Highway System, rail, the expansion of broadband all allow for goods and services to be transferred greater distances at lower costs.
@ Markymark
Look, what's the reason gays and lesbians can vote at all?
- Because you can't distinguish them based on physical attributes. That's THE only reason.
Do you really think blacks in the South could vote if it were up to the people to decide? Women, for that matter? (Probably now, yes, but who knows?)
I find it preposterous that other people should be allowed to vote on an issue like this that does NOT concern their own lives - you've got to establish some ground rules and let them apply to all members of society. There's not a lot of liberté, egalité et fraternité about this - which were the principles that liberal (not in the American sense of the Word, but in the normal sense - liberal=free) democracies were founded on.
Oh - the Germans voted the National Socialists to power as well. Keep that in mind. Only a Constitution establishing basic, inalienable rights would've contained Hitler's power. Checks and balances, you know...
I think part of the problem in the US is that there are so many different ways of voting. Elections are run by state governments and as such noone wants to relinquish there own little bit of power.
In the UK, you have a paper ballot and simply put an X next to the name you are voting for. If there is any other mark on the ballot it is a 'spoilt' ballot and thrown away. Counting is done by neutral volunteers and I cannot recall any case of fraud or miss counting or anything.
My own personal view is that in the US, ther should be a mini constitutional convention to institute similar procedures across all 50 states and to organise election day. (my own view is that elections should either move to a weekend, election day should be a public holiday, or early voting should be a national thing.) The convention should have 2 representatives from each state, 1 from each party, and some neutral and 3rd party representatives.
Does anyone know what happened in Southern Arkansas? Most of the areas that shifted red are either part of the Cracker Crescent (white, "American ancestry, non-metropolitan South), Southern Louisiana and Mississippi (Black emigration after Katrina) or have a hometown effect (AZ, AK, MA). But Southern Arkansas is predominantly black. Was Arkansas affected by black emigration as well? I don't want to believe that this is Clinton-related.
Casper,
my point is not that gay rights shouldn't happen or anything like that, my point is more that to risk more valuable political gains to get gays and lesbians the right to marry would be a huge mistake. I think in the end the case has to be made about why gays and lesbians are soooo determind to get the right to marry.
Look in the end, I live in the UK, and gays and lesbians can get what is effectively a civil wedding. (I am not sure its actually called that officially, but it equates to the same thing) It hasn't changed my life one bit. But you have to realise the political situation in the US. Obama has to retain political capital for as long as possible, and riling up the religious right is not at the moment politically a smart thing to do.
Federal elected officials - the President, the Vice President, Senators and House Members - cannot be recalled. The only way they can be removed is death, conviction after impeachment for the President or Vice President, or expulsion from Congress by their fellow members.
Which is as it should be. Recall is a horrible concept.
casper-
Gays and lesbians voted for Kerry over Obama. Are minority groups more biased against other minority groups? The prop 8 also holds this out.
I have nothing but good things to say about gay marriage, but can you tell me why gays voted against Obama?
Gays have every right to marry under the Constitution, any other conclusion is silly.
That said, why didn't your group support Obama? When you are the only major democratic group to vote LESS for Obama than KErry, weel, youmight not have alot of influence.
A standardized Federal ballot for Federal elections sounds like a great idea to me. Another great idea would be to change national elections from Tuesday to 24/7 over a Saturday and Sunday. Holding an election with limited hours in the middle of the work week unfairly suppresses the votes of those who are employed.
Democrats have won the popular vote in four out of the last five elections. Demcorats in Congress were rewarded after their gains in 2006 by more gains in 2008. Barack Obama ran as a Democrat and won about 9 million more votes than the candidate who won as a Republican.
Can we please stop with the fantasy that America is a 'center right' country? We just aren't. From "we the people" to "give us your poor", from "out of many, one" to "yes we can", America is a progressive nation. It's time for big-government [social] conservatism to grow up and realize that the social conservative nanny-state, where government tells you who you can marry and dictates your reproductive choices, is out of step with mainstream America.
If big-government conservatives really believe that bashing and trashing our major population centers is the path to victory, shame on them. If they want to spin their overwhelming and decisive loss into some alternate reality where Barack's victory was razor-thin and a triumph of conservatism, shame on them.
America is a progressive nation that isn't afraid to admit its mistakes (e.g. slavery, Jim Crow, Prohibition) and move forward. Soon America will recognize that codifying special rights for heterosexuals is wrong too; it's just a matter of time.
Every time some big-government conservative tries to tell you that America is center-right, laugh at them. History proves them wrong, and saying something over and over again just doesn't make it true.
Keep bashing our cities, big-government conservatives. Keep telling the vast majority of Americans that their 'values' are 'out of step' with the places where no one lives. Keep it up, and we Democrats will keep on governing.
I think we need real time reporting of votes to a confidential location, with a paper trail for recounts.
Current antiquated systems are being abused in lots of locales...
Few things are more dubious than the supposed fall off of gay support for Obama.
The exit polls as I recall show 68 for Kerry, 63 for Obama.
But the MOE for exit polls for a total population is already higher than in pre-election surveys. Then when one tries to calculate the MOE for a small subset (as gays are), it gets ridiculous - the MOE is probably over 10%, maybe even 15.
In other words, gays easily could have voted for Obama in higher numbers than they did for Kerry.
This number unfortunately is already accepted as truth. It is rather extremely dubious.
The same applies for the % of blacks in CA who voted for Prop 8. They made up about 8% of the voters, and the MOE there is also probably around 10%.
We are not center right, or center left, we are on average right down the middle. Lets get over the idea we are all a bunch of progressive liberals, like me.
Nate, any comment on this?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-ballots9-2008nov09,0,4500310.story
true sfergus - but the drop in gay support for obama was consistent across states, which sure does make your argument less likely.
why on earth would 30% of gays vote for McCain/Palin?
37% of gays voted for for McCain/Palin, with an MOE of ????
I am stunned Sherwick, but gays are not voting their interest, black are, thus blacks are the more consistent group for dems, and should (and will) get more party support.
Them there is politics, kids!
@fred
No, of course I can't. They're just people like everyone else - perhaps McCain's tax plans benefit people w/o children more, hence the inclination to vote Republican. Besides, I'd very much like to see some relative numbers on your statement, fred - it sounds odd. How would such a survey be carried out scientifically?
Again, distinguishing 'gays' is quite hard compared to 'blacks' or 'latinos' or even 'evangelicals', who are also indistinguishable, but will gladly state their religion, because they chose to be religious, as opposed to... you know....
Well, it is besides the point which is that rights shouldn't be a political issue. I'm also not living in the US, markymark, but it's a logical error to equate civil rights and politics, which I certainly hope most people understand.
And, as the CA Supreme Court has already established once, gay marriage (or civil unions or whatever you'd like to call it) is IMHO nothing to be politicised - just as slavery, black vote, women's vote, and the whoooole freedom of speech etc.etc., too.
It basically all boils down to the question if being a homosexual is a choice - I'm not in a position to even start answering this, but from a legal perspective, if two people are allowed to form a mutual contract, in the eyes of the law it shouldn't matter what gender these people have. There's just no arguments against that in a liberal democracy, really.
So your argument is based on gay self identification being high or worng? That is hilarious...
Numbers to follow...
the phrase 'turkeys voting for Thanksgiving' comes to mind when I think about gays voting for the GOP...
hi everyone
On the question of whether the US is centre right or not:
I am not American, but I would guess the US is pretty much like most Western countries, which is that people on the whole would be quite happy not to bother with politics at all as long as things are going ok for them. Even with the economy tanking and the dreadful Bush years, over a third of eligible voters didn't vote.
The reason the US may appear to be centre right to some people is that for the last 30 years or so, the right have been better at getting their supporters to vote than the left have. They have generated enough issues of concern to their core to get them to disproportionately turn out.
But the crucial bit in the description is CENTRE right. The US is not full of wingnuts, it is probably made up of people who mainly cluster either just to the left or just to the right of centre. While the Republicans shift further right they will not win. See the Conservative party in the UK.
As for the issues, I am sure Obama knows the hazards. The wingnut right will try to distract him with gay rights and teaching creationism to prevent progress on health reform, climate change, and anything else that would make Obama a good president. Sadly, much as one would like to think that the elected Republicans are all about public service, like all politicians (including me) they can get very easily sucked in to doing down the other side rather than doing what's best for the country.
That's a long post. I already owe Dave and badgerhair 2 cookies each for my last long one.....
I wish I could make points as wittily and succintly as Sherwick.
--true sfergus - but the drop in gay support for obama was consistent across states, which sure does make your argument less likely.--
That is an even more absurd subgroup to try to calculate.
I just don't buy it. Figure the support was about the same both years.
And I'm not trying to deny that there aren't pockets of racism in the gay community (there are, as there are in all groups).
It's hard to analyze from specific election figures, but not that San Francisco voted 85% for Obama (not that the city is a majority gay, but to clain that more than a third of gays there voted for McCain would mean that more than 90% of the non-gays voted for Obama).
Kerry got 77% of gays, OBama 70%.
Blacks 95% Obama, 88% Kerry.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/obama-outperforms-kerry-among-virtually.html
Sure, the polls are all worng, they were so BAD on election day.
oh, and gays
The category 'gay' is a label for a whole bunch of individuals who happen to share a sexual orientation. Expecting them to have one political point of view is as dumb as, well, as thinking that all women have the same view of Roe v Wade.
sfergus-
We could not do an MOE on 538 numbers, or the RealClearPolitics average because of the compilation of polls and methods. Those compilations were damn good. Are you now arguing against what you were arguing for just because it now supports the reality you want? Come on, quit being Dick Cheney.
Expecting them to have any political point of view is dumb, too.
mrs b-
That 30-40% of gays voted with the evangelicals who hate them and want to take ALL their rights and reform them to being "straight" is so fucked up as to be beyond explanation.
Gays for Palin is harder to explain than even racists for Obama.
Siden appears at Real Joe rally
On Sarack Osama: Thib ib not change- thib ib more of the bame.
(AP)
Before you all fall over yourselves to say that gay & lesbian McCain supporters were voting against their best interests, can you please tell me one damned thing Obama has done for the queer community? He mentioned we exist once or twice. He said he believed we shouldn't marry our same-sex partners because his sky pixie didn't hold with that kinda thing. How the heck does he represent queer interests? I've been an Obama supporter for many reasons, but that sure as hell isn't one of them - in fact, way back at this time last year, I already considered it a point against him.
What proportion of that other 30% went McCain, and how many went third-party, anyway?
@mayor assmole
I agree
fred
lots of people are fucked up. Otherwise the world would be a much more sensible and better ordered place!
For example, I saw a clip during the elections of a woman from a church in AK who was convinced that Palin had to take charge in Washington, because she was the reincarnation of Esther from the Bible, and the fact that AK is apparently shaped like a crown PROVES it. This woman appeared entirely normal until she opened her mouth.
Not strictly relevant, but a sign of the true wacko.
@fred,
While that certainly is interesting, I'm sure any other economist would agree that it's not as valid as grouping based on physical attributes.
However, you're very cleverly drawing attention to something VERY irrelevant. Gays are just as diverse as group as, say, 'women', so whatever the reasons for them voting more for Kerry than for Obama...they just, as a group, did.
The perspective here is NOT that of minority bashing - it's pretty simple actually: Equal rights. A citizen has certain civil duties as well as rights - how can one rationally defend taking away the rights that come with being a citizen? Try that instead - give me ONE good, rational and logically correct argument, if you'd be so kind.
Then later, we can discuss the insinuation that 'gays' are somehow racists, because only 7 out of 10 voted for Obama (compared to, um, how many percent of the general population - oh yeah, a little more than half...)
thene-
You are freakin' idiot. Obama did not come out with a huge gay agenda as he would have lost the election if he had, your freakin' moron! You really think the gay hating, anti-gay marriage voiced by McCain was actully BETTER for you!
Come on, he didn't come out with a pro-gay or a pro-Muslim agenda as he wanted to win. Are you people really this naive about politics?
Anyone who buys exit poll results for small subsets is totally ignoring all the discussion - including by Nate - of how they are far less reliable as a polling tool than pre-electon surveys.
I stand by my points. A sizeable minority of gays voted for McCain, but whether it was a larger or smaller number than voted for Kerry has not remotely been proven.
And name calling is beneath you, Fred.
Sorry everyone - reading 'fred's' subsequent posts made me remember the good ol' mantra:
Don't feed the trolls.
I don't think everyone who didn't vote Obama was racist - which is the logical conclusion to draw from this discussion. Maybe they thought McC would do a better job in the "war on terror" *watch my finger quotemarks* or thought Obama really was a socialist. Or maybe they liked Palin as a person. Or maybe they were on drugs, or had voted Republican all their lives, or checked the wrong box, or any one of 60 million + other reasons.
Maybe when some gay people voted, their own human rights just weren't at the top of their agenda?
casper-
Please learn to read.
I said the Constitution protects gay marriage, and it should.
I am for gay marriage.
That said, politics is politics. The numbers shows gays are not as homogeneous and relaible group as blacks, and hispanics are a much larger group going forward. It would be politically stupid for dems to piss off their base, and hoped for growing new base, for an unreliable group you yourself say is not homogeneous.
That said, how can a GBLT vote repub? That is a vote for James Dobson as he is a major voice of the repub nutball right.
casper-
You freakin's ass. I am not a troll and worked for Obama, and have posted more meaningful content on this board than you.
LEARN TO READ!
casper-
You freakin's ass. I am not a troll and worked for Obama, and have posted more meaningful content on this board than you.
LEARN TO READ!
Fred, you seem to be assuming that queers are single-issue voters; we're not. Comparing us to women as a group is actually pretty neat; women skew Democrat because we know that the Republicans want to take away our rights, but some women regard that as a less significant issue than...whatever their beef is - religious loyalty, economic opinions, whatever other crud makes people vote Republican, how would I know?
So you've got McCain offering nothing, Obama offering crumbs, and the gays are supposed to, en masse, opt for the crumbs, because they're 'BETTER for you!'? Erm, no. No, Obama is not entitled to our votes because McCain/Palin are assholes to us. He's got to earn them, just like he does with other voters.
In this situation the candidates' gay rights agendas become largely irrelevant (which wasn't the case in 2004, when even the Log Cabiners endorsed Kerry) and instead we go back to our other loyalties and policy beliefs - which in the case of gays already skew Democrat for a variety of reasons.
The idea that gay voters have radically different motivations to straight voters is as silly as the idea that female voters have radically different motivations to male voters. It's more or less the same kettle of fish, really.
mrs b-
I agree, again, learn to read. I never said gays were racists,nor do I think that. I said gays were not as reliable a dem group as others.
I think this discussion is probably lies, damn lies and statistics!
This is supposed to be a scientific site. How do you know how many gay people there are in the population anyway? Under or mis reporting of sexual orientation would screw the figures completely. I bet there are more people out now than there were in 2004.
Getting frustrated because people don't vote the way you want them to or think they should gets you nowhere - unless of course it drives you into doing more to help the cause you think isn't getting enough support.
I agree completely thene, and you just said what I did in more words (which does not make it more correct BTW).
I made two points, one, gays are not as homogeneous and reliable for dems as blacks - you seem to agree.
I also made the point that I personally do not understand how gays can vote repub, but I can't understand why anyone does so that is just me I guess and not a political statement.
The idea that Obama is offering crumbs is an absolute insult and an affront to him and reality.
He supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act - the single most damaging anti-gay law in the country for starters. (Hillary Clinton was only for modifying it).
He would almost certainly appoint judges more sympathetic to gay legal issues.
He is 100% pro civil unions.
He mentioned gays in every speech as part of the fabric of America.
He has hinted - and is expected to - end Don't Ask Don't Tell in the military.
He was the most pro-gay rights nominee of any major US party in history.
This is a stas site, why the fuck can't you people understand stats when they don't work for your beliefs? I am all for gay marriage, and hope the Supreme Court takes it up as it should win under equal protection.
That said, my entire argument is based on stats, and it is not an anti-gay argument.
I agree safergus, how gays vote repub is well, puzzling. I guess I can't say that as it will upset the idiots non-readers like Casper the unfriendly ghost.
But again Fred, you are basing your argument on statistically unreliable statistics.
Could you provide a link for state-by-state gay voting from exit polls? I'd be curious to see them.
Thanks in advance.
what about the urban / rural thing that started this thread?
Is the US like the UK, in that there are fewer rural voters, but they turn out to vote more reliably?
fred -
I understand where you're coming from on the 'down the middle' thing, but look at our history. Few things, especially on the social acceptance level, are exactly as they were when our nation was founded. I argue simply that America is a socially progressive nation with occasional periods of big-government conservative resistance.
sfergus - yes, I know he's talked pretty about repealing DOMA and supporting civil unions. The fact that he doesn't seem to like mentioning this unless he's the only straight person in the room (and what with Rahm and all we're not even sure about that) makes us suspect that he doesn't mean a bloody word of it. He decided to not make a peep about Prop 8, even though I can't imagine one or two ads in California being damaging to his election chances nationwide, and the black community went 70/30 against it. There's no rational reason to expect anything from him except more of the same. Yes, he offers plenty, but crumbs is what we're going to get. Talk to me again in four years and tell me I was wrong, please.
(Fred called this naivete - it's more like the opposite; no one seriously believes Obama has the balls or the commitment to repeal DOMA, and the queer community is used to being, ahem, shafted).
I might not understand them, but I do know a few gay republicans - often they have national security as their top issue. Some are veterans (you meet a lot of queer veterans though many vote Democrat). I don't think they're any more or less rational than other Republicans, really; all Republican voters are going against their own best interests, right?
wv - pedape: I don't even want to know.
Ya, internet searches are hard, huh fergus? You folks who use stats when they support you, and scream when they don't are truly funny folks. Sure, gays could be an outlier, sure...all other groups went for OBama based on 538.
Got an actual stats background? Didn't think so...
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21660890/
mrs b:
In part, yes. Rural voters with conservative beliefs are thought to be more consistent voters. More to the point, though, the Electoral College system ensures that states with primarily rural populations have a disproportionate say in electing a president. In other words, you can skip campaigning in, for example, the state of Washington (11 Electoral Votes) and target rural voters in Montana (3 EV) and Kentucky (8 EV) to make it a wash. See?
This whole argument strikes me as insane.
I am for gay marriage, I post a stats based post on a stats site, and get attacked because I guess the truth based on polling is "wrong" when it does not agree with your world view.
Hopeing this is not becoming a freeper site for the left after the election, keep it up, you will drive out all the best pre-election posters.
You have already killed Real Joe and Inkstain...
Why informed gays voted for Obama:
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/besen-a-national-gay-vote-needed-for-obama/
I think Bush was viewed as being hostile to gays and lesbians, so McCain was always likely to do slightly better.
With regard to the disappointing turnout, I can't understand why people would go to the trouble of registering to vote but then not bother to actually go and vote. I can understand why people didn't bother to register or vote - those people are just not interested in voting.
I see that in Ohio, turnout dropped from 5.6 million in 2004 to 5.3 million this year. Both the Democrats and the GOP lost votes in the state. Maybe the close and divisive nature of the 2004 election brought out the voters in larger numbers.
@fred
I'm not trying to attack you, I agree with you about it being nuts that gays vote republican. I was just pointing out that some people are nuts, and some of those nutty people are gay!
Oh and Real Joe really had to go when he posted a virulent message of support for prop 8.
Inkstain, I don't know about.
Troll, troll, trol....
fred said:
"You freakin's ass"
"LEARN TO READ!"
- we'll leave those uncommented, shall we?
fred said:
"This is a stas site, why the fuck can't you people understand stats when they don't work for your beliefs?"
Now, trying to make sense of your words, I'm sort of getting the feeling that you mean something about reliable statistics. So you take exit poll numbers. Well, those of us who've been reading - reading, you know - this site regularly know that we should just trash exit polls. Here's the link for you:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit.html
fred said:
"I guess I can't say that as it will upset the idiots non-readers like Casper the unfriendly ghost."
Mmh... well, the name-calling; I'm on my second language here so I may not understand why it's valid argumentation to use a cartoon character to mock someone, but in my native country, beautiful Denmark it's a common name. Biblical, even. So, um, haha..
(It's Europe, fred. Nasty ol' Europe. It's over to France, then turn left until the women start being blonde and the language sounds odd - that's Denmark, part of Scandinavia)
Okay, I fed the troll. Sorry, people... but it's a fun troll.
The actual take-away:
Rights shouldn't be a political issue once the people has decided on living in a liberal democracy.
And the side-agenda:
Exit polling and the reliance on self-identification is... not scientifically correct. Sorry, but I am in fact trained in stuff like this.
Believe it or not, there are gays who agree with the GOP on non-social issues. These folks put aside their distaste at the social conservative wing of the GOP to vote what they believe is in their best economic interests. If you don't believe that happens, the Log Cabin Republicans say hello.
oops ... let me try that again...
Log Cabin Republicans
One of the main reasons for McCain choosing Palin was supposed to be to enthuse the Republican base, and boost their turnout on November 4th. But all the evidence is that the opposite happened. The main reason for the disappointing turnout so far seems to have been a very poor turnout of natural Republican voters.
So in fact Palin seems to have been something of a disaster, according to the latest evidence. Even in her home state of Alaska, the total number of GOP voters appears to have fallen from 190,889 to 136,348 votes.
I am NOT trained in stats, so am bracing myself to be shouted at, but these different categories of voters who supported / didn't support Obama, they aren't mutually exclusive are they? How do you deal with eg an older white male gay voter? Or a younger female evangelical? I would be interested to see stats for voters who have disabilities.
I wonder if you would be able to deduce something useful if you could look at the incomes of gay Republicans, for example?
Where the vote came in, who voted, what trends... those will be interesting questions. I am assuming this post was a first shot at that.
As kmills (way up top here) noted, some rural southern counties had large Obama votes. It looks like the traditional Black belt did not flip a single state blue, but was brighter than in any previous election. That's Obama.
New England looks bluer overall, but not evenly (compare 92 or 96). Long term trend?
Was Appalachia redder, or much the same?
As Nate and Sean cut up the numbers, I look forward to more analysis.
So I corrected a working link by posting a non-working link? Great. That's like replacing a working Clinton/Gore administration with a non-working Bush/Cheney administration.
Um, well, not really. But it sounded funny when I first typed it.
jd - in 2004 the Dems ran a New Englander, and in 2008 the only New Englander involved at all was a Republican, so I'm guessing that might have skewed NE slightly.
mrs b - agreed re. overlapping demographics. Don't underestimate those gay, female military veterans. :P
There are some perplexing results in certain places. For example, in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which contains Cleveland and has a large African-American population, the total number of Democrat voters fell from 448,503 to 441,836 votes. One would have expected the Democrat vote to have been boosted by Obama's candidacy in that county.
I wonder whether the story of turnout in this election is that the long queues of early voters which the TV networks kept pumping into people's living rooms actually ended up putting off a lot of potential voters for voting because they didn't want to spend hours in line, even though on election day itself - and especially during the second half of election day - most polling places were in fact not particularly busy. Maybe without all those images of long queues, the turnout would have been as large as most people were expecting.
Thene -
You are wrong about Obama "not making a peep" about Prop 8.
He was on record opposing it.
He stated so on several occassions.
There is video of him saying it.
His comment was that he was not in favor of gay marriage, but he opposed Prop 8 because removing existing rights from the state constitution was far more wrong.
I received robocalls with his voice stating his opposition to Prop 8.
I hope now you will admit you are wrong and apologize to Sen. Obama.
@mrs b
I think a rural/urban split for reliability of voting is illusory.
The odd thing is that people on the left are extremely keen on democracy in principle but are less likely to exercise their rights in practice than those on the right, who largely find democracy an inconvenience and believe it empowers the wrong sort of people, yet turn out to vote as if their lives depended on it.
Casper said...
Okay, I fed the troll. Sorry, people... but it's a fun troll.
###########
fred is not a troll.
He might be a little upset today,but definitively He is not a troll.
try again.
Fred
I asked you to link to evidence to support your claim that in state by state exit polls fewer gays supported Obama than Kerry (since if this were consistent I guess then it would buttress the reliability of this statistically unreliable data.
The link to the exit polls took me to CNN. I looked at the California results - the largest state, large gay population.
Under gay/straight, they list 5% as the number of self-identified gays. And for the % breakdown, they list n/a - in other words, too small a sample to extrapolate any breakdown.
That was a key argument you made to "prove" that Obama got fewer votes from gays than Kerry.
If you have other proof, please provide. Otherwise, I stand by my point - there is no proof that Obama did less well than Kerry; only exit polls with a small subset with a huge MOE.
Also, Palin choice drove away white moderate Republicans in the higher income brackets in droves. I listened to an interview program on a long drive in mid-September and they were just appalled. I think that's when Obama started to soar.
Poor Casper, he can't read. I linked to Nate's post on exit polls and how Obama did better in all demogrpahic groups, but gays.
Argue with Nate smart guy.
Trolls are not people who disagree with you, trolls are people who do not support their arguments. I am not a troll, you are.
Leave now Casper, this used to a poll based site where ALL discussion was open and fact based. Go to democratic undergrgound or freerepublic, please.
You cannot read, or understand words, every arguemnt you made was refuted above. And you mischaracterized my position, you idiotic troll.
OK, fergus, argue with Nate. Is Nate wrong? I guess I go with Nate over Fergus or Casper the unfriendly troll.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/obama-outperforms-kerry-among-virtually.html
Also, there is a state-by-state breakdown out there, I can't find it at the moment.
Here is sfergus AGREEING and COMMENTING on exit polls! On the same freakin' data he now attacks! What could be more amazing disingenuous! You were post 2 on the above thread! LIAR!
"sfergus483 said...
Among the pleasant discoveries - pending the final CA figures when early ballots included, Obama received the highest % of votes here ever for a Dem - more than FDR in 32 and 36, more than LBJ in 1964.
Also, the Coleman/Franken margin is down to 339."
sfergus - nope, not at all, because if he thought that Prop 8 was taking rights away but did so little activism to protect those rights - and I refuse to believe that he couldn't've blunted that 70% black opposition if he'd wanted to - then he's clearly not that invested in them.
It compares very unfavourably with, say, the outreach done by Democrats to the Native American community in South Dakota which helped to defeat the SD abortion ban. And that's in a state which Obama didn't even win, unlike CA, where Democrats took the EC vote for granted and weren't too faffed with that whole destruction of human rights malarkey.
(incidentally, I've a feeling that one of the reasons he wanted to repeal DOMA while Clinton wanted to modify it is simply that it's an awful, awful law from a constitutional POV - it's got a maze of clauses that make it near-impossible to challenge in court - and he has a much stronger grasp of constitutional law than Ms Clinton does).
sfergus 483 on exit polls:
"sfergus483 said...
Every exit poll in 1992 showed that Perot voters would have split evenly between Bush and Clinton."
Isn't this you waxing rhapsodic on exit polls when it suits you?
http://seanflynn.dailykos.com/
Relax, but lets talk some politics. Gays did not come out as a monolithic group, which is fine, but then lets not act like gays are "owed" something.
I am all for gay marriage by the way, and my wife was bi before we got married (I don't think she is now, at least as far she tells me).
Post a Comment