Letters to the Editor
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zoobee
"This is in response to exchanges such as these:
"You give valid reasons for blacks to vote for Obama beyond race, and there are many. But you still ignore the disproportionate percentage."
"I don't see why, theoretically, black people can't vote together without it being race based?"
race based? What is that?
As if we're talking about some shallow, cosmetic distinction ("skin color") that's behind black people's enthusiasm about the first ever serious black contender for president . . .As if you could take out the awareness of collective disenfranchisement which stretches back through the families of real people, which children grow up with, which informs an individual's experience of the world around him/her. Obama's candidacy is an historic event for black people . . . you only have to think for a minute how the experience of an African-American schoolchild coming to age with a black president in the white house would be qualitatively different than with the history books being how they are as of this date. The characterization of "voting for race" is kind of trivial when the story is as deep as the black experience in America."
Since one of those is my postings, let me respond. Why is "voting for race" trivial when the phrase encompasses everything you post? Are you saying the African-american experience as you describe isn't race-based? the "disenfranchisement "had nothing to do with race? One may be read some "shallow, cosmetic distinction" in the phrase "race-based", but that seems more an indictment of the reader than the writer.
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Exit polls have proven to be highly accurate
The american public, noted in its dislike for learning the ins and outs of statistics (who doesn't complain about having to take a stats class?), suffers for its aversion.
Folks need to understand that the exit polls conducted by the major networks for about 40 years (prior to 1992), which were well done and based on relatively small random samples, were routinely highly predictive of the final outcomes -- within a very small percentage. So precise that candidates and campaign workers complained about....their precision! And how they took the suspense out of the game!
US History is another subject in which we as citizens are notably deficient (and mostly because history is taught so poorly in our public schools). If we were all aware of our political history, it would help us recognize that the deviations we saw between vote totals and exit poll totals in recent years were NOT because all of the sudden folks got sloppy in their exit polling procedures. Rather it constituted a smoking gun and an alarm bell clanging at the same time, alarms which the media ignored and we as citizens didn't recognize as problems, for the reasons given above.
Thus I take issue with the following quote: "A cautionary note about the invaluable but imperfect exit polls: They are crude instruments that have an addictive power because on Election Night they are essentially the only game in town." The author has failed to do his research.
Exit polls are not 'crude,' but have fallen into disrepute (lately) because folks don't understand what a powerful tool they are, and that when vote totals don't match the exit polls, it is highly indicative of problems with the vote counting. Not with the exit polls, but with the vote counting.
Exit polls are a key tool for us simple voters to use to measure the integrity of those who count our votes.
I urge you to see the new movie "Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections" for more depth. It's not perfect; this movie does not give the simple explanation we all should hear over and over of the reason random sampling works, and the power of statistics to protect us from electioneering shenanigans.
For those who would like to learn more about why we should pay more attention to exit polls, I highly recommend you start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twky9Yzlxig
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Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
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response to xrandadu
I do believe that I have gotten my facts straight and done my math, as you suggested I do. The simple point is that Hillary HAS won a majority of the Democratic vote. There is no disputing that fact.
I will admit that I did forget to mention the seven-vote victory in an unorganized territory half-way around the world. But the point is, of jurisdictions of any size, Hillary has been winning the lion's share of recent contests, not Barack. By any fair standard, that moves the momentum to her direction. If you have to pull out the delegate-tie vote in Guam to bolster Barack's case, that just shows how desperate his chances are.
As to Florida and Michigan, I will admit that as a one-time resident of the Sunshine State - who lived there in 2000 - I am very sensitive to disenfranchisement. The delegates were indeed stripped according to DNC rules, but what's legal and what's just are two different things.
If, hypothetically speaking, Barack secures the nomination without the voters in those two states having their say, his "victory" will be forever tainted.
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Bahasa: Hillary is behind in the popular vote
Fact: Hillary is behind in the popular vote including MI and Fl. Even before Obama's win in NC, that was a questionable argument since the current popular vote totals do not include Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine. The popular vote totals from those states have not been released. so for Hillary to say that she was ahead in the popular vote would disenfranchise the voters of those states. Here are the current vote totals:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
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billcap starting the morning with my boxing gloves on (and trying to get them off)
maybe we're both taking on straw men here.
For example, where did you see me write that Ferraro's comments were "racist"? That is a whole new semantic discussion I don't want to get into at the moment.
But at the same time, if you don't see anything "wrong" (wrong meaning condescending or at all mean spirited--even when she did apply it to herself...poor sad, woman that she has turned out to be in my humble opinion--or at the very least, reductive about her comments) then, you are correct that we do live in different versions of reality.
I don't even remember the fundamental basis of this discussion, except that many writers on these boards, including yourself, appear at times to be dismissing voters who vote "lockstep" as if the numbers you give are something that can be interpreted only in the way you interpret them.
I'll leave you to your interpretation, but I don't see your comments on African American voters to be as "neutral" as you say, since you have at times have appeared to be dismissive of these numbers. But again, since this is only my interpretation of your interpretation, this observation is probably only worth only a small percentage of a euro at this point.
And Zoobe is correct, what does "race based" mean anyway, given the complicated race history (and current moment) of a country such as this one? Or perhaps as importantly, are those percentages of white voters who will only vote for either McCain or Hillary also doing so out of "race pride"? This could make a big difference to what happens in the fall. For disclosure purposes: I myself am increasingly uncomfortable with Hillary Clinton's seeming pride in the non-college educated, non-urban working class white voters who she seems to insist support her but who will not support Barack Obama....what is she implying about these voters or about Barack Obama that ensures that they will not?
This is a depressing conversation for so early in the day.