“So?”

Not pre-judging, but shouldn’t the amount of black voting (considered as a bloc) be an independent variable from all other voting (considered as a bloc)?

How could the rest of the voting public know how large the black vote was?

Paul!
Good to see you back at the Lake!

If the state you live in has a high black population, the white voters there know that. And evidently vote with that in mind. (That’s my guess anyway)

So wait a minute. As the black vote total increases as a percentage of total votes, McCain’s vote total increases 6%?

I know they’re not voting for him…what am I missing?

I am still hoping against hope that newly registered and cross over Dem numbers are going to CRUSH McCain.

I am sorry but there is one thing each of these “predictions” (snark) do not comprehend. The reality on the ground. This is going to be the biggest landslide in our history and the end of the GOP. Any one that can’t read how many voters are coming out is living in a cave.

How could the rest of the voting public know how large the black vote was?

They act like they do ;)

as it turns out the “black vote %” is as close as you can get to a “racial tension” index, and since that variable was not in the data set, black vote % has to do. There are states with relatively low percentages of black voters that see a significant “white vote shift”, (places like California and Massachusetts) and then there are outliers like Illinois, Obama’s home state, that show a lot lower “white vote shift” than would be expected.

But in trying to explain why the gender gap varied so much between states that were ideologically similar, it became obvious that race was a factor — and in testing other variables, it becaume obvious that there was a “white vote shift” away from Obama (i.e. white support for Clinton was higher than than for Obama) that correlated to the percentage of black voters.

So wait a minute. As the black vote total increases as a percentage of total votes, McCain’s vote total increases 6%?

I know they’re not voting for him…what am I missing?

actually, as I note in the full piece, the percentage of black voters rises overall as the percentage of Republicans rises.

Basically, what you are looking at is the success of Nixon’s Southern Strategy in chart form.

I hope so too, but the Royal Wedding and some token troop withdrawals may improve the voting public’s view of the GOP. Once the gay-bashing starts and the terra alert levels start changing daily, things may be just close enough to allow Diebold to work its magic.

OT, but I have to vent. I was appalled to hear Douglas Feith being interviewed on Diane Rehm on NPR this morning. Fortunately, I could switch to Stephanie Miller and avoid a case of road rage, but $*%#$%! I fired off a letter to the show that I wanted to share:

I think it is absolutely disgraceful that you gave Douglas Feith, who has the blood of thousands on his hands, a platform to try to whitewash his past. I could barely stand to listen, but in the few snippets I endured I learned that he “regrets” treating looting as a matter for a minor administrative memo, not requiring any consideration on a strategic level. (Somehow I suspect that the millions of Iraqis who are now refugees feel something stronger than “regret.”) I learned that he claims, by way of absolving himself of responsibility for the occupation, to have favored “putting the Iraqis in charge quickly” without mentioning that the Iraqis he wanted to put in charge were exiles with no base of support and no capability to form a stable government. Furthermore, he and his Pentagon cronies tossed aside the detailed plan for governance and reconstruction from the State Department experts that he derides so frequently, apparently believing that by putting the right Iraqis in charge, this could all be accomplished with no advance planning whatsoever.

Diane, I understand that while you can ask some pointed questions, a really tough takedown of a serial liar isn’t really in the style of your show, which is all the more reason why it is harmful to the public discourse for such people to be allowed this forum. Douglas Feith is a monster who is responsible for the suffering of millions. Furthermore, he has proven to be disastrously wrong about every part of government and foreign policy he has touched, so what possible justification is there for rewarding him with the opportunity to speak on the subject? In a just world, he would be ashamed to show his face in public, not rewarded with polite book tour stops.

Not that it’ll do any good, but I had to try.

And don’t forget the incipient uptick in the Bomb-Bomb-Iran refrain:

President Bush warned Iran today that if it did not stop arming and training Shia militia in Iraq then “America will act to protect our interests and our troops”.

Mr Bush, during a speech in which he ordered an indefinite halt in US troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer, called Iran one of the two “greatest threats to America in this century” - together with al-Qaeda…

Speaking of strategy, have you seen or heard any rumblings on black voter suppression like the crap they pulled last time?
I would LOVE to see a huge back lash come around from that.

Oh, btw, the purpose of this piece is not to say that Obama is unelectable (or will have a hard time getting elected) because of racism. Its really about sexism and misogyny, and how the indicators of sexism and misogyny get lower when there are more black people in a state.

(I am going to be working on a piece that focuses on racism and positive racial identity voting, but so far my focus has been on gender. Basically, when I started working on the second part, (regional data) I noticed that the south actually had the lowest evidence of sexism. And when I was working on the third part, which looked at the states where CLinton was losing to McCain while Obama was beating him, those were states with either very few African americans (2% or fewer), or states with 4-6% of AA voters (CO and NV) where AA’s were not the “dominant” minority.

To understand what is really going on, the data must be examined more closely.

Hello Paul. Looking forward to more of your posts. I’m interested in what goes into examining the data further. Do you interview a segment of each category? Are they grouped regionally? Ethnically? Do anthropologists participate in develping a criteria applied to each group? Do you use anecdotal information to draw conclusions?

Data can be interpreted differently depending upon the testers background. This always confuses me. I wonder what Jared Diamond would say. Just wondering.

Umm, Paul/editor - your link is actually to a Nicholas Kristof column, not Krugman.

Redshift - You put my feelings on Feith very well. I was tempted to email Diane Rehm myself, but figured it was fruitless. I couldn’t listen at all; once I’d heard enough to identify the guest as Feith, I had to change the station.
What gets me about these book tour interviews is that the author is on alone; unlike any other show she would have on the issues covered, where there would someone “liberal” who could push back, there is no one but the host on this type of show. I agree, the best response would be to completely ignore him. He is obviously incapable of shame.

The greatest threat to America in this centurey has been George W Bush

excellent series, tremendous research. thanks

we need Hillary and Obama both on the ticket.

Speaking of strategy, have you seen or heard any rumblings on black voter suppression like the crap they pulled last time?
I would LOVE to see a huge back lash come around from that.

nothing out of the ordinary so far, but I haven’t really been concentrating on that — my head is full of data, and I can barely get dressed without help ;) (Seriously — I showed up at Eschacon with my sweatshirt on backwards, and it took me two hours to realize it!)

But it was clear that another factor was at work, a phenomenon described in a recent Paul Krugman column.

The link goes to this article by Nicholas Kristof http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04.....ref=slogin

I could not agree more.

Bush’s military threats never require military service from anyone in his family. He’s very happy to risk the lives of evereyone else.

Poignant letter. Ir represents the feelings of many of us. Thank you. I think NPR will notice.

Thanks — it was indeed a reference to Kristof, and it’s been fixed.

Why do you want the Clintons on the ticket?

Hello Paul. Looking forward to more of your posts. I’m interested in what goes into examining the data further. Do you interview a segment of each category? Are they grouped regionally? Ethnically? Do anthropologists participate in develping a criteria applied to each group? Do you use anecdotal information to draw conclusions?

I don’t do interviews or anecdotes — basically, when I do research, I try to concentrate only on concrete data and documentary evidence in order to eliminate as much of my own biases as possible.

There is a strong “regional” impact here… the south and the mountains/plains states are the most “consistent” regions, and New England is pretty consistent as well. Most other regions have a mix of cultures that make it hard to draw any kind of conclusions about the region as a whole.

Thanks for posting this, looks very interesting, but I don’t have time to look carefully right now. However the first thing that strikes me is that this is APRIL, and the election is in NOVEMBER. Attitudes (and voting behavior) often change very much in that kind of time.

The link goes to this article by Nicholas Kristof http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04…..ref=slogin

blame Neiwart…he sent me the link, and told me it was Krugman… and like everyone else, I see what I expect to see! ;-)

Thanx for the fix Dave!

here’s what pollsters miss and I have yet to see any of this reconciled;

gore won the popular vote and probably the electorial vote

kerry probably won the electorial vote

the republicans are FAR more hated now then before, the democrats are far more enerized, mobilised, determined

I cannot believe any polll has mccain winning any scenario, this does not add up one bit

There was a fairly confrontational (for NPR) 2 part interview of Feith on NPR earlier this week but I do not remember the name of the interviewer.

Damn, I lied…his email did say Kristof…. I really wanted to see what I wanted to see! ;(

First off, what is the data for this? I can’t see what this is based upon? Polls? Or the Primary results?

In either acse the evaluation is tainted because those polled have “options”. It’s a Clinton vs. Obama…contrasted to McCain. So they will tend to respond in favor of their preferred candidate, and use that as “blackmail” in order to sway over others. This will continue to happen as long as there is a competitive Democrat race. Once there are no options individuals will begin to be brought back to the fold.

In addition…the survey doesn’t even consider yet another possibility. That those who “will not vote for” one of the Democratic candidates will not vote at all rather than vote FOR McCain.

And in addition, isn’t this phenomenon simply related to the States where there are significantly large black populations…i.e. States like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, and Virginia?

Is it saying anything other than the States where large numbers of blacks turn out to vote there remains residual racism?

I’m unsure that it would have any impact at all in the General Election in a winner-take-all context. And I’m not sure that if you run head-to-heads between Hillary and McCain that she would attract back those McCain voters in the same regions….certainly enough to win the election. Perhaps it’s more critical to win those States with smaller black populations, yet would possibly go to McCain?

What may be more relevant is would the draw of substantially more black and young voters influence the down stream electoral results. Someone who votes for McCain might vote for a Democratic Senator (e.g. in Virginia)..or a Congressional Candidate. Meanwhile Obamas supporters would more likely vote a straight-ticket.

The analysis is so simplistic and raises far more questions than it answers…and it seems, in the way it is opresented, to be almost a propaganda piece for the Clinton campaign to win over Superdelegates and convince committed delegates (since as Hillary says “there’s no such thing as a committed delegate”) to jump from the Candidate whose voters elected them.

That was my immediate reaction. I had a Nassim Nicholas Taleb “information is overrated” moment.

There is a simplicity to all of this that seems missing lately. 70-80%, if not more, of the new registrations are due to Obama’s ground game efforts. Those people registered to vote for Obama. They will be beyond bitterly disappointed if the nomination were brutally stolen from him, although I don’t feel that many would vote for McCain. A small number would vote for Clinton, and the rest would either not vote or at least leave the presidential selection blank. I don’t see the same dynamic among Clinton voters, although some of them may go to McCain, and I’m willing to bet they’d overwhelmingly split their ticket to vote Democratic in the congressionals.

What is probably the most overlooked future development is that Obama’s registration effort will in no way diminish after the primaries. This effort will continue and magnify until every eligible voter in the entire country is contacted throughout the entire summer. Can the incompetent Clinton claim the same capability? I think not.

Does the Democratic party really want to sacrifice itself to this sense of DLC entitlement?

Paul,

I’m working my way through Keli Goff’s book Party Crashing: How the Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence. Her major thesis is that the generational differences between the Hip Hop generation (say, 18-35) and their parents and grandparents makes it very difficult to speak of “the black vote” in the way that might have worked in the past.

I’ve seen similar discussions elsewhere on feminist blogs around the “women’s vote,” discussing young women’s experiences vs that of earlier generations.

Is there anything in your research here that brings age and/or varying generational perspectives into the discussion of race and gender?

(BTW, Keli will be here at FDL for a Book Salon chat on Sunday at 5PM Eastern/2PM FDL Time.]

Thank you for your response. Without going into too much detail can you gave a brief explanation and example of 1)concrete data and 2)documentary evidence. I’m trying to differentiate.

You may want to address this in another post. Or maybe, I missed it in this one.

forgive the OT. jackie speier, who won the election tues to serve out the late tom lantos’ term, has arrived in d.c. with a splash:

“Speier becomes Congress’ newest member, is booed by Republicans: Newly elected Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough was sworn into Congress this morning and delivered a fiery speech criticizing President Bush’s Iraq policy that led some Republicans to boo and walk out of the House chamber.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....#038;tsp=1

There are only a few states that matter. Take out the blue states and the red states- they won’t make a differnce- only the “purple” states count—led by Ohio and Florida.

Bless her. Repubs just can’t take it, can they? Their little feelings get hurt so they boo a new member of Congress. Lots of Class /s

Made my day!
What are the Dram Queens gonna do next, another pissy press conference on the steps?
Boo Hoo Biatches.

He was on Tavis Smiley last night after Charlie Rose. I couldn’t watch, but if they are putting a full court press on in the media with this guy, something must be up.

Drama, shoot.

Thanks for posting this, looks very interesting, but I don’t have time to look carefully right now. However the first thing that strikes me is that this is APRIL, and the election is in NOVEMBER. Attitudes (and voting behavior) often change very much in that kind of time.

I agree that polls this far out have no predictive value whatsover. The reason that I think this poll is signficant is that it was actually 50 separate state polls taken simultaneously (Feb 26-28), using the exact same questions in the exact same order, and the poll was automated.

This allows us to do an “apples to apples” comparison of the overall political landscape at a very early part of the election cycle — Like I said, its not about saying one person or another is likely to win, the purpose is to describe factors that will have an influence on the outcome.

I concentrated on the sexism aspect first, because no one seemed to be talking about it, and just by looking at the data from a few states, it was obvious that while women tended to stick with the Democrat, a sizable chuck of me who supported Obama switched to McCain — and since the differences between Obama and Clinton pale in comparison to the difference between Obama and McCain and Clinton in McCain, it was pretty obvious that something other than issues and ideology was in play.

I think Speier can take the heat…the ones that walked out are likely all chickenhawks. Speier has taken six bullets while serving her country.

I wonder though if these same Republicans will try to get yet another resolution condemning her that Pelosi will have to sign onto.

I must send her a round of applause. None of those pretty boys experienced half of what Jackie has in the line of congressional duty. Suck it up you miserable repugs. Jackie will verbally box your ears:D

She still has one of those bullets in her and the Repubs can try all they want to to tear her down but they can’t take away her courage and just plain guts.

So is this the same poll that showed that Obama actually did better in Electoral College Votes than Clinton…put more states into competition…and had a potentially greater “coattail” effect that justified Howard Deans “50 State Strategy”?

Isn’t that the only poll that did a 50 State Simultaneous analysis?

FWIW, most book publishers like to book as many shows as they can for authors of “insider” accounts. Some are more effective at it than others.

OT:

“Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: al Qaeda and Iran,” Mr. Bush said, speaking at the White House to an audience that included Vice President Dick Cheney, the secretaries of state and defense and representatives of veterans organizations.

The statement, like the war itself, was a defining one both for Mr. Bush’s legacy and for the presidential campaign.

It is common tactical policy to engage opponents serially and at their points of vulnerability rather than at their points of convergence. This is the kind of advice Bush gets from the neoconservative chickenhawks with whom he has surrounded himself.

I heard the end of it. I have to say, at least Diane Rhem asked a few harder questions, or followed up the ones given by the caller. The guy’s clearly an ego maniac. He would have to spend several years in jail to realize that he made a mistake, and even then, he would probably not admit.

I would also point out that this poll (as most polls, unless heavily massaged) cannot adjust easily for the “enthusiasm factor” of atypical voters and new registrants. That’s why almost all the polls have been decisively off, sometimes by double digits, in the South, and several other States. Newly registered voters and blacks are actually given lower weights in terms of being “likely voters”. None of these surveys simply use the raw scores. All massage their data according to various preconceptions regarding who they think will turn out to vote.

Colorado and New Mexico are in play- but many of the mountains states (Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming) are heavily mormon and will be in the gooper column till the last gooper dies.

Ruth Fowler, author of “No Man’s Land,” said feminism “is about finding things that aren’t there.”

This statement also describes a reason for the glass ceiling … and Hillary Clinton’s strange findings.

Jackie should try to help Nancy to overcome her fear of the Republic bullies.

I knew I’d seen mention of another one (I may have even flipped the radio away from that, too), which was part of the reason for my frustration. I actually like Diane Rehm, and used to listen to her every morning before they got intimidated by 9/11 and started having panels that “balanced” a think-tank conservative advocate with a journalist. I wrote to call them on that, and also about how these wingnuts would state things that were blatantly false, and still get invited back. And they did recover from some of the intimidation after a couple of years, and had less of that.

But Diane is the sort of interviewer who assumes a certain degree of good faith on the part of the subject, which is fine, but it’s just irresponsible to book someone as shameless as Feith under those circumstances. The purpose of the show is to inform the public, and bringing on an unrepentant BS artist means you either have to spend the whole show arguing with him, or let the public become less informed as a result of the show.

I know the polls say that Hillary is mostly supported by women, but my experience has been that women really don’t like her. And that women DO like Obama.

First off, what is the data for this? I can’t see what this is based upon? Polls? Or the Primary results?

its the 50 state SUSA poll conducted Feb 26-28. I note that the link isn’t in this excerpt, so there it is….

In either acse the evaluation is tainted because those polled have “options”. It’s a Clinton vs. Obama…contrasted to McCain. So they will tend to respond in favor of their preferred candidate, and use that as “blackmail” in order to sway over others. This will continue to happen as long as there is a competitive Democrat race.

this is pure, and rather baseless, supposition. It certainly doesn’t show up in the data itself. Many of the usual patterns held — democrats y and large indicated support for both democrats, and most Republicans voted Republican regardless of which Democrat McCain was matched up against.

What is probably the most overlooked future development is that Obama’s registration effort will in no way diminish after the primaries. This effort will continue and magnify until every eligible voter in the entire country is contacted throughout the entire summer. Can the incompetent Clinton claim the same capability? I think not.

again, allow me to emphasize that this piece is not about how “unelectable” Obama is. If you read the first three pieces in the series, where I concentrate exclusively on the evidence of sexism and misogyny, you’d think I was arguing that Clinton is unelectable.

Its not about that — its about understanding the “landscape” that the noveber election will unfold upon.

Indeed, if I have to make a “political” comment, its that sexism presents a bigger threat to Clinton’s chances than racism does to Obama’s. Basically, sexism is an issue everywnere — racism as a “factor” is most influential in states where the Democrats aren’t likely to win anyway.

That being said, if race becomes an “issue”, rather than a factor, all bets would be off for Obama (see the addendum at the end of the corrente piece that looks at what happens to the gender gap when racism becomes an issue — while the focus is on changes in gender-based voting patterns, its pretty clear that if/when racism becomes an issue, it will hurt Obama in key states like Ohio.

Well, that’s something, at least.

Seconded!

pluk, great to see you.

In the south, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and louisiana are all in play

More on point with Tula’s thread, but that’s been EPU’d. John McVain is doing a campaign event today in NYC at a company that has an on-line employment application that asks (1) are you married (2) do you have kids and (3) do you rent or own. Illegal, much? IANAL, but I think so.

The only thing the seem to have missed is ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Jeebus, the man is as tone-deaf as his gold wings.

(h/t The CarpetBagger Report)

Carpetbagger Link

Great post!

But can I niggle a little? I really don’t care to know what Paul’s pores are doing. I think the word you are looking for is “pouring”.

Bob in HI

I get a sense that the women who support Hilary really really want a woman as prez and they see it as “their turn”. Like, why not Hilary, we’ve had plenty of guys to mess it up, she can’t be any worse…maybe I’m projecting. Anyway, I’m for Obama at this point.

McCain is really really creeping me out in a way I hadn’t experienced before 2008. heebeejeebee creeps.

Thank you for your response. Without going into too much detail can you gave a brief explanation and example of 1)concrete data and 2)documentary evidence. I’m trying to differentiate.

well, by concrete data I mean stuff like the SUSA polls I’m using — stuff that has been published, and can assume to be relatively reliable.

When I talk about documentary evidence, I’m referring to my old days back when I was researching Bush’s military records. Everyone was telling me to read what this person said, or that person said, had happened…. but my approach was simply to look at Bush’s records, and compare them to the contemporaneous laws, regulations, and policies and procedures in effect at that time. It didn’t matter to me that there were rumors of drub abuse, or drinking and flying — without documentary evidence, that was completely irrelevant to what I was doing.

Its the only way that I know how to keep my own opinion as far out of what I do as possible…

As an ex-HuffPoer, which is now nothing more than an Obama supporter gathering place to express Republican-like hatred for all things Clinton, I saw a constant refrain there, as denial of sexism, of “I’d vote for a woman, just not this woman.”

Perhaps it is coming in the general, but I never saw anyone say, “I’d vote for a black man, just not this one.”

Randi Rhodes’s “fucking whore” was cheered and defended as being crude but true. Imagine the reaction to the equivalent said of race.

Race is of course still a factor, but sexism and misogyny are still so acceptable, they are not even noticed, and often by people who consider themselves progressive.

Clinton’s campaign has brought to the surface a disturbing revelation of sexism and misogyny in this country.

Don’t know NY State employment law, but the hot-button no-nos in IL are Ethnicity, Gender and Age. Thos all have “protected status”.

This is essentially Sean Wilentz’ argument, which Brad DeLong addresses in today’s Salon.

What this shows, IMO, is that Tom Schaller was right: Neither Clinton nor Obama has a chance at any Southern state besides Florida — but that they still can easily win in the general.

Look at the states that make up the South: The state with the most African-Americans is Mississippi, whose population is 40% AA. But since 1)there are still more white voters, and 2) these voters still vote overwhelmingly GOP, the Republicans romp no matter how anti-gay or pro-choice the Democratic candidate is. Also, women candidates aren’t going to do too well, either.

This means that instead of trying fruitlessly to win over white male voters by bashing Pelosi and Kennedy as Eeeeeevil Liberals, Obama and Clinton are best served by concentrating picking up young voters and women voters outside of the south; young single females in particular are a good target to get into the voting booths because while they vote less often than other groups, they vote almost exclusively for Democrats when they do.

Is there anything in your research here that brings age and/or varying generational perspectives into the discussion of race and gender?

The SUSA data is broken down into age groups, but they are fairly broad (only three groups). Nevertheless, when looking to see what else might be influencing this phenomenon, it does appear that the youngest demographic did behave differently than the other two — but it was difficult to quantify without a lot more effort.

Don’t know if I would go so far as to call Ariana a misogynist.
Or my wife for that matter.

As for Obama - he has a few detractors in the black community, but none that I know of own media outlets.

Thank you for all your work on this Paul -
it will take me another read or two but now that I’ve joined a campaign myself - it is so important to know and parse these numbers and I sooo need the practice

Badwater at 10 above - unless they vaporize Topeka - come November the polls will be so stacked against the Republics, it will be difficult for even Diebold to pull their pasty asses from the fire - anyone wanna hazard a guess as to the cost of a gallon of milk/loaf of bread and a tank of gas by late October ?

plus I keep having these abjectly foolish thoughts that Mr Axelrod has big plans for McToast and his rib lickin’ buds

That’s not helpful.
“The Clintons” are not running. Hillary Clinton is running. You want to fling poo, and I don’t like it.
I want a DEMOCRAT in office and I don’t care who it is. We cannot take another Republican, we simply can’t take it.

I like Hillary. I would go for either her or Obama. But I think my support for Hillary stems from when they attacked her when she was first lady. When they said things like, “she should know her place” and all that. That stuff pissed me off. There’s just been so much slander about her for the last 15 years, I can’t believe she made it this far. She’s a good senator too.

But I have friends who think she’s as evil as McCain, or even Bush. They say they won’t vote if she wins. That’s stuff I can’t believe. She may have some flaws, but give me a break.

I didn’t call Ariana Huffington a misogynist.

I admit that my comment about people having options is “baseless” in terms of statistics. It’s based upon many people I have talked with who use this argumentation before me…that they will vote for McCain rather than vote “For Obama” or “For Clinton”…or that they won’t vote at all.

When a survey gives people BOTH sets of scenarios they MAY give similar responses. But when only one pairing option is IN REALITY available they may hold their nose and vote differently. Or not vote at all. Certainly their “enthusiasm” factor will diminish, and I would think that this would make them “Less Likely” as voters.

As I suspected the data was from a survey the SUSA poll of late February.

As I have pointed out that same set of surveys show that Obama would do better in more States and in Electoral votes than Clinton.

http://www.surveyusa.com/index.....ccain-262/

http://www.surveyusa.com/index.....ccain-258/

In addition he would put more states into contention (if one considers a 5%-6% differential as the measure of that.

SUSA furthermore doesn’t seem to measure the “enthusiasm factor” very well. In the Democratic Primaries in several Southern States they were off by over 15-25% in Obamas final talley. Admittedly SUSA has tended to be better than the other surveys, but this is something that is hard for the pollsters to evluate. They tend to massage their data using traditional “Likely Voter” estimates…which may hold up if Hillary is the candidate…but not for Obama.

From DeLong’s Salon piece:

As Nyhan pointed out, there is no visible tendency for Obama to fare worse than Clinton as the African-American portion of the population increases. Nyhan presents a graph showing that the higher the black share of the population, the better Barack Obama has done in the primaries. Any increasing racial polarization as the black share of the population rises is offset by greater African-American turnout.

But would this same logic apply to the general election? I believe that it would. First of all, there is no sign that states with demographic compositions like the key five — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Missouri — are necessarily hard terrain for Democratic politicians. Consider this graph, which is constructed to show the correlation between percentage of black population and the Democratic vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

With the exception of Washington, D.C. — that blue dot way off in the upper-right corner, which has both a black majority and a population that votes 80 percent Democratic — the linear relationship between African-American population share and Democratic vote share is flat. There is some evidence, albeit weak, that states with demographics like the key five are the most hospitable to Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates do fine in states in the middle of the black population range, like New York. It’s mostly the states with the lowest and the highest African-American shares — both Idaho, less than 1 percent black, and Mississippi, nearly 40 percent black, are GOP fiefdoms — that are the least hospitable to Democrats.

Second, wherever Barack Obama has campaigned this spring, the results in terms of voter turnout have been astonishing and phenomenal. There are two ways to win a general election: mobilizing and achieving a high turnout from your issue and demographic base, and persuading independent swing voters to come to your side. Barack Obama has shown a remarkable power to get independents who do not usually turn out for the Democratic primary to show up and vote for him. And he has shown a remarkable power to turn out his base. Both of these would have to vanish mysteriously in the general election before Obama could be called less “electable.”

Thus my judgment is that the argument that superdelegates should support Hillary Clinton because Barack Obama is not very “electable” falls to the ground of its own weight.

Yeah, I hate that stuff too. The Clintons. It’s amazing how Hillary hatred just gets all over everything. No one said that Bill Clinton was going to run the show in Hillary’s Senate office. WTF?

So is this the same poll that showed that Obama actually did better in Electoral College Votes than Clinton…put more states into competition…and had a potentially greater “coattail” effect that justified Howard Deans “50 State Strategy”?

yes, but as someone else noted earlier (and I agreed) polls this far out have no predictive value. What they are good for is as a “snapshot” of the landscape before people start concentrating on the election — this early on, I think that people tend to answer with their “gut instinct”, because most people aren’t political junkies — so they like the “Maverick” McCain, and Obama seems like a good guy, and Hillary has high negatives based on sexism — and people provide their answers based on these rather vaporous considerations.

As for Obama - he has a few detractors in the black community, but none that I know of own media outlets.

Except for that guy that owns BET…the largest of the Black Entertainment outlets in the USA.

OK

Margot.. poo flinging is gonna happen. But like you I want a Democrat in the Oval Office in January next year. I might be holding my nose, but I’m gonna vote to put one there. Keeping the job? Well, that’s up to them. They can keep it if they can do it.

it does appear that the youngest demographic did behave differently than the other two — but it was difficult to quantify without a lot more effort.

Thanks.

I’m not surprised that it would be difficult to quantify, in that attempts to predict who is a “likely voter” are extremely difficult in any case, and only get tougher when you are trying to predict who might be a “likely first-time voter.”

The efforts of the Obama and Clinton camps to reach young voters indicate to me that they are aware of these differences, but grapple with how to energize and mobilize them effectively.

True
But I have not seen strong evidence that has had much effect in programming.
Full Disclosure: I don’t have cable.

An interesting thing is when some Clinton critics accuse her of running on her husband’s coattails (which of course is baloney, and sexism in that it ignores her own accomplishments)and demean her for it, but then they say they don’t want “more Clinton” or Bill back.

So they are saying she should separate herself from her husband but they don’t have to???

As you say, WTF??

Ah, yes. BET’s Bob Johnson, who has been attacked by black writers as a billionaire stooge for the GOP.

Except of course for the new poll that shows a McCain/Rice ticket beating an Obama/Clinton ticket in New York. And the McCain campaign’s claim to make California competitive.

Red & Blue states are soooo 2000. This election’s gonna be a map-changer. Count on it.

get a sense that the women who support Hilary really really want a woman as prez and they see it as “their turn”. Like, why not Hilary, we’ve had plenty of guys to mess it up, she can’t be any worse…maybe I’m projecting. Anyway, I’m for Obama at this point.

I found little evidence of this — although it doubtless occurs, the unweighed male/female percentages are almost always more on the male side (i.e. Clinton will get 40% of men, and 55% of women.).

ANd what I’m hearing from women is not so much a sense of entitlement, as much as a sense of resentment that all the pundit’s and Boiz Club bloggers are trying to force Clinton out of the race — imagine if the situation was reversed, and it was all the white people and white bloggers telling Obama that he should drop out, and I think that you’d see where some women get their resentment from.

I really don’t get the McCainRice ticket.
And I would have to see alot stronger trending and some sort of explanation of where the synergy lies.

Two Words: Clinton Fatigue.

It’s always something with either of them… and no matter how pure their motives we (the voters) get the crap figuratively kicked out of us having to hear about them. I just get tired of listening to Hillary explaining away her “misstatements”… and I really don’t want another four (or eight) years of the jackal press counting the number of blades of grass at the airstrip in Bosnia where she never faced sniper fire. We’ll be treated to Travel Office II, Whitewater III and the Continuing Saga of Vince Foster. Entertainment Weekly will run Where is Monica? Linda? Paula? stories from Jan 09 to Nov 2012…

Clinton Fatigue. Am I being too harsh here?

Second, wherever Barack Obama has campaigned this spring, the results in terms of voter turnout have been astonishing and phenomenal

hey PW,
as we like to say here “Ah seen it!” really, cliche as it sounds - freakin’ historical - this little bedroom community of 5000 has 200+ chomping at the bit to work towards November - I simply wouldn’t have believed it 8 months ago. Local Dem orgs hit the organizational lottery when BO comes to town

No, the usage in the editor’s note is correct.

McCain campaign’s claim to make California competitive

Condi Rice is unknown in CA except as a Bushie. She’s never held or even run for any office in the state. Being a provost at a CA university, means little outside of the university. I do