2008 FYI…
posted by January 28 at 9:23 AM
on… if you’re listening to KUOW right now, conservative black writer Shelby Steele is lying about the percentage of the white vote Obama got in South Carolina. He actually received about a quarter of the white vote, double what he was supposed to get according to the last polls going into the election. Steele is reversing those figures to support his dubious contention: His book is called A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win.
Here’s the exit poll: Obama received 24% of the white vote, compared to 36% for Clinton and 40% for Edwards.
Here’s the McClatchy poll Steele was trying to use to bolster his argument: A poll conducted between Jan 22-23 in South Carolina found that Obama’s support among whites had dropped to around 10%.
Obama overperformed.
UPDATE: OK, good job, KUOW fact-checkers. You gave Scher the actual exit poll numbers. Now give him the poll and have him contradict Steele. “Isn’t this… isn’t this?” isn’t going to cut it.
UPDATE: Thanks for reading the Slog, Steve! But I asked you to correct the poll numbers too. Steele was asserting that Obama’s support among whites had collapsed compared to the last polls (that’s Bradley-effect conventional wisdom, folks); to contradict him, you would have to demonstrate that the polls underpredicted his actual performace. Which they did. Thanks.
Comments
Yeah I picked that out too, Steve seemed to stumble on it as well. Where's the fact-check on that show? Still got another 40 minutes to go. Rarely do I use the word defeatist but in this case.
Maybe he doesn't have the numbers right, but I think he is correct about the zeitgeist--I honestly don't think the voters will elect Obama. This country has a deep deep racism that is far from being eradicated.
This is about what you'd expect from a right-wing Hoover Institution type.
Email weekday@kuow.org
Although I had no idea SS was such an asshole. I thought he was just the benign voiceover guy on PBS shit.
KUOW wouldn't know how to correct a fact if it had a big orange tag on it. Seriously, their interviewers are unlistenably dull-witted. Scher isn't anywhere near as bad as Ross Reynolds (who the other day couldn't grasp that there were any other tax-rebate choices besides "let the people spend their way to recovery" versus "let the government decide what to spend it on"). But he's bad enough to have kept me from bothering to replace my stolen car stereo for the past six months.
Shelby Steele is just a professional jackass. He shouldn't be getting airtime anyways. His book was out of date before he finished typing it.
I heard the same thing and Steve did question it, but not hard enough. Why don't you send this Slog post in an email to KUOW?
PS -- unlike Jesse Jackson, Obama actually has sensible white support, and if you think 24% is a reasonable guide to his white Democratic vote in SC in the general election, you're crazy. He'd get all of Edwards's voters, 7/8 of Clinton's, and more than a few of the younger Republican votes. Note that he outpolled all the Republican candidates combined, even with stiff Democratic opposition.
I meant to delete don't (duh). Send them the Slog post.
I subscribe to a view more like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27rich.html?em&ex=1201582800&en=392aa43b5c1aaf33&ei=5087%0A
Yes, I've been emailing them corrections and links to info furiously... waiting for them to start reading emails. I'd CALL IN but I am at work and cannot. Somebody PHONE THEM and correct the record...
(and get them to stop playing that insultingly dramatic African Percussion Music between segments)
Not sure whether you listen to 710 KIRO. However, Dave Ross will have Shelby Steele on at 11:05 a.m. Dave probably doesn't know the details of the SC vote. So, you might want to give him a heads-up too.
Another FACT Shelby should be made aware of--Obama received more total votes in SC than McCain OR Huckabee COMBINED. That's not a fluke, and can't be dismissed as race-based voting.
I think the more important stat is that Obama got more than 50% of the young white vote. Regardless of how this election goes, we're seeing a sea change even in the south.
Agreed, #14, a fact I emailed to KUOW at 9:09 am.
I'm listening. Shelby Steele's a fucking turd.
George W. Bush-medal-award winner Steele keeps taking HIS bargainer/challenger paradigm and applying it to Obama, and then blaming Obama for fitting into Steele's paradigm, ignoring that the point of Obama's own campaign is that we must get past these old dichotomies.
Steele is setting up his own straw-man system to knock down. His argument is specious.
Lola @2:
Maybe he doesn't have the numbers right, but I think he is correct about the zeitgeist--I honestly don't think the voters will elect Clinton. This country has a deep deep sexism that is far from being eradicated.
...
Maybe he doesn't have the numbers right, but I think he is correct about the zeitgeist--I honestly don't think the voters will elect McCain. This country has a deep deep ageism that is far from being eradicated.
...
Maybe he doesn't have the numbers right, but I think he is correct about the zeitgeist--I honestly don't think the voters will elect Romney. This country has a deep deep anti-Mormonism that is far from being eradicated.
Gosh, this cynical electability speculation (flying in the face of all evidence) is fun. You too can play along at home.
I think Shelby Steele is smart, but seems like a contrarian to me.
I think the Presidency is up for grabs.
@#18-- go ahead, plug in "Huckabee" and "Jesus-Freak-aphobia" tags to your template... or do they?
Well gee, excuse me. I guess that guy dragged behind a truck in Texas, the Jena 6, etc etc etc are just ANCIENT HISTORY, yeah? Yeah, there aren't 'black' sections of town anymore, there is equality in hiring, and so many mainstream media shows and movies that are just color-blind, yeah?
I want any Dem to win, believe me. I am just worried. So sue me.
The Obama Campaign just put out these numbers:
55% of the total vote, more than twice as many votes as any other candidate
57% of voters who had never voted in a primary
66% of voters who had never voted before at all
Every type of community -- urban, suburban, and rural
58% of voters between ages 18 and 64
67% of voters between ages 18 and 29
(those numbers are about South Carolina, that is)
I listened to much of that KUOW "interview" - and the idea of interviewing a black "conservative" about Obama and Presidential candidates is like asking a Martian about what Inuits think.
What a frickin waste of time that was. There's nothing worse or more hypocritical than an African-American neocon.
The thing to keep in mind is that NPR has become a right tool over the past few years.
If Steve get's too 'correct' with his guests and starts asking the Hard hitting questions like say Fresh Air hostess Gross does, he would have no one wanting to get grilled on his show.
Yeah, I was listening to that. . . I'd never heard of the guy, and I wasn't impressed. I loved how he said that, if people have trouble with the idea of a black conservative, it's because they "can't see black people as individuals". Nooooo, it's that they can't understand why people vote against their own interests, and unless you're the rare wealthy author, if you vote for Republicans, you're voting against your own interests.
It's slightly easier to understand non-wealthy (and I don't mean filthy-rich, I'm talking middle class here) white people voting for Repubs, because people are mostly sheep and vote for whomever their parents would have voted for. But seeing as how the Repubs have not historically been kind to blacks, I doubt that Steele has the same excuse, at least as far as his black ancestors go, and those are apparently the only ancestors he identifies with.
And why is it that Obama, by being neither Angry Black Man or being in denial about racism in America, is wearing a "mask"? It seems to me that Obama has been pretty damned clear about his views. They are reasoned. Nuanced. Is that a problem?
I found the whole interview to be pretty mystifying.
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