Tuesday, November 11, 2008
2008 Did Obamamania Pass Prop 8? (Cont.)
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:50 AM
The arguments, and the slicing and dicing of the exit poll data, continue. Today a a Sacramento Bee columnist weighs in:
Historically, black Californians have voted in about the same proportion as their population, in the 6 percent to 7 percent range, while Latinos, although more than a third of the state's population, have been about 13 percent of voters.Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure's margin of victory.
To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional – meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher – chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.
Via Ben Smith.
Share via
4
or to put it another way, the minorities stepped up their presence at the polls, but white folks just sat on their asses as much as they always do. Maybe if whites had increased their turnout at the same rate as blacks and latinos prop 8 wouldn't have passed.
But hey, it's always someone else's fault.
5
The 10% black/18% hispanic voter figures were from the same debunked exit poll.
I've seriously never been so disappointed in Slog. I don't see how these posts could be motivated by anything but racism, since they clearly are anti-factual. I don't even think extreme laziness could be an excuse anymore. If I was Charles I'd be updating my resume.
7
Eli - Prop 8 failed. Get over it. More precisely, understand the reasons why it failed, and go on to fight another day. Civil rights has experienced a setback, but the fight is never over. Blaming blacks for voting against the measure only highlights that there's more work to be done in the black community.
There are many reasons why this thing failed. Now's the time to go out there and correct them. Finger-pointing and race-baiting isn't going to solve anything.
8
@5,
yeah, i'm pretty annoyed at all the blame blacks are getting as well. not that i supported prop. 8 or anything, but the loss was because of a campaign that wasn't run well enough to reach out to enough people (including the white majority, not just minorites) to get people to vote the way they wanted. demonizing minorities like this is not the way to make anyone sympathetic to your cause - i'm in your corner and want to send a hearty 'fuck you' to everyone blaming blacks, so good luck getting all those black californians to come around next time.
a shitty campaign was run and you lost. try again until it works. and eventually it will. blaming other minorities in the interim is not helping the cause.
9
@3, 4 oh snap! @5 in the newpaper biz the survival instinct is acting like a roofie on editorial inhibitions all over the world.
10
I saw this same info linked from Sullivan and thought, this is based on those exit polls. WTF? It still doesn't make sense to use this data.
The people of CA have spoken. We might not like it, but we need to figure out how to move forward. It's encouraging to see that people are actually fighting back and are being vocal. When these things happened to our mid-western brothers and sisters the numbers of glbt folks hurt were often terribly small compared to our coastal states with large urban areas.
When something similar passed in Michigan in 2004 the reaction of most Michigan gays afterwards (after anger, of course) was to just not rock the boat. It was sad. As a then-Michigan resident, let me say that the event barely registered for most coastal gays. The lessons one could have taken from that fight were apparently lost over the past 4 years as evidenced by the unfortunate campaign run by the No on 8 crowd. Sigh.
11
5 and 8 are right on.
blaming other minority voters is inaccurate and does nothing for cause.
time to regroup and win even bigger next time.
just like we did after Kerry lost, now with our Obama win.
13
To borrow a phrase from digg:
"burried as repost"
Glad you could join the conversation though, Eli! Welcome! :D
14
Why not tie this failure to the increase in young voters? The reality is, a matter of constitutional interpretation was, for some insane reason, left up to voters to decide, and the majority of them - mostly Caucasian and Hispanic - unfortunately chose to ban gay marriage.
CA is less than 10% black, but it's obviously 51% asshole. Time to move to the next step of the fight.
15
chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failedCompletely false. All of the other articles I see about this exit polling say things like "blacks and latinos tipped the balance" which is a convenient way of glossing over the fact that whites were SPLIT on the issue.
16
Chickens = 1
Gays = 0
Its just common knowledge that chickens are more important than gay people...
17
watch, all the gay writers (except dominic) are going to keep pushing this load of shit. and no matter how many time we rebuff them they are still gonna hold this racist grudge.
18
oooh oooh, can we bust out the "stupid fucking credulous hack" for stranger writers now? Dan, Eli...
22
The absolute only use for this info is in pointing out the serious need for the gay community to reach out to the black and latino communities. The ads put forth by the anti prop 8 folks SUCKED MAJOR ASS!!!!!! and there was nothing in them geared at the black or latino communitees. What the fuck, did Geoff Kors forget that black folks would vote in droves this election? Stupid stupid stupid, just admit it and stop putting the blame on these ignored communitees! We are to blame for letting this slip out of our grasp (for now).
23
The Weakly is homophobic and the Stranger is racist.
What the hell, Seattle? Aren't Concerned White Liberals(tm) supposed to put their blame on Bush and Republicans?
24
I think Dougsf said it best @14:
"CA is less than 10% black, but it's obviously 51% asshole. Time to move to the next step of the fight."
Blacks are the easiest target, and you (and Dan) have locked in on them, with utter disregard for any of the other responsible parties. Is it because of intellectual laziness, or is there a hint of racism clouding your thinking? I can't figure it out.
25
Thank Mormon Jesus that Nate Silver just put out an article debunking Eli and Dan.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html
He doesn't dig very deep into why the exit poll was completely unreflective of reality, or why even if the exit polls were accurate that changing the black voting rate to white levels wouldn't have caused Proposition 8 to fail. However, he still reaches the same conclusion that anyone who thought about this for more than 4 seconds would have reached: racial minorities didn't cause Prop 8 to pass.
28
He's a propogandist at best. At least Savage has the excuse that he's a sex columnist, not a journalist.
29
It's funny because even if it was true (and it's not), you could blame a million factors for anti-gay marriage amendments passing almost everywhere consistently but now it's all the fault of those damn negroes.
I wonder how these people explain the anti-gay amendments in North and South Dakota, Montana, Kentucky, Idaho, Wisconsin and Nebraska. It probably makes their brains explode.
30
@25-- I was just about to post the same thing from Nate at 538.
It's easy to take a look at one bit of information and extrapolate a simple but ultimately incorrect conclusion, but it's just tunnel vision.
And the "election of black, progressive president causes ironic anti-progressive initiative to pass" story sure is a fun angle, 'cause we all love good irony, but it's simply not true.
Thank God we have actual smart people like Nate Silver looking at this stuff and making actual sense of it.
31
@29 To answer your question
Under cover of night, Negroes sneak into these different states when some hateful anti gay piece of shit is on the ballot, then we inhabit the bodies of the white people, taking special care to inhabit only the bodies of registered voters. (This is a trick we learn at secret voodoo seminars offered in Haiti and by the Nigerian Anglican church.) Then we vote to pass the hateful legislation. I'm telling you this because you seem cool. Please don't spread it around or I might get in trouble with the Council on Black Homophobia.
32
Nate makes a series of uncharacteristic interpretive errors in the post cited @25.
In particular, voters over 65 deliver a net margin of 3.3% for Prop 8 (61% For minus 39% Against, times 15% of total voters) African-American voters deliver 4.0% net margin ((.70-.30)*.10).
This gap remains even if we assume 100% of black voters age 18-29 voted like typical first-time voters.
In particular, voters over 65 deliver a net margin of 3.3% for Prop 8 (61% For minus 39% Against, times 15% of total voters) African-American voters deliver 4.0% net margin ((.70-.30)*.10).
This gap remains even if we assume 100% of black voters age 18-29 voted like typical first-time voters.
Most Commented on Slog
-
WTF? by Dan Savage
-
PETA vs. Thanksgiving by Dan Savage
-
Your Wife Died Alone... by Dan Savage
-
Is Your Teen Out of Control... And Smoking Hot? by Dan Savage
-
Health at Every Size by Dan Savage
-
Boy-Nerds Offended by Cootie-Ridden "Girl" Movie by Paul Constant
-
The Cost (and Fear) of Dying by Anthony Hecht
-
SL Letter of the Day: Hot For Twinks by Dan Savage
-
Palin's Base: The Know Nothings by Dan Savage
-
Cantwell Will Vote Against Any Health Insurance Reform Bill That Limits Abortion Funding by Eli Sanders
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (32) RSS