It appears that for the first time in history, black turnout may have been higher then white turnout. Undoubtedly the great affection of the African American community for President Obama played a large part in this, but it may also be that efforts supposedly to block voter fraud that were widely criticized (and even admitted by some Republican officials) as transparent efforts to reduce minority turnout motivated black voters to come out even more.
It will be interesting to see if Republican officials continue to try and beat the “voter fraud” drum (and possibly continue to strongly motivate minority voters against them), or take this as a lesson.
That is wonderful news. I hope, though I’m not optimistic, that they will continue to vote at a high rate even if a black person is not running. Minorities know that they will only get the help they need by electing Democrats. CEOs and the rich are still disproportionately old and white, and the GOP caters to them like servants. The only way to get income inequality down is to have more liberals in office and more liberal laws passed. OMGABC notwithstanding, most African Americans know that they will be helped be Democrats and hurt profoundly by Republicans
The backlash is a good thing, but not to be overestimated. The Forces of Darkness are on the move, regardless. Gerrymandered districting, changing the rules on electoral votes, different forms of voter restriction, they haven’t slowed the least little bit.
Their shenanigans are bald and bare faced. Of course, they run the risk of being abandoned by those ethical conservatives who still exist, and sometimes an election can be swung on a few dozen votes.
According to the article, the latest results are in line of the trend going back to 2000. So I doubt its attributable to either having a AA candidate, push-back against voter ID laws or other recent developments.
Instead, I’d guess its simply the results of improved and more targeted get-out-the-vote efforts by Dems and AA groups, coupled with better technology and methods.
Its basically the flip side of GOP efforts to kick blacks off off voter rolls. At the same time, Dems are trying to get them to the polls, and for the same reasons.
Considering how sharply black turnout went up from 2004 to 2008, it’s pretty laughable to say that it has nothing to do with the first black major party candidate.
No personal offense is intended, but just about everything you said is backward assuming you believe in our Constitutional Republic and a capitalistic society.
Now if you think we should be more like socialized European countries then your point of view probably makes sense to you. Otherwise, you have allowed envy, class warfare, and a general decline of values to pervade your way of thinking.
Welcome to the Straight Dope. Vague, unsupported, ideological statements (stated as fact) like yours often will attract ridicule here. I think you’re way, way off here (everything you said is backward, so to speak, IMO)- I think that it’s the Republican party that has allowed envy, class warfare, and a decline of values to soar among its supporters.
So you are saying that poor people, and disadvantaged minorities, should not be encouraged to vote – just because they don’t adhere to the correct values?
The 2008 number is an almost perfect linear projection of the data from the 3 previous elections. I’m referring to the graph in the source article, not the article directly linked to by the OP.
I don’t think just looking at the 3 previous ones tell you much- there was a big jump from 96-00, but this isn’t surprising since in '96 the black turnout looked to be below the norm. A jump when black turnout was already above the norm is a lot more significant and interesting, and it’s just not reasonable to say that Obama has nothing to do with it.
Thanks for the welcome.
While you took my comment as ideological, I look at it more akin to telling the other poster his was biased based on party affiliation, and did not correlate to a logical outlook.
Now as to your comment, it makes even less sense(no offense). If the average (R) is presumably better off financially, how are they being envious, or engaging in class warfare? Now you might be able to make a case against them regarding values, but I suppose that will depend greatly on which values you are referring to.
I know I have strayed off this threads topic, but I was responding to another poster who made assertions that were off base in my view.
That said, larger than normal voter turnout among blacks is clearly due to one of their own running for political offense. Human beings are tribal, and one of their own will typically trump better qualifications. It seems as if whites in this country would be the only exception since no minority would be elected to office as a senator or president without significant white support. Conversely minority dominated cities and districts almost exclusively promote candidates of their race.
Because the other groups are actually groups, they have common affinities, whereas “white” hardly means anything at all but the absence of any other distinction?
To provide a less cynical interpretation: lots of people I know* became aware of their other voting options* because of the media coverage of the ID laws issue. That is, they’d run a story about a proposed voter ID law, and then mention that you can get around it by voting with an absentee ballot, or you can register at a special place last minute if it takes you a while to get an ID. So I wonder how use of those sorts of alternates changed this year…not out of backlash or thumbing their noses at the Republicans, but out of increased awareness of options that worked better for them.
Be careful, though; calling it simply “the flip side” might be read to imply that both sides/tactics – voter-suppression and GOTV – are of equal justice/value/legitimacy, which is not the case. GOTV is something anybody who believes in democracy is always supposed to encourage regardless of party affiliation or electoral interest.
There’s a story from the ancient Athenian republic. The statesman Aristides, known city-wide as “Aristides the Just,” was up for ostracism. At the assembly, an illiterate citizen who did not know Aristides by sight asked him to please write Aristides’ name on his potsherd for him. Aristides said, “What do you have against him?” The man replied, “Oh, nothing, really. It is just that I am so bored with hearing him called ‘Aristides the Just’!” And Aristides nodded and dutifully wrote down his own name on the man’s potsherd. That is the proper civic attitude.
There was a jump from '96 to '00. And a jump from '00 to '04. How many jumps that contradict your thesis are you going to throw out?
Why not? There were similar jumps when there were two white candidates on the ballot as there was when the Dem was black. I don’t see why its “not reasonable” to suggest that something is driving increases in AA voter participation other then the ethnicity of the candidates.
All the jumps that did not exceed a black turnout sometime in the recent past. turnout in 04 was already about as high as it had ever been in recent history, so it was far more significant when it made a major jump to a value far above any previous black turnout.
I’m not saying it’s entirely due to Obama (I’m sure turnout efforts were a significant part)- but it does seem to me more than coincidence when a large jump to the highest black turnout in recent history, if not in all of US history happens at the same time as the first black nominee.
Come on, this really is a silly argument. Yes, Democratic efforts to increase turnout undoubtedly had some effect. But do you really think that the fact that Obama was the first black major party nominee motivated no one to vote that otherwise might not have voted?
