Spare Me Your Exits Polls

The sideshow of the '08 primary campaign has been the endless media vivisection of how each subset of the electorate has broken for a particular candidate. The urban vote. The second generation Hispanic vote. The rural white vote with non-secondary education. How are older Catholic women voting?

The numbers are picked over like a Beatles LP from back in the day by "experts" looking for any bit of hidden meaning which ultimately -- like Paul's death -- might not be genuine.

It has become an obsession, and as with any obsession it is unhealthy. The conclusions drawn from these excavations usually reflect the media's own bias. After the Georgia primary where Obama pulled well among white male voters there seemed to be in the news collective dismay that the good ole boys would vote for the colored man. This, never mind Atlanta had its first black mayor back in 1974. There was no reason except prejudice to assume Obama couldn't pull a good portion of the white vote.

But with each round of voting the media echo chamber tends to magnify the disparities of each subset. Again and again we are told the black vote has abandoned the Clintons, older white women don't connect with Obama. This repetition breeds resentment; how dare "those people" not support my candidate? In short order our own opinions about those who abandon and those who refuse to connect calcify into animosity, making it hard for us to see the "other" candidate as potentially "our" candidate. It makes it all the more difficult when each candidate is publicly pushed and prodded as to why they are failing among a certain class of voter, and their response is then loaded with an unfortunate adjective: bitter or clinging or hard working (as opposed to that other group that doesn't work so hard).

There's an argument to be made there is news value to the continual crunching of the numbers.

There's an argument to be made there's value to the endless reporting of with whose stolen coat Lindsay Lohan is trotting around.

Clearly the candidates and their operatives have to be cognizant of their strengths and weakness within segments of the electorate.

For the rest of us it's enough to know who's winning and who's losing.

Comments

[curiousasheck]

This election seems more like some Jerry Springer-American Idol Spectacular then a serious contest that will determine the destiny of the United States.

[SethBLiNK]

Why is it that black voters only get to make up one demographic, whereas white people get to make up about a dozen?

For a while there, until South Carolina, there were two black demographics, men and women. Back then, Hillary thought she had a shot with black women. But ever since that turned out not to be the case (she did have a chance, till she and Bill started trading black loyalty for white fear), all we hear is that Obama gets 90% of the black vote, as if that's a bad thing.

But the white vote... there's white men, white women, white people of every age sector, every income level and every education level. Obama does pretty well with white men and white women when each is taken as a group. He does very well with young white people and pretty much every age group under 65. He does well with affluent white people and educated white people.

But... he doesn't do all that well (lately) with lower earning, less educated whites, and suddenly, they are the only group that matters.

I would think that appealing to black voters (the disenfranchised) young voters (the idealistic) educated voters (well informed) and affluent voters (people who can afford to be republicans but choose not to) would be pretty impressive, but no, suddenly the one man one vote rule has been thrown out and it's all about the white guy in the coveralls.

[mikekev58]

Well, when 90% of black voters are voting for Obama why would the specific demographics matter?

Blacks are 12% of the population and they are going to vote for Obama.

The white vote - particularly the blue collar and older white people - has always been essential to a victory by either party. The Republicans have never counted on the black vote and they've been pretty successful. Barry needs to get the white demographics that Hillary is getting if he has a chance in November.

I don't think he can do it.

[RobertArend]

Pull your overalls up. This isn't the 50s&60s. These are the miserable first eight years of the new century. Cops may still pump 50 bullets into the body of an innocent black man with the blessings of the establishment, but whites have voted blacks into public office for nearly 3 decades.

The economy is the great equalizer.

[egal]

Nor does anyone seem to recognize the significance that Obama's comments about bitterness were aimed at all of us who have seen our jobs taken away and promises to fix that broken, while Clinton's commentary repeatedly implies that only those old and wise enough here, or canny and XX enough, or hard-working and white enough (or in some other manner special compared to Obama's "worthless" everybody-but-that-one-small-demographic) can see the benefits of her campaign.

[BeingFrank]

John,

I'm in total agreement,.. most polls are a collage of guessing games,.. especially those that put a person on the spot with personal choices as powerful as political choices...

They change from day to day, mood to mood, and though disguised as 'Reports',..are mostly used to Influence, .

[Photofarm]

Exactly, and also many times the questions are leading questions, to get a pre-determined response.

I also don't think people change their minds as often or quickly as the pollsters want to make you think.

I also think exit polls are especially bad, because many thoughtful people keep their vote private like they are allowed to do.

[shrugged]

Thank you. The self serving media is growing very tiresome. Their analysis is trite and meaningless, yet they babble on and on and on. Turn them off, please.

[rsg5354]

Your absolutely right.

[KINGS]

Well said John Ridley. I have noticed the same thing. Thanks for articulating and bring it to the public attention.

[freshnotbitter]

I agree that it is a frustrating exercise to splice and dice the vote.

We are told that Hillary gets 60% of the white vote in some instances but what happens if you take the senior white vote out of the white vote? Then suddenly Obama gets more of the white vote. Does this mean Obama has trouble with white votes or old votes???

You tell me.

I suppose somebody would come along and say well yeah sure but what happens if you now take out the under 30 vote. now Hillary leads.

On and on you go. What does it all mean??

We can get exit polls for how darker skinned individuals voted but how can you find the number of lighter skinned individuals who voted against Obama because he is darker skinned?? You can't but if you can't then you don't know if his relatively darker skin is an advantage or a disadvantage.

In other words, these are all imponderables. so what does than mean when the media reports on them in spite of the fact that they know what they are saying does not have any solid basis??

it means they have an agenda.

[apoyo]

They lost the African-American vote and now they are working on losing the Hispanic vote.

What else is there to infer when she stresses that only the White vote matters?

The media magnifies these divisions in their Quixotic quest for ratings.

[golfrr]

I too wonder about all the podits putting everyone in some kind of voting box. I think it would have been different if it were two white men to vote for, then the box would only be Black, Women, and maybe age not [hard] working white (what about the lazy working white? LOL). Because this is so different this year with a women and a person of color ( I say that because he is 1/2 white too) I guess they have to disect us [ voters] to see were if any racisim lie in America today. Have we come a long way baby??? We will now in November. Obama 08

[txbyrd]

And, with all due respect, spare me another claim of 'media bias,' particularly on the Huffington Post.

All media are biased. That is why, as responsible consumers, we need to depend on a variety of news outlets-- made even easier with the internet.

And I think the polls are great. They never claim to be definitive. They are simply snapshots of larger issues. And the most reliable snapshot we have. Certainly, INTERPRETATION of the numbers can be done in a number of ways. There enters bias. There enters the need to be an informed consumer.

The media did fail to emphasize that Democrats lost the working class White vote a long time ago. But that doesn't make for a good spin.

Keep the polls. They play an important role. And all the politicians pay close attention; they know they can be a good, albeit flawed, source of information.

[gapanther]

Well said. Can you remind the rest of the media of their obsession? Thanks.

[HappyDae]

Hillary or Obama? It is obvious who's winning and who's whining.

Effete liberal Democrats are all but canonizing Barack Hussein Obama, whom they see as one of their own -- cool, detached, impressively intellectual -- something fresh out of the faculty lounge, where lofty thoughts abound and contempt for the great unwashed is hardly concealed.

Although, I'm among the unwashed, I'm not a Republican. I work hard for a living.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[BeingFrank]

HappyDae,

'Hard Workers' come in all colors and from every politcal party,...but rarely from the ranks of opportunist advertising trolls.