The Demographic Box
Interesting how inclined the press are to place voters into neat little boxes, package them up, and present them to the candidates with a bow. From the LA Times, via MSNBC, this summary of exit polls:
Nationally, Clinton won among women (52%-45%), and Obama won among men (53%-42%). Obama won big among voters ages 17-29 (59%-38%), and Clinton won big among those 60 and older (55%-38%).
“Obama won the African-American vote (82%-16%), while Clinton won Latinos (61%-37%). Obama did seem to do better among whites (with 43% of that vote); in fact, Obama won white men (49%-44%). And Obama won among those making $200,000 or more (52%-46%), while Clinton won among those making less than $50,000.
So I guess that means this nearly-50 year old white woman making less than $200,000 doesn’t fit in any of those nice little boxes. Nor do my friends Donna, or Katharine, who also don’t fit in that nice neat little box. Maybe they’re counting our white 50+ husbands in the “white men” demographic and including us in that?
Bottom line is this: I think the media got so many things wrong last night and hyped so much in an extraordinarily disruptive primary season that they’re looking for the statistics to justify the mistakes.
Calling California with only the early voter ballots counted, for example. That was a mistake. Yes, Hillary Clinton won so they weren’t wrong, but by calling it with huge, wide margins that were expected by those of us who knew that absentee ballots would skew the initial results. It was inevitable, because a) Edwards was still in the race when their votes were cast; and, b) that was the percentage when they sent in their ballots a month to two weeks ago.
The more interesting poll to me is one that measures how many Edwards voters who voted yesterday cast ballots for Clinton or Obama. I’m guessing more went to Obama. If you were to make your own box and ignore the media, I’m guessing the vast majority of Edwards votes cast early would have been Obama’s if they were cast yesterday, making the result much, much closer. But that’s just speculation.
Then there’s the Missouri mistake. Do they ever learn? The AP (and every cable news channel in rapid succession) called the Missouri race for Clinton before St. Louis had reported. That just defies common sense. I don’t know the projection techniques they used, but obviously they were proven wrong.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The projections aren’t worth the time it took to make them. We are not handicapping a horserace here; we’re choosing a nominee to run against the other party in a critical national election. We don’t need to be put in a box and wrapped up in assumptions, and the sooner the media puts more energy into the issues at hand and less into projecting, the better.
While they were rubbing their hands together and poring over projections, the President released the largest budget in American history, stripping funding from just about every social program possible in order to continue to fund the bloodbath in Iraq. Just a little more media light on that, please, and a little less on speculation? What a refreshing thought.
Technorati Tags: media, pundits, demographics, exit polls, bullshit