Friday, January 25th, 2008...8:58 am
His Name Does End In a Vowell After All
Survey USA has a new poll out that shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton among hispanic voters in South Carolina 53-17. This is, by the way, a larger margin than Obama is leading over all.
I hope this leads to a end the pundit meme that claims that latino voters are reluctant to vote for a black candidate. It strikes me as bizarre that the same Sabbath gasbags who claim such intimate knowledge of the hispanic voter as if such revelations came to them on tablets on top of Mt. Sinai rarely, if ever, seem to have a hispanic leader or journalist on to talk about this supposed bias.
This all seems to be based on exit polling data in Nevada. Well, those same exit polls showed that Clinton won among white women. Are white women scared to vote for a black candidate? Of course not. But, okay to assume that those hispanics are neanderthals who vote on the basis of racial bias, I guess.
Also, how many Democrats do people think would get elected out of Chicago without the support of the Mexican-American and Puerto Rican communities? (Not to mention, Chicago is one of the few cities I can think of with an extensive Polish-Mexican community, buy your buttons now!) I get the feeling that this is more about a few pundits mouthing off about things they know nothing about, and beltway group-think taking it from there.
NB - With apologies to Calvin Trillin, the originator of the term “Sabbath gasbag.”
3 Comments
January 26th, 2008 at 7:03 am
I hate to rain on the parade… but Hispanics comprised only 1% of that poll’s sample. A whole (approximately) 21 people. Not exactly statistically significant.
On the contrary, the most recent poll out of California shows Obama having a very hard time with Hispanic voters, something like 2 or 3 to 1 for Clinton. And this is where they actually make up a significant portion of the electorate.
You did, however, temporariliy get my hopes up. Cruel joke at 7 in the morning on a Saturday.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Good catch, Andrew, but the 1% Hispanic sample is actually of likely Democratic voters (685), not all calls (2100). So the 1% is actually just 6 or 7 Hispanic likely voters.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
You are correct, sir. My teachers always said I didn’t read directions and descriptions completely enough.
I did think that 2100 was a HUGE sample…
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