Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Political Pundits: Obama Confusion


Pundits suck.

Granted, I understand that this year's election is one of the most unpredictable races in history. But the rotating pundits who frequent CNN, MSNBC and FOX news are unusually confused when trying to explain Barack Obama's wins.

No alliances dubbed as predictors in the past seem to be relevant this year. If these talking heads can't break wins down along racial, gender, or economic lines, they're lost.

When Obama won in Louisiana, talking heads credited the black vote. They don't consider that in Louisiana, he had a smaller margin of victory compared to his big wins in Maine and Nebraska, a largely white electorate. But rather than analyze his wins in Maine and Nebraska, and analyzing his blue collar appeal, they choose to focus on Louisiana and credit the black vote for winning the election.

When Obama loses in the California primary they note that Latinos voted for Clinton 2 ro 1 and conclude that Obama's made no headway among blue collar whites. But when he wins in Nebraska, Maine, North Dakota, and Kansas, majority white states with blue collar populations, our expert pundits are mum. There's no analysis about his support in states where the ethnic populations are miniscule, no break down of blue or white collar whites or the much buzzed about young college crowd. In fact, they predict that Obama will do well in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, again, because of the sizable black populations and upscale whites. But they speak as if no other demographics live in these areas, and if they do, they don't fit into Obama's demographic so they don't count.

The most obvious blunder, is the frequently referenced belief that all Latinos are voting for Hilary, in part due to the large support in California and Nevada. They ignore his Latino support in Illinois and New Mexico, preferring to paint Latinos as unanimously supporting Hilary. With Texas hailed as Clinton's omnimous firewall to Obama's rise, the assumption is that Latino voters will support her enmasse. No polls have been taken, and worse, no Latino pundits or experts are brought in until, the the night of Obama's Potomac primary sweep. The two Latino guests I caught while flipping stations are both from Texas. Both agree that the Latino Democratic vote is split by age in their state, with younger voters going for Obama and seniors largely advocating for Clinton. The news staffs are shocked. And when one young Latina guest notes that Latinos are not some homogeneous group, news staff are stunned again. And in a moment of enlightenment, one commentator notes that he made a shocking discovery: Twenty percent of the voters who voted in the last Texas primary are African American. As if to say, you mean black people live in Texas, too?

Finally, as the night wore on, pundits admitted that Obama seemed to outpace Clinton in all categories in the Potomac primary including white men, white women, African Americans, Latinos, and young voters.

But if they'd done this same analysis with other states he'd won like Georgia, Alabama, North Dakota, or Alaska, maybe the February sweep wouldn't have been such a stunner.

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