Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Sad

If you look at the map of Kentucky's voting results and roll your mouse over the image, you can see the county-by-county vote counts. Some of them, particularly near the eastern border, show Barack Obama not even breaking the 10% mark.

Posted by bjkeefe at 9:22 PM
Labels:

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

God. That IS depressing. 5%, 7%, 8%.

What's the explanation? Is it really as simply as racism?

Ugh. This coming presidential election has the potential to be truly uplifting, but points like this are not very reassuring.

11:28 PM, May 20, 2008
bjkeefe said...

I wouldn't say that every Kentuckian who voted for Clinton was a racist, but I do think the lopsidedness of the results can't be explained any other way.

5:39 AM, May 21, 2008
John Evo said...

Apparently in exit polls 20% admitted that race was a factor (ADMITTED! You have to figure the actual number - those who had a LITTLE shame and DIDN'T "admit" was far higher).

About 90% of those said they voted for Hillary.

Racism is bad regardless of whether it's people voting Hillary because she is white or Obama because he is black. However, as is our history, it is the minorities which suffer from the racism of a few. 20% of whites being racist in Kentucky = 10's of thousands more white racists than black.

If the real number of people was 40%, then even with a equal amount of black votes being for racial reasons, Hillary's entire margin of victory can be explained by that one factor.

It's not JUST sad....

11:56 AM, May 22, 2008
John Evo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
11:58 AM, May 22, 2008
John Evo said...

I should have said even with an equal "percentage" of black votes - not "amount".

11:59 AM, May 22, 2008
bjkeefe said...

John:

Mostly agree. One quibble: voting for Obama because you're black and so is he seems quite a bit less heinous than voting against him because you're white and don't like blacks. It seems more positive, and it's in any case understandable from the point of view of a minority struggling for equality and looking for a new champion.

I don't think many black people voted against Hillary simply because she's white, which seems a more valid comparison.

One minor thing that always comes to mind when you look at this exit poll question: I wonder how many people said race was a consideration, but meant it in a positive way.

12:04 PM, May 22, 2008
John Evo said...

I can address your first point AND your final question -

When I made my comparison, I was actually giving the white voters credit for "race is an issue" in that I made the assumption (not always true obviously) that they were voting FOR Hillary because they felt comfortable with a white candidate. In that case, it IS a fair comparison to blacks voting "for" Obama and not "against" Hillary.

1:43 PM, May 22, 2008
bjkeefe said...

Point taken. Realistically, though, I am inclined to think most of the race-conscious voting was of a negative slant; i.e., "anybody but the black guy."

1:54 PM, May 22, 2008

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

ShareThis