Obama's historic win revives the black-Jewish civil rights alliance
Shlomo Shamir
Nov 06, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034853.html
The historic alliance between blacks and Jews, which was forged during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, laid the groundwork for the spirit and social climate that led to the election of the first black president of the United States. That is the main message of members of the black and Jewish communities who commented yesterday on Barack Obama's victory.
The feeling among leaders and community activists was that the election's result was a kind of belated political benefit of the African- and Jewish-American partnership, in an effort to promote social values, particularly civil rights and tolerance.
"No other sector of American society provided a stronger and more consistent reservoir of support in the struggle of African-Americans than the Jewish community," said Marc Schneier, an Orthodox rabbi who 20 years ago established the Foundation for Ethical Understanding. Schneier is the author of the book "Shared Dreams" documenting the relationship between Martin Luther King and the Jewish community (with a preface by King).
"The historic partnership between the two communities is what led to the significant changes in the areas of equality and tolerance in American society, the results of which we saw Tuesday," he said.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How large is the Bradley effect and does it matter for Obama?
How large is the Bradley effect and does it matter for Obama?
David Strömberg
Nov 03, 2008
http://voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/2514
Will tomorrow’s US presidential election be closer than expected because Barack Obama is African-American? This column looks at the last decade of US electoral contests with black candidates and says that there is a Bradley effect, in which African-American candidates garner lower vote shares than predicted by opinion polls. If that holds true, it will be close tomorrow.
Should Barack Obama worry about the Bradley effect? The much-discussed effect refers to observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes, in which African-American candidates receive a smaller vote share than would be predicted using opinion polls. In this column, I study US congressional and gubernatorial contests from 1998 to 2006 – black candidates on average receive a 2-3% lower share of the two-party vote than non-black candidates with similar numbers in the polls. If an effect of a similar size would appear in the current presidential race, then it would lower Obama’s probability of winning from 85% to 53%. However, black Republican candidates drive the result, so it may not apply to Obama’s campaign.
Data
My sample includes 431 elections for the offices of House, Senate and Governor 1998-2006 for which I have election and opinion poll data and information on whether the candidate was black. The data on elections was provided by Jim Snyder at MIT, the data on candidate race is from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and the polling data was gathered from various sources. This data is similar to that of Daniel Hopkins (2008), who uses data from 133 gubernatorial and Senate elections from 1989-2006.
There are 26 black candidates in the sample, 17 Democrats and 9 Republicans (4 in gubernatorial races, and 11 each for the offices of House and Senate). I will only analyse races where a black candidate ran against a candidate who was not black. This eliminates two races, one of which is Barack Obama’s race for Senator of Illinois against Alan Keyes in 2004. I am left with 22 races. The relevant sample of 22 elections is quite small, so all results should be taken with a grain of salt (still, the sample is larger than existing studies).
The 2-3% Bradley effect
Figure 1 shows the relationship between polling and vote outcomes for races for House, Senate and Governor 1998-2006. I only include polls performed from August to the date of the election. Each dot shows the poll and vote average within each two-percent opinion poll interval, 0-2, 2-4, etc. The grey dots are non-black candidates, the blue dots are black Democratic candidates, and the red dots are black Republican candidates. The grey line shows the fitted values of a regression of Democratic vote share on Democratic poll share, for non-black candidates. As you can see, black candidates on average do worse than other candidates polling at the similar numbers in the polls: Democratic black candidates more often lie below the regression line (expected vote, conditional on poll) and Republican black candidates more often lie above.
[contd.]
David Strömberg
Nov 03, 2008
http://voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/2514
Will tomorrow’s US presidential election be closer than expected because Barack Obama is African-American? This column looks at the last decade of US electoral contests with black candidates and says that there is a Bradley effect, in which African-American candidates garner lower vote shares than predicted by opinion polls. If that holds true, it will be close tomorrow.
Should Barack Obama worry about the Bradley effect? The much-discussed effect refers to observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes, in which African-American candidates receive a smaller vote share than would be predicted using opinion polls. In this column, I study US congressional and gubernatorial contests from 1998 to 2006 – black candidates on average receive a 2-3% lower share of the two-party vote than non-black candidates with similar numbers in the polls. If an effect of a similar size would appear in the current presidential race, then it would lower Obama’s probability of winning from 85% to 53%. However, black Republican candidates drive the result, so it may not apply to Obama’s campaign.
Data
My sample includes 431 elections for the offices of House, Senate and Governor 1998-2006 for which I have election and opinion poll data and information on whether the candidate was black. The data on elections was provided by Jim Snyder at MIT, the data on candidate race is from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and the polling data was gathered from various sources. This data is similar to that of Daniel Hopkins (2008), who uses data from 133 gubernatorial and Senate elections from 1989-2006.
There are 26 black candidates in the sample, 17 Democrats and 9 Republicans (4 in gubernatorial races, and 11 each for the offices of House and Senate). I will only analyse races where a black candidate ran against a candidate who was not black. This eliminates two races, one of which is Barack Obama’s race for Senator of Illinois against Alan Keyes in 2004. I am left with 22 races. The relevant sample of 22 elections is quite small, so all results should be taken with a grain of salt (still, the sample is larger than existing studies).
The 2-3% Bradley effect
Figure 1 shows the relationship between polling and vote outcomes for races for House, Senate and Governor 1998-2006. I only include polls performed from August to the date of the election. Each dot shows the poll and vote average within each two-percent opinion poll interval, 0-2, 2-4, etc. The grey dots are non-black candidates, the blue dots are black Democratic candidates, and the red dots are black Republican candidates. The grey line shows the fitted values of a regression of Democratic vote share on Democratic poll share, for non-black candidates. As you can see, black candidates on average do worse than other candidates polling at the similar numbers in the polls: Democratic black candidates more often lie below the regression line (expected vote, conditional on poll) and Republican black candidates more often lie above.
[contd.]
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Can Obama win popular vote but lose election?
Can Obama win popular vote but lose election?
Liz Sidoti, AP Writer
Nov 03, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081103/
ap_on_el_pr/split_decision
It's a nightmare scenario for Democrats — their nominee Barack Obama winning the popular vote while Republican John McCain ekes out an Electoral College victory. Sure, McCain trails in every recent national poll. Sure, surveys show that Obama leads in the race to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Sure, chances of Republicans retaining the White House are remote.
But some last-minute state polls show the GOP nominee closing the gap in key states — Republican turf of Virginia, Florida and Ohio among them, and Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania, too.
If the tightening polls are correct and undecided voters in those states break McCain's way — both big ifs — that could make for a repeat of the 2000 heartbreaker for Democrats that gave Republicans the White House.
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote by 537,179 votes. But George W. Bush won the state-by-state electoral balloting that determines the presidency, 271 to 266. The outcome wasn't clear until a 36-day recount awarded Florida, then worth 25 electoral votes, to Bush by just a 537-vote margin.
Before the 2000 election, political insiders had speculated just the opposite, that perhaps Bush would win the popular vote but lose the presidency to Gore.
One day before the 2008 election, Obama sat atop every national poll.
Enthusiastic by all measures, the Illinois senator's Democratic base was expected to run up the score in liberal bastions of party strongholds such as New York and California.
But the race appeared to be naturally tightening in top battlegrounds that each candidate likely will need to help them reach the magic number in the Electoral College, electoral-rich Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia among them.
To win, McCain must hold on to most states that went to Bush in 2004, or pick up one or more that went to Democrat John Kerry four years ago to make up for any losses. McCain's biggest target for a pickup is Pennsylvania, which offers 21 votes and where several public polls show Obama's lead shrinking from double digits to single digits.
McCain faces a steep hurdle. Obama leads or is tied in a dozen or so Bush-won states, and has the advantage in most Kerry-won states.
The Republican's campaign argues that as national surveys tighten, McCain's standing in key states also rises and that, combined with get-out-the-vote efforts, will lift McCain to victory in Bush states and, perhaps, others.
There's still another possibility, perhaps more improbable than the first — that McCain wins the popular vote while Obama clinches the White House.
True, Democrats have been fired up all year.
True, Republicans haven't been.
True, Obama and McCain have been faring about even among independent voters.
But there are signs that the GOP's conservative base has rallied in the final stretch and these voters usually turn out in droves, even if lukewarm on the candidate.
Then there's the question of a tie in the Electoral College. In that case, members of the next House would select the winner.
If Obama carries every state that Democrat John Kerry won in 2004, plus Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada, then he and McCain each would have 269 electoral votes. A tie also would result if McCain takes New Hampshire from the Democrats' column but loses Iowa, New Mexico and another state that Bush won, Colorado.
In an election year that's defied conventional wisdom time and again, anything can happen.
Liz Sidoti, AP Writer
Nov 03, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081103/
ap_on_el_pr/split_decision
It's a nightmare scenario for Democrats — their nominee Barack Obama winning the popular vote while Republican John McCain ekes out an Electoral College victory. Sure, McCain trails in every recent national poll. Sure, surveys show that Obama leads in the race to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Sure, chances of Republicans retaining the White House are remote.
But some last-minute state polls show the GOP nominee closing the gap in key states — Republican turf of Virginia, Florida and Ohio among them, and Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania, too.
If the tightening polls are correct and undecided voters in those states break McCain's way — both big ifs — that could make for a repeat of the 2000 heartbreaker for Democrats that gave Republicans the White House.
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote by 537,179 votes. But George W. Bush won the state-by-state electoral balloting that determines the presidency, 271 to 266. The outcome wasn't clear until a 36-day recount awarded Florida, then worth 25 electoral votes, to Bush by just a 537-vote margin.
Before the 2000 election, political insiders had speculated just the opposite, that perhaps Bush would win the popular vote but lose the presidency to Gore.
One day before the 2008 election, Obama sat atop every national poll.
Enthusiastic by all measures, the Illinois senator's Democratic base was expected to run up the score in liberal bastions of party strongholds such as New York and California.
But the race appeared to be naturally tightening in top battlegrounds that each candidate likely will need to help them reach the magic number in the Electoral College, electoral-rich Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia among them.
To win, McCain must hold on to most states that went to Bush in 2004, or pick up one or more that went to Democrat John Kerry four years ago to make up for any losses. McCain's biggest target for a pickup is Pennsylvania, which offers 21 votes and where several public polls show Obama's lead shrinking from double digits to single digits.
McCain faces a steep hurdle. Obama leads or is tied in a dozen or so Bush-won states, and has the advantage in most Kerry-won states.
The Republican's campaign argues that as national surveys tighten, McCain's standing in key states also rises and that, combined with get-out-the-vote efforts, will lift McCain to victory in Bush states and, perhaps, others.
There's still another possibility, perhaps more improbable than the first — that McCain wins the popular vote while Obama clinches the White House.
True, Democrats have been fired up all year.
True, Republicans haven't been.
True, Obama and McCain have been faring about even among independent voters.
But there are signs that the GOP's conservative base has rallied in the final stretch and these voters usually turn out in droves, even if lukewarm on the candidate.
Then there's the question of a tie in the Electoral College. In that case, members of the next House would select the winner.
If Obama carries every state that Democrat John Kerry won in 2004, plus Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada, then he and McCain each would have 269 electoral votes. A tie also would result if McCain takes New Hampshire from the Democrats' column but loses Iowa, New Mexico and another state that Bush won, Colorado.
In an election year that's defied conventional wisdom time and again, anything can happen.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Socialism We Can Believe In
Socialism We Can Believe In
Ben Johnson
Oct 29, 2008
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/
Read.aspx?GUID=80B64E8F-3866-430D-842A-E8986E27E927
Now that a 2001 public radio interview has surfaced to confirm The One has plotted to redistribute middle class wealth since the beginning of his political career, the media are in overdrive to save their savior. In a burst of “news” stories culled directly from the talking points of the George Soros-funded Media Matters, a string of reporters have accused the McCain/Palin campaign of misrepresenting Obama’s statements and ideology. In the process, these impartial journalists and analysts for the nation’s most prestigious media outlets have obfuscated more than McCain could manage in his most imaginative “rhetorical flourish.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded in identical fashion to other irrefutable scandals, such as his candidate’s longtime association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright: he channeled the Wizard of Oz. “This is a fake news controversy,” he said, “drummed up by the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report, and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months.” After shooting the messengers, the campaign, and its allies at Media Matters, claimed Obama had merely been offering an intellectual assessment of civil rights strategy – and in no way advocating (perish the thought!) the Supreme Court redistribute wealth. In his only remark addressing the content of the tape, Burton asserted, “In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.” [Bill Burton later got into an on-air tiff with Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, ironically charging her network with having “an agenda.”]
Soon, his words found their way into the mouths of multiple unbiased, independent journalists.
The Washington Post awarded the McCain campaign “two Pinocchios” for lying about the tape. “Obama says pretty much the opposite of what the McCain camp says he said,” the Post contended. The paper concluded, “The McCain camp is wrong to suggest that the Illinois senator advocated an [sic.] ‘wealth redistribution’ role for the Supreme Court.”
Obama made his now-infamous comments on “Odyssey,” a program hosted on the Chicago NPR station WBEZ-FM. Chicago Public Radio quickly rolled into full protection mode, with CPR’s Ben Calhoun claiming someone on YouTube “posted excerpts of the interview, edited to misrepresent Obama's statements…Obama’s position is distinctly misrepresented.” He adds, “ironically, he says the Supreme Court was a failure in cases that it took on a role of redistributing resources.”
Others went further in defending the pure common sense of Obama’s call for “economic justice.” Andrew Sullivan blogged, “it seems to me that this statement is actually a conservative one about the limits of judicial activism. Is this really all McCain has left?”
Yet no one could equal NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who said, with a straight face, that Obama took “a strict constructionist view.” Mitchell added, “he was saying the courts were not in that business and shouldn’t be in that business.”
The world’s largest news agency joined the fray. The Associated Press charged, “Republican John McCain is misreading seven-year-old comments by rival Barack Obama.” The story implies his comments dealt only with civil rights strategy, not the court. It added, “Obama did not define redistributive change in the interview, but he said one example of such change involves education, ‘how do we get more money into the schools and how do we actually create equal schools and equal educational opportunity.’” Thus, “redistribution” simply means equal schooling; who could be against that?
In all these cases, one is left with the impression his is merely a meandering historical argument of refined legal theory, using highly specified language that does not mean what it sounds like. Normal people like Joe the Plumber cannot possibly comprehend it. However, all these media reports distort the facts and leave a false impression that covers up the explosive revelation contained in his own words: Barack Obama believes the Constitution embodies a “fundamental flaw” in the fabric of America “that continues to this day,” has pined for “economic justice” for at least a decade, seeks political power to implement “wealth redistribution” with the aid of Congress, implies the Supreme Court should “break free” from the “constraints” of the Founders, believes public financing of abortion is an “important” aspect of the struggle, and has promised an “activist” Executive Branch to enforce his socialistic vision.
Yet the view that slavery lingers in 21st century America is perhaps the most contemptuous thing one can say about a country that lost hundreds of thousands of lives fighting a war to end slavery, endured massive social upheaval to bury Jim Crow, transferred untold trillions of dollars of wealth so that we would “wipe away the scars of centuries,” then welcomed the son of a Kenyan Muslim reared in a foreign land and are presently entertaining a national debate about elevating him to the most powerful office in the world.
It is, however, precisely what is to be expected from an individual reared by an “unreconstructed liberal” mother of the ‘60s era, an individual who consciously sought out Marxist professors – both as college instructors and as sponsors for his career in Chicago politics.
Far from an insignificant and highly theoretical bout of legal navel-gazing, this 2001 interview provides a clear glimpse into the ideology Obama wishes to implement. For this reason, the transcripts must be assailed – with those news outlets that report them.
After all, he does not have the luxury of saying he made these comments when he was naïve and inexperienced, because he is still naïve and inexperienced. Further, reparations based on race, sex, class, or sexual orientation still lie at the heart of his judicial philosophy. His only option is to deny the words on the page. His fan base in the media has gotten ahead of him on the matter. Will he be successful in his effort to deny his own views and thereby get an opportunity to implement them?
Next Tuesday, we may find out.
Ben Johnson
Oct 29, 2008
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/
Read.aspx?GUID=80B64E8F-3866-430D-842A-E8986E27E927
Now that a 2001 public radio interview has surfaced to confirm The One has plotted to redistribute middle class wealth since the beginning of his political career, the media are in overdrive to save their savior. In a burst of “news” stories culled directly from the talking points of the George Soros-funded Media Matters, a string of reporters have accused the McCain/Palin campaign of misrepresenting Obama’s statements and ideology. In the process, these impartial journalists and analysts for the nation’s most prestigious media outlets have obfuscated more than McCain could manage in his most imaginative “rhetorical flourish.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded in identical fashion to other irrefutable scandals, such as his candidate’s longtime association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright: he channeled the Wizard of Oz. “This is a fake news controversy,” he said, “drummed up by the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report, and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months.” After shooting the messengers, the campaign, and its allies at Media Matters, claimed Obama had merely been offering an intellectual assessment of civil rights strategy – and in no way advocating (perish the thought!) the Supreme Court redistribute wealth. In his only remark addressing the content of the tape, Burton asserted, “In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.” [Bill Burton later got into an on-air tiff with Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, ironically charging her network with having “an agenda.”]
Soon, his words found their way into the mouths of multiple unbiased, independent journalists.
The Washington Post awarded the McCain campaign “two Pinocchios” for lying about the tape. “Obama says pretty much the opposite of what the McCain camp says he said,” the Post contended. The paper concluded, “The McCain camp is wrong to suggest that the Illinois senator advocated an [sic.] ‘wealth redistribution’ role for the Supreme Court.”
Obama made his now-infamous comments on “Odyssey,” a program hosted on the Chicago NPR station WBEZ-FM. Chicago Public Radio quickly rolled into full protection mode, with CPR’s Ben Calhoun claiming someone on YouTube “posted excerpts of the interview, edited to misrepresent Obama's statements…Obama’s position is distinctly misrepresented.” He adds, “ironically, he says the Supreme Court was a failure in cases that it took on a role of redistributing resources.”
Others went further in defending the pure common sense of Obama’s call for “economic justice.” Andrew Sullivan blogged, “it seems to me that this statement is actually a conservative one about the limits of judicial activism. Is this really all McCain has left?”
Yet no one could equal NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who said, with a straight face, that Obama took “a strict constructionist view.” Mitchell added, “he was saying the courts were not in that business and shouldn’t be in that business.”
The world’s largest news agency joined the fray. The Associated Press charged, “Republican John McCain is misreading seven-year-old comments by rival Barack Obama.” The story implies his comments dealt only with civil rights strategy, not the court. It added, “Obama did not define redistributive change in the interview, but he said one example of such change involves education, ‘how do we get more money into the schools and how do we actually create equal schools and equal educational opportunity.’” Thus, “redistribution” simply means equal schooling; who could be against that?
In all these cases, one is left with the impression his is merely a meandering historical argument of refined legal theory, using highly specified language that does not mean what it sounds like. Normal people like Joe the Plumber cannot possibly comprehend it. However, all these media reports distort the facts and leave a false impression that covers up the explosive revelation contained in his own words: Barack Obama believes the Constitution embodies a “fundamental flaw” in the fabric of America “that continues to this day,” has pined for “economic justice” for at least a decade, seeks political power to implement “wealth redistribution” with the aid of Congress, implies the Supreme Court should “break free” from the “constraints” of the Founders, believes public financing of abortion is an “important” aspect of the struggle, and has promised an “activist” Executive Branch to enforce his socialistic vision.
Yet the view that slavery lingers in 21st century America is perhaps the most contemptuous thing one can say about a country that lost hundreds of thousands of lives fighting a war to end slavery, endured massive social upheaval to bury Jim Crow, transferred untold trillions of dollars of wealth so that we would “wipe away the scars of centuries,” then welcomed the son of a Kenyan Muslim reared in a foreign land and are presently entertaining a national debate about elevating him to the most powerful office in the world.
It is, however, precisely what is to be expected from an individual reared by an “unreconstructed liberal” mother of the ‘60s era, an individual who consciously sought out Marxist professors – both as college instructors and as sponsors for his career in Chicago politics.
Far from an insignificant and highly theoretical bout of legal navel-gazing, this 2001 interview provides a clear glimpse into the ideology Obama wishes to implement. For this reason, the transcripts must be assailed – with those news outlets that report them.
After all, he does not have the luxury of saying he made these comments when he was naïve and inexperienced, because he is still naïve and inexperienced. Further, reparations based on race, sex, class, or sexual orientation still lie at the heart of his judicial philosophy. His only option is to deny the words on the page. His fan base in the media has gotten ahead of him on the matter. Will he be successful in his effort to deny his own views and thereby get an opportunity to implement them?
Next Tuesday, we may find out.
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