Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Why The Papers Are Getting The Race Polls Wrong

So many race polls, so little insight.

Today’s sober NY Times poll on the presidential election and race relations comes to the very same conclusions that the wacky Washington Post poll—which turned into a game of “White People: So You Think You’re Not Racist?”—found last month: Blacks really love Obama and whites kinda like McCain.

Good work, fellas!

The Obama campaign hit back hard this morning, saying basically, “Hey! A lot of whites other than his grandma actually like him. And Michelle, too.”

White liberals like Bill Scher back them up. Scher notes that although Obama trails McCain by 9 points, he is running much better among whites than John Kerry did in 2004, especially among working-class whites.

The Times headline—”Obama’s Run Isn’t Closing Divide On Race”—is only half-right. In fact, the race polls on the race show that he may be running well enough among whites to secure enough votes to win. Why is the press not getting this?

Partly because, again big surprise, it’s stuck in the past. Since the pivotal 1968 election, when Richard Nixon and George C. Wallace turned racial backlash into a Republican majority, the partisan divide has largely been a reflection of racial divide. Just as demagoguery on civil rights put African Americans in the blue column, demagoguery on immigration has put Latinos and Asian Americans there for decades to come.

In 2008, another demographic shift is on. Obama’s coalition could forge a new majority, one rooted in large part by racially progressive, not reactionary, politics. The MSM is still very late to the game here.

Instead they have conflated two huge stories in these polls. The first story is whether or not Obama is leading in the race for the presidency. Here the evidence points solidly to a new majority.

The second is what does the race for the presidency say about race? This is an aspirational story. News editors are making the same leap that many people of color are making. (Which is not, in my opinion, a bad decision, even from the business/publishing side.)

They are jumping to this question: Would the election of Barack Obama improve race relations?

In both polls, whites are loudly saying, “No”. Very few in the MSM have yet thought to ask, “Why?”

But there’s where your real story is.

posted by Jeff Chang @ 9:16 am | 3 Comments

3 Responses to “Why The Papers Are Getting The Race Polls Wrong”

Anonymous says:

July 16, 2008 at 2:39 pm

From this white female bluecollar senior citizen and a whole bunch more male and female in this same category, we are all for someone of integrity and the only one we see is Obama.

If the “dark side” of our two parties is not allowed to illegally steal this third election, I believe that if congress would support Obama as president, our nation could go a long way in healing a lot of things.

The rich and powerful people who were given so much more advantages by the last administrations have raped and plundered this world’s people of every color. This has caused more suffering, anger and poverty than ever before and THIS is what is causing problems with the poor of all races, including white.

If all the different factions of poor would stop fighting amongst themselves, with Obama’s leadership we might just have the chance to implement real justice and equality for this nation. While we bicker, the rich just keep taking a bigger and bigger share of everything, and keep us ALL down.
Brother OMi says:

July 19, 2008 at 5:27 am

one thing I dislike about polls is that we don’t know who they asked. Were the people polled from a particular part of the country? were they middle class? Working class?
there are so many factors involved.

as we learn in all elections, polls get it wrong anyway.

there are still a few months left before the election, anything can happen.
Anonymous says:

August 6, 2008 at 1:24 pm

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