Bad Political Analysis
There is no point to this post other than to point out how bad the so called political punditry can be. For years, Amy Sullivan, has been one of the worst imo. And that probably explains why she is a Time columnist now. And she continues to be bad. Look at this column. It may have a point to it but the obtuseness of the analysis just irks me. Sullivan writes:
One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes. . . .[W]omen themselves cost her the nod. The reasons more women haven't voted for Clinton tell us something about the evolution of feminism and what the future may hold for female politicians.
What is wrong with this picture? Hint: some African Americans are women. Psst, Amy, if African American women were, say 25% of the female vote in the primaries and Obama won 90% of them, then it becomes hard to win 60% of the TOTAL women's vote. Sheesh. More . . .
Let me give you an example. In North Carolina, white women voted for Hillary by 65-33. African American women voted for Obama by 90-7. So how do you think the total women's vote turned out? OBAMA won the women's vote by 55-43.
So how would YOU explain Clinton's failure to capture a larger share of the women's vote. A sensible person would think - hmmm, African American women voted for Obama by 9-1. That seems to explain it. Not for Sullivan:
Clinton's run has exposed a divide between what could be termed optimist and pessimist feminists. It's a split between those who see Clinton's candidacy as groundbreaking--as the first of many serious runs by strong women--and those who count backward to Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and conclude that this kind of opportunity comes along only once in a generation. For this latter group, Clinton's candidacy took on a pressing urgency: If not now, when? If not her, who?
Um, unless Sullivan means African American women are optimist feminists, Sullivan has not proven her case. And I actually think there may data that would make Sullivan's smaller point - that SOME demographics of white women were not as committed to Clinton - white women 18-29, upper income white women, higher educated white women. But we can not know how those number split.
Unfortunately, I do not have exit polls that provide data for white women under 30 that divides them by income, education or other factors. So this is speculation on my part. And I would NEVER have written what Sullivan wrote without finding out more.
My point is this is typical political punditry - ill informed, ill researched and ignoring the obvious. In this case, Sullivan ignores a central fact critical to whatever percentage of the women's vote Clinton and Obama got - the fact that African American women went overwhelmingly for Obama - in order to write the narrative she wanted to write - that there is a deep generational split among women. There may be. Personally I doubt it is that deep. But I DO know there was a deep split among white women and African American women - the deepest split you could find in ANY demographic.
The title of Sullivan's piece is "Why Didn't More Women Vote For Hillary?" The BEST answer to that question is because a large segment was African American.
But that is not the column Amy Sullivan wanted to write or that Time wanted to publish, so she played dumb, or is dumb, with the facts. That is something I can not stand about political pundits. They write their narratives and then make up the facts after. And Sullivan ALWAYS does that. Always. She is just awful.
Speaking for me only
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