McGentrix wrote:I like that you look it all up so we don't have to Nimh, but I see in the polls that the respondants were Republican, Democrat and Independents. I don't see moderates listed.
No. That's is where the data stops and you rely on common sense. :wink:
Moderate voters are located roughly in the middle of the spectrum, right? A little left of center even, because there are more self-described conservatives than self-described liberals, and moderates fill in the space in between. So if a liberal-ish notion or opinion is held by, say, 55% or 60% of all respondents, you can relatively safely assume that most moderates share it - otherwise you would never have gotten to over 50%.
Theoretically, of course, you can have a majority of 55% in favour of a statement that consists of both liberals and conservatives, while a majority of moderates disagrees with it. Like, some idea that enough hard conservatives and hard liberals agree with to make for a majority, while disagreeing pragmatic moderates end up as a minority. But I cant for the life of me think of a politically salient current question where this might be the case.
McGentrix wrote:nimh wrote:Those black voters have voted for white candidates numerous times before. And it's not like they'd vote for any black guy over a white man: see Sharpton, Al.
On the other hand, there seem to be a fair number of whites who will never vote for any black person.
I don't believe this to be a fair statement.
What percentages of each population are we talking about here? Similar I would suspect. Now, owing to the fact that blacks make up 10% of the population of the US, I think you are merely using these numbers to make an invalid point. A fair number? Pft.
I wasnt using any numbers in that post, so I'm not sure how I'm using them to make an invalid point.
I dont have any numbers on this count. Unlike with Au's point that race has been a boon for Obama in these primaries, which I can argue against by using the data that we have at hand about this very question, on this question I dont have numbers. On this one I have only common sense.
Au posited, with his rhetorical question, that "a black voting for Obama because of his race" is just as racist as "a white not voting for him because of his race. I think that's wrong. A white not voting for him
because of his race is expressing an unwillingness to vote for a black guy. Period. A black voting for Obama because of his race is hardly expressing an unwillingness to vote for whites. American blacks have voted for whites all their life, after all. If they're enthused enough at finally having the opportunity to vote for a black person to vote for him just because of his race, that's hardly the same as someone categorically refusing to vote for someone because he's black, is it?
Anyway, the excerpts I voted later from "The Myth Of The Black Racist Voter" express all that better than I can.
As for whether there is "a fair number" of whites who wont vote for a black candidate, yeah, I think so. All depends on what you call a fair number of course, but yeah. And this primary race has kinda confirmed my thoughts about this. It's true that I've been amazed at how large majorities of whites
have been willing to vote for him in this or that state. But then I look at how many white voters who voted for Hillary - Democratic primary voters! - who explicitly say that race was an important factor in their choice, and I get pretty convinced again that there's a fair number of people who just wouldnt vote for any black candidate.
(If you want to see the numbers of how large the percentages of
white voters, specifically, have been in recent primaries who said race was an important factor and how they broke down between Obama and Hillary, I posted a different table with those numbers over
at the Polls etc thread - second half of the post.)
Yeah, bring this nonsense up in November. 
