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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Which Voting Block Matters More To The Democrats?

From the June 6, 2012 Quad City Times:
DES MOINES — A prominent leader in the Iowa/Nebraska branch of the NAACP — the country’s oldest civil rights group — announced today that he is resigning as branch president and a national board member in the wake of the national organization’s decision to endorse marriage between people of the same gender.
It's a funny thing, but blacks are generally much more socially conservative than whites, with very solid majorities of black Californians voting for Proposition 8 several years ago.  Obama has been getting a lot of flack from black church leaders about his endorsement of same-sex marriage.  I suspect that quite a number of blacks who aren't so prominent are having the same reason as this guy.  I doubt that it will cause lots of blacks to vote Republican--but I could sure see a lot decide not to vote at all this time around, or not vote for president at all.

Let's see: blacks are about 11% of the American population, and probably 12-13% of the voters (because they are overwhelmingly U.S. citizens, unlike some other segments that are heavily immigrant).  In 2008, somewhere between 95% and 99% of American blacks voted for Obama.

By comparison, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersexed, and all the other oddball categories that now make up that group are at best 3-4% of the American population.  About 1/3 of that population still votes Republican, because there are issues that matter more to them than same-sex marriage.

So Obama is going to irritate a big chunk of the 12-13% of voters who are guaranteed Democrat votes in order to mobilize voting and campaign contributions from about 2-3% of the American public.  This seems like a rather poor trade-off.

4 comments:

  1. "So Obama is going to irritate a big chunk of the 12-13% of voters who are guaranteed Democrat votes in order to mobilize voting and campaign contributions from about 2-3% of the American public. This seems like a rather poor trade-off."

    Not really. He's going to get the 12-13% anyway, and now he'll also get a good chunk of the 2-3%. It's been said before -- Democrats take the black vote for granted.

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  2. But surely it will make all of his celebrity pals happy!

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  3. "A prominent leader in the Iowa/Nebraska branch of the NAACP — the country’s oldest civil rights group —.....".

    The NRA was established 39 years before the NAACP was. I guess that the NRA doesn't count as a "civil rights" group.

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  4. It's not about the votes, it's about the campaign contributions.

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