On Fri, 4 Jul 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> The supposed point is that this higher than normal percentage support in the
>> primary will be the harbinger, if properly worked, to a substantially larger
>> black turnout in the main election (and thus the possibility of winning a
>> couple of southern states where blacks make up a a quarter or a third of the
>> electorate).
>
> But remember that black (and youth) turnout was up no more than other
> demographic groups'.
Yes that's true. But that's a point about primary turnout. IIUC, black participation normally declines drastically between the primary and the presidential election in the deep south because it's so pointless and depressing. And the point of this line of argument is that if it departed from the historical pattern by simply maintaining its primary percentage participation levels into the general election (because blacks were excited and persuaded themselves to hope that this might for once not be pointless and could actually lead to winning) that would mean a big boost that would change the calculus. (Again, I'm not endorsing this line, just describing it. I'll be as stunned as anyone else in the country if the Dems win a Deep South state.)
> Dems in general are more fired up.
Well of course, but I don't think any of us are banking on the same huge disparity on turnout in the general election that we had in the two sets of primaries. If we got that, the Dems would win in such a blowout that all these discussions of fine parsing would be reduced to history's trivia footnotes.
Hmm. Now that I think about it, I guess that will be true no matter what happens. It's funny how hard it is to understand or even recall the passions that animated any primary in later years. Boy are they the fast food binge of collective emotions.
Michael