[lbo-talk] fivethirtyeight on Prop 8--- generational not racial

[SA]

Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html
>
> [....]
>
> Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach 
> to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 
> 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls 
> suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were 
> driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- 
> voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted 
> for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.
>
> Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same 
> rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have 
> failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on 
> balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate 
> had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a 
> wider margin.
>
> Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black 
> voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not 
> strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) 
> voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not 
> available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their 
> votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.
>
> At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter 
> than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 
> would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational 
> splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, 
> although the data on this is sketchy.
>
> The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that -- and there's 
> no polite way to put this -- the older voters aren't going to be 
> around for all that much longer, and they'll gradually be cycled out 
> and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. 
> Everyone knew going in that Prop 8 was going to be a photo finish -- 
> California might be just progressive enough and 2008 might be just 
> soon enough for the voters to affirm marriage equity. Or, it might 
> fall just short, which is what happened. But two or four or six or 
> eight years from now, it will get across the finish line.
> ___________________________________

It's nice to know that younger voters supported Prop 8 less than older 
ones - though it's not surprising - but this blog post makes no sense. 
Just because there was a young-old gap doesn't mean there wasn't a 
black-white-(latino) gap. Obviously it was generational, but it was also 
racial.

SA