Latest unofficial tallies on the SOS tracker have Ron Barber in the lead by about 500 votes. The race is far from being determined, but its psychologically easier to be slightly ahead in a dead heat than slightly behind. So, take heart and fear not CD 2 denizens, McSally is no longer in the lead, … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Sen. John Edwards (D-SC) got a lot of mileage out of his "Two Americas" stump speech in 2004. I will give these "two Americas" a different context.
There is a lot of talk today from pundits about a Red America and a Blue America, each of whom possesses a different socio-economic political ideology. Some of these pundits are defining this as a white America versus a minority America. And some of these pundits are defining this as the "47 percent" takers versus the "one percent" makers. This of course fits their ideological predisposition and focuses on thin slices of the far more complex socio-economic political "pie."
There has been some very good research done in recent years about what really divides America, and it is not what you might imagine. It is an "urban versus rural divide" (do a Google search for this term).
More Americans lived in urban areas than in rural areas for the first time in the 1920 Census. That trend has only intensified. This population shift represented more than a demographic change.
Economic, social, and political changes accompanied Americans' migration
to the cities.
Take a look at this map of the popular vote for the 2012 election.
See those dark red counties in the Great Plains and the Mountain West? This is what I like to call the "big empty" — vast tracts of sparsely populated areas where few people live. If a handful of farmers or rachers in the local co-op get together and vote Republican, they paint their county a dark red.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Dylan Matthews at Ezra Klein's Wonkblog posts Which pollsters to trust, in one chart: One thing we’ve learned this election is that averaging polling data gets you pretty close to an accurate prediction. But particular polls are often badly off. According to Fordham’s Costas Panagopoulos, some of the least accurate polls came … Read more
Posted by Bob Lord I had countless conversations with my Republican friends in which they told me, with real confidence, that Romney was going to win the election. Once in a while, I'd say something like "are you relying solely on Fox for your information?" They always explain that they have multiple sources of information, but … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Participating in the civic duty of voting should not be a test of physical endurance. This is not a reality TV show of "Survivor." The long waits in line to vote, exceeding eight hours in some locations around the country, is unacceptable in the most technologically advanced country on Earth.
Now I realize that this was not a bug but a feature in several states, e.g., Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Forida, where hyper-partisan secretaries of state sought to make voting more difficult and a challenge to certain voters — college students, the poor, minorities, and the elderly — because they tend to vote Democratic.
But far more frequently it is because of poor logistical management, e.g., not enough polling locations, not enough voting booths, not enough ballots, not enough poll workers, old equipment that breaks down, etc. Again, I realize that this is not a bug but a feature in several states. This is a classic form of voter suppression. See this Hart Research study sponsored by the AFL-CIO which found that:
16 percent of Obama voters waited more than 30 minutes to vote, versus
only 9 percent of Romney voters. Strikingly, 24 percent of Latino
voters, and 22 percent of African Americans, waited longer than 30
minutes, while only 9 percent of whites did.
President Obama mentioned the long lines to vote in his victory speech Tuesday night and said "By the way, we we have to fix that" to loud applause.
In a report at the Washington Post today Obama faces a host of tough issues as second term begins is buried this passage:
[Obama] also made a glancing reference to another issue that many Democrats,
and Obama himself, have elevated recently to a possible priority in a
second term: political reform.
A package of legislation could include bills to make voting easier
across the country and a constitutional amendment to invalidate the
Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed
corporations, labor unions and other interest groups to spend unlimited
amounts of money on behalf of candidates.
Asked two months before Election Day what
he would do about “the corrupting influence” of money in politics,
Obama said he would “seriously consider” such a push, noting that “even
if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the
super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”
Some state efforts to make it more difficult for people to vote and
the long lines Tuesday outside some polling stations — many of them in
urban neighborhoods where Obama was expected to do well — have drawn
calls over the campaign and in its immediate aftermath for an overhaul
of U.S. election laws.