Month: November 2012

Demography, destiny, elections, education

by

by David Safier

George Will has a column today whose first paragraph ends,

And now the Republican Party, like today's transfer-payment state, is
endangered by tardiness in recognizing that demography is destiny. [boldface added]

"Demography" is the pundit's vocabulary word of the day. Everyone's talking about the shrinking white vote, more specifically the shrinking white male vote, even more specifically the shrinking old white male vote. There are too many of those "others" — ethnic minorities, women and young people — for the Grand Old Party not to become the Grand Extinct Party if it doesn't change its ways.

For an education geek like me who has followed the tragicomic stylings of the Goldwater Institute for years, the combination of "demography" and "destiny" has a certain resonance. G.I.'s former education guy, Matthew Ladner, who is now helping Jeb Bush push his conservative education reform/educational choice agenda forward, wrote a book — really a longish pamphlet — in 2008 called "Demography is not Destiny" with a forward by his current boss, Jeb Bush. The book is a collection of charts and graphs combined with verbal smoke and mirrors trumpeting the "Florida Education Miracle." The idea is, poor and minority children can succeed if only the schools figure out how to do it right, and Florida has figured it out. The pamphlet/book was an early example of the conservative meme that schools are failing to do their job because they're not turning children who live in poverty with undereducated parents, many of whom also have the burden of being discriminated against because of their color, into high achieving readers, writers and mathematicians. Florida is doing it, the story goes, so your schools can too.

The problem is, Florida's educational miracle is not now, nor has it ever been that miraculous. At best, it's shown some promise, but even that doesn't stand up well under careful scrutiny.

This year, a paper was published by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform titled, "Is Demography Still Destiny?" which looks at student achievement in New York City. The answer, unfortunately, is Yes, more often than not, demography is destiny.

Beautify Arizona: take down your campaign signs

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Candidates have fifteen (15) days after election day to remove their campaign signs. A homeowner's association may prohibit the display of campaign signs later than seven (7) days after election day. Signs on private property must be removed within ten (10) days after election day. (See for example, Penalties for violating political election sign … Read more

Democrats make major gains in state houses on election day

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In Arizona, Democrats broke the GOP super-majority in the Arizona legislature, picking up four senate seats and four house seats (pending final vote tallies). This is well within the mean for a "correction" following GOP overreach. It's a beginning we can build upon. Elsewhere around the country, Democrats had a good night. … Read more

Will Puerto Rico become the 51st state?

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: This story received no attention in election coverage on Tuesday night. Ryan Cooper writes at the Political Animal blog, Time for Puerto Rico to Become the 51st State: In a little-noticed vote last night, after many failed attempts, Puerto Rico voted to officially join the United States as a full state: The … Read more

Latino vote critical to President Obama’s victory

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

No matter how you look at exit poll data for the 2012 election, there is no question that Latinos helped to decisively determine its outcome. Kathleen Geier writes at the Political Animal blog, The growing power of the Latino vote:

Where the Latino vote is concerned, Barack Obama crushed Mitt Romney.
CNN’s exit poll shows Obama winning 71% of that vote, and the polling
organization Latino Decisions measured even bigger gains for Obama,
showing that Obama beat Romney by a whopping 75% to 23% among Latinos.
In the electoral college, the Latino vote was crucial to Obama,
particularly in the battleground states of Colorado and Nevada, which Obama won, and Florida (which, as of this writing, is undecided).

These results are part of a long, and from the Republican point of
view, worrisome trend. According to official exit polls, Republican
presidential candidates won 44% of the Latino vote in 2004, 31% in 2008, and 27% in 2012. Moreover, Latinos are continuing to grow as a share of the electorate: they were 8% of voters in 2004, 9% in 2008, and 10% in 2012.

* * *

It’s not merely that the G.O.P. has become the anti-immigrant party;
the G.O.P.’s economic message does not appeal to Latinos either. Polls
of Latino voters show that the economy is their top concern, with immigration a distant second. Latinos tend to find Democratic policies far more appealing; by wide margins, they like Obamacare and disagree with a Republican-style, slash-spending-only approach to the deficit.

Beyond that, there is good reason to believe that Latino voters’
alienation from the G.O.P. goes deeper than their dislike of the
G.O.P.’s positions on immigration and the economy. Republican policies
such as Arizona’s infamous show-me-your-papers law and the ban, also courtesy of Arizona, on Mexican-American studies classes have a very obvious, and very nasty, racist intent and impact.

In addition, the racist treatment
Republicans meted out to historic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
will not soon be forgotten by Latinos. Latinos have also seen the
nonstop parade of racism
Republicans have directed against Barack Obama over the past four
years, and surely they know that the white Republicans who judge Obama
by his skin color are likely to feel similarly about Latinos. Republican
racism may be a key reason why Latinos report they were quite
enthusiastic about voting this time around, even more so than in 2008.

Finally, on top of the nastily racist policies and actions of the
Republicans, there’s also the fact that the G.O.P. doesn’t even bother
trying to court the Latino vote any more.

* * *

Latinos, like most humans, know when they’re not wanted. And since the
Republicans don’t show any signs — yet — of wanting to invite anyone
except white people, and preferably white people who older, male,
married, and Christian at that, to their Grand Old Party, Latinos are
likely to continue to flock to the Democrats en masse. For as long as
that continues to happen, the Republicans will need all the luck they
can get if they wish to become America’s majority party.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports, A Record Latino Turnout, Solidly Backing Obama:

Defying predictions that their participation would be lackluster, Latinos turned out in record numbers on Tuesday and voted for President Obama
by broad margins, tipping the balance in at least three swing states
and securing their position as an organized force in American politics
with the power to move national elections.