Anyone else been clicking around on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/">CNN's Election website</a> for the past two days? Their level of detail is so freaking cool and their <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/epolls/">exit poll</a> had a lot of neat Q&A.

Was that one of the exit polls that had Kerry winning by a landslide before the polls ever closed? :)

No, it's more of opinions, statistics more like that. Only 13k people, but still a neat breakdown - stuff like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html">Race/Military Service/Issues</a>, etc. This all assumes no one lied on their exit poll, of course, which is totally suspect, but still...

Yea I've been playing with it off and on since last night. I love cnn's website. Always something cool to learn.

the exit polls are incredible. SO much to be learned from them. great site.

A couple highlights. First, the funny stuff:
Apparently, 1% of the country strongly disapproves of Bush but voted for him anyway. Conversely, 2-3% strongly approve of Bush but voted for Kerry. Moral: people are retarded.

Next, the amazing statistic for the day:
88% of black voters voted for Kerry. Here we have a president with more black cabinet members than ever before in history, and the black community unites against him. WTF? Dem salemanship at its finest here....

Perhaps the black community realized that Condoleeza Rice didn't stand for anything they stood for as a community.

Perhaps they also realized that Powell didn't see eye to eye with Bush on quite a few things.

Myself, if the Republican's had run Powell, I'd have seriously considered voting Republican.

Powell will never run for president because he refuses to put his family through that.

That being said, yes, if Powell (or McCain) had run for president, I too would have voted republican.

As an aside:

Perhaps they also realized that Powell didn't see eye to eye with Bush on quite a few things.

Powell STRONGLY disagreed with going into Iraq. The Pentagon STRONGLY disagreed with going into Iraq. Powell doesn't seem to have a lot of sway in Bush's military decision making process. Neither does the pentagon. Apparently Bush feels he knows better than the people who have done it for a living, and been through various schools to learn all about what wars are winnable and which ones will be quagmires.

88% of black voters voted for Kerry. Here we have a president with more black cabinet members than ever before in history, and the black community unites against him. WTF? Dem salemanship at its finest here....

It might be some excellent form of salesmanship such as offering black voters policies that improve their lives rather than just offering them figureheads.

The black community's memory isn't so foggy to realize that it wasn't all that many years ago that mainly republicans stood against school integration and civil rights. You all might be too young to recall that, but plenty of the country does remember that. Even now the hold out racists, guys like Metzger and that Duke guy in the south (former KKK guy now a politician) are pretty much republican. Generally democrats, sometimes excepting southern democrats but they've all become republicans now, were the ones that pushed for civil rights.

So no, it's absolutely no surprise that black americans don't much care for republicans.

I'd be willing to bed Powell doesn't last another 4 years. Rumsfeld and Cheney have been at war with him.

88% of black voters voted for Kerry. Here we have a president with more black cabinet members than ever before in history, and the black community unites against him. WTF? Dem salemanship at its finest here....


You do realize the not-so-veiled insult to blacks in this statement, don't you?

If you don't, that's even worse....

The black community's memory isn't so foggy to realize that it wasn't all that many years ago that mainly republicans stood against school integration and civil rights. You all might be too young to recall that, but plenty of the country does remember that. Even now the hold out racists, guys like Metzger and that Duke guy in the south (former KKK guy now a politician) are pretty much republican. Generally democrats, sometimes excepting southern democrats but they've all become republicans now, were the ones that pushed for civil rights.


Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in greater proportion than the democrats, with about 80% of republicans supporting the measures vs. 60-70% of democrats. It was senate minority leader Everett Dirksen (a republican) who delivered the votes necessary to end the democrat filibuster of the 1964 bill.

I lived through those times. I remember George Wallace, I remember Martin Luther King Jr., and I remember the reactions of people at that time. I grew up in the deep south, and I assure you it wasn't the democrats who were pushing for equal rights.

88% of black voters voted for Kerry. Here we have a president with more black cabinet members than ever before in history, and the black community unites against him. WTF? Dem salemanship at its finest here....


You do realize the not-so-veiled insult to blacks in this statement, don't you?

If you don't, that's even worse....

I have to tell you, I don't see it. Then again I'm not a racial paranoid so I often don't see insults where others do.

Is it perhaps that he shortened Democratic and misspelled salesmanship?

The insult is the the suggestion that the black vote could be purchased by some "puppet" blacks in the cabinet...rather than being intelligent enough to view the issues on their own merits.

I lived through those times. I remember George Wallace, I remember Martin Luther King Jr., and I remember the reactions of people at that time. I grew up in the deep south, and I assure you it wasn't the democrats who were pushing for equal rights.

That's why I exempted the former Southern democrats, who are now southern republicans, from that statement. The republican party is totally in bed with very conservative religious sects that promote intolerance. In fact, most of the party platform is being written my those extremists.

In the non-southern states, its always been the republican party that has harbored the most unwillingness to adopt civil rights for everyone, in exactly the way the gay marriage thing is unfolding. That was definitely the case in CA where Ronald Regan did his best as govenor to keeps schools and neighborhoods segregated.

That's why I exempted the former Southern democrats, who are now southern republicans, from that statement.

Yes, I've heard this before: the southern democrats were so outraged by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that they defected en masse to the republican party.

This never really made a lot of sense to me. Why would disaffected democrats embrace a party that voted for the very bill that offended them so, and in greater percentages than their own party? So I did a little digging, looking for evidence of this great migration.

First off, there are the governors of the time. These were often the people working vigorously either for or against equal rights. The states that I'm conisdering as "southern" are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. These are all of the uncontested Confederate states, except Florida. I have exclude Florida because it has always been culturally different from the rest of Dixie.

The governors of these states in 1964 were, in order, George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Carl Sanders, John McKeith, Paul Johnson, Terry Sanford, Donald Russell, Frank Clement, John Connally, and Albertis Harrison. All of these were democrats.

Of these, George Wallace, after his term as governor, made a bid for president as an independent candidate, and then returned to the democratic party to run for governor again (which he won). John McKeith, after his term as governor, made a bid as an independent candidate for the US Senate. John Connally switched to the republican party.

As nearly as I can tell, all of the others remained committed democrats.

So as far as governors go, only John Connally switched from democrat to republican. In terms of segregation, Connally as governor in 1964 ordered an end to discrimination based on race in admissions to state universities, so he would not seem to qualify as one of the racist democrats who supposedly fled to the republican party.

The numbers for senators is similar. I did not chase down every southern senator in office in 1964, but a look at the senate archives online shows that the only senator to change party while in office between 1964 and 1994 was Strom Thurmond, who was an avowed segregationist. Since there were twenty senators from the states I listed, this one would hardly seem to indicate a mass switch to the republican party.

I have not chased down the histories of the members of the House of Representatives of the time. Time permitting, I will, but I make no promises on when this may be.

So far, everything that I've found has argued against a large switch of southern democrats to the republican party. Perhaps something different will emerge with the house members. So now I must ask, just what southern democrats-turned-republicans are you thinking of?

In the meantime, I suggest a much more mundane explanation for the traditional black support of the democratic party.

First, the major civil rights initiatives were passed under the democratic administration. Regardless of the actions of either party, the president (and his party) tends to get more credit than deserved when things go right, just as he (and his party) gets more blame than deserved when things go wrong. Since the key legislation was passed under the Johnson administration, it was viewed as a democratic party victory rather than a republican or bipartisan initiative.

Second, several subsequent legislative acts were opposed by people of good conscience on the grounds that they improperly extended the powers of the federal government. Since the civil rights bills were necessarily "big government" bills, any movement towards "small government" came to be perceived as anti-civil rights.

Third, and not least, many of the segregationist democrats in the south reformed. Jaded and cynical though I am, I think this was generally sincere, although one cannot totally discount some political motivation. Those who did not reform retired, died, or were voted out of office. However it happened, this led to a de facto purging of the racists from the democratic party.



In the non-southern states, its always been the republican party that has harbored the most unwillingness to adopt civil rights for everyone, in exactly the way the gay marriage thing is unfolding. That was definitely the case in CA where Ronald Regan did his best as govenor to keeps schools and neighborhoods segregated.

As noted previously, in the 1960s 80% of republicans in congress supported civil rights legislation. Perhaps you should reconsider the word "always."

Vestix
political junkie