Tea leaves

[isomeme]

I'm quite happy that Obama won the election.  But I'm a bit perplexed by observers trying to make this out as some great national political shift.  Every presidential election of the past decade has been won by a thin margin.  Is a 49/51 split turning into a 51/49 split really a "sea change"?  It doesn't seem that way to me

Comments

[christeos_pir]

By my math, he won with some 68% of the electoral vote. But it's less a "political shift" than "passing some milestones." For one, electing a person of color is a long way from where this country was even within your and my lifetimes. I would also argue that the way he won it, especially in rousing so many young people and new voters--when's the last time you heard of kids standing in line for eleven hours to vote?--and in raising so many millions of dollars not in backroom deals but in appealing to the common people to send their $25 and $50 donations, is another landmark, and one McCain himself alluded to in his concession speech.

It's also, if Obama can do what he says, a political shift in terms of ideology, one which is being hailed both domestically and abroad.

[isomeme]

A 2:1 ratio would be equivalent to 66.6...% of electoral votes, so I assert I was close enough for engineering work. :)

And yes, we did indeed hit a number of important milestones. I think I tend to downplay the racial issue because it is so confounding to me personally; why in the name of all that is holy should anything beyond the need for sunblock be determined by the relative melanin production rate of a person's skin?

Every time I am forced to acknowledge that seemingly adult and productive members of society do in fact consider this to be important, it makes me want to catch the next express starship off this planet.

[christeos_pir]

To belabor the obvious, it's a milestone precisely because the people who would disbar him on those grounds got their asses kicked two-to-one. (Which, btw, is a lot more than 51-49.)

[isomeme]

2:1 in the electoral college; 52:48 or so in the popular vote. Not what I'd call an ass kicking, though I'll definitely take any kind of victory.

[ommadawn]

I wrote this but hadn't posted ..

some math:

I think i saw something that said there was almost 65% of voter attendance.. if not a record, the highest since 1908. Still..

Then I think i saw something else that said that 52% of the popular vote went to Obama. That's not a landslide. But let's say it was 52% to 48% republican for simple math.

So the president was elected by 52% of the 65% of the people who showed. K, that means .65 x .52 which gives us .338. In other words, the president was selected by almost 34% of the people. And 29% of the people liked McCain.

Which means that there're some 63% who are neutral to hostile to the new president.

what i didnt realize in there was that the "didn't vote" group was at least as big as either group of voters.

[isomeme]

Reminds me of Ambrose Bierce's definition of "President" from The Devil's Dictionary:
PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater
To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
Behold in me a man of mark and note
Whom no elector e'er denied a vote! -
An undiscredited, unhooted gent
Who might, for all we know, be President
By acclamation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer -
I'm passing with a wide and open ear!
-Jonathan Fomry

[starwyse]

Apparent passage of Proposition 8? Really??

S~

[isomeme]

Yep...not a sure thing yet, but it would take a miraculous reversal of current trends among the uncounted ballots to defeat it.

[chimpstop]

Sad but true.

It will get thrown out as unconstitutional.

And I remember Obama's inclusive speech last night, where he mentioned various minorities, including gender minorities.

I don't care if we don't get flying cars and vacations on the Moon by 2012...what I do hope is that Obama turns the tide of hate in this country that various parties have churned up again over the last quarter century. Creating a culture of strength thru diversity, redirecting all that energy that went into hate into actually manifesting the AmeriCAN dream.

[omegabaphomet]

I think your metaphor is apt, but perhaps the 51/49 split is the tiny changes in a system's inputs, since only 2% of voters end up effecting the system change, and the great national political shift is the huge change in the output since 100% of the voters are impacted by election results.

The 2% of the system (51%-49%) causing "sea level change" for 100% of the system means that a tiny fraction ends up wielding quite a dramatic "gain" in the signal: a 5000% amplification. This is ripe indeed for a chaotic interpretation.

[baal_kriah]

It's similar to Reagan's first victory. He only got 50.7% of the vote, but his electoral margin was huge. In 84 it was truly a landslide, he got almost 59% of the votes. I'm hoping for something similar in Obama's reelection campaign :-)