It’s amazing to note that everyone talked about how Mitt Romney destroyed the opposition in Nevada partially because of overwhelming Mormon-support, but that these same people forget to point out that Barack Obama wouldn’t even have come close in Nevada if it weren’t for overwhelming black support. 84% of African-Americans voted for him. Why is that deemed irrelevant, while the 94% of Mormons who voted for Romney is deemed relevant? Strange that.
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84%? Wow, that’s huge. Why wouldn’t this be all over the news? It certainly seems like a relevant statistic.
Are you suggesting we have a Biased media?!?!?! That would be shocking!
Tap, what would the bias be though? Whether you think the media is biased for or against him, it makes little sense. Such a statistic is relevant, and can be easily spun for or against him. If you’re against him you can accuse him of using the race card and therefore being not such a uniter. If you’re for him you can say that he’s getting increasing support.
Is Obama getting 84% of the African vote increasing support? I may be wrong, but I don’t think it is.
The bias is this: The media continue to portray Romney (leading the delegate count) as a lost cause who will soon have to drop out, so don’t waste your vote. They then try to marginalize a victory by suggesting what little(!) success he has had is only due to a minor segment of the population that was bound to vote for him no matter what and therefore it won’t likely continue - mormons are not a significant percent of the voting public. This victory doesn’t signify mainstream acceptance, so again, don’t bother wasting your vote.
This is more than a little misleading if you look at the total number of votes Romney has received from people who are not Mormons.
I don’t think your comparison works. To suggest that blacks only vote for Obama because he pulled the race card would be scorned, and anyone who made such a suggestion would be branded a racist for saying such a thing. It wouldn’t hurt him.
Perhaps a more pertinent question is the question Michael posed: Why is it relevent that so many mormons voted for Romney but not that so many blacks voted for Obama?
This is why the GOP is strangely silent on attacking Obama while they continue to go after Hillary.
Blacks have been surpassed as the largest miniority in America by Hispanics. Generally Blacks and Hispanics dont get along to well. Don’t believe me. Go hang out in Southern Ca. or Texas for a bit.
thirdly it seems that in Nevada the Blacks went overwhelmingly for Obama but that the Hispanics seem to break heavily for Hillary.
The conclusion. The GOP wants to face Obama with great glee because it will get the Hispanics to line up with the GOP if they can put McCain in the lead role while the GOP has essentially abandoned the Black vote in favor of currying favor with the largest miniorty now in the USA. The Hispanics.
The Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot if they let this anitwar progressive movement put Obama up as their candidacy while the Moderate, pro Hispanic candidate in McCain will trounce Obama.
I wondered why the GOP kept silent on Obama and his far left ways. Now I understand the GOP’s strategy. Play nice with each other and let the Dems beat their brains out and play whack a mole. Sometimes its a heavy cross to bear to be a democrat.
Uhmm, allow me to doubt that. The Republicans are in a hot contest to see who can seem tougher on immigration. Eventually they’ll be promising to personally toss all 11 million illegals out with their bare hands. This is going to seriously alienate Latinos. Any Republican candidate is going to have to work doubletime to make up for that, and do it very carefully, for fear of alienating white voters who want tough on immigration stances.
I can see some difference, though I don’t like identity politics and don’t admire the voters who align in blocs like that. But that said, I can see why blacks see themselves as a demographic group such that a politicians’ stance regarding race might matter. I don’t see the same relevance with a religious identity. Either way, the voters are the ones who decide if it’s relevant to them, but to me it makes a bit more sense for blacks to care about issues of race and to think that a black president might relate to their concerns more. Both groups might also just want to break through barriers of bigotry, to rejoice in the possibility that one of their own could be POTUS, too though, so in that sense there’s not as much distinction between blacks and mormons since both have bigotry to overcome.
Why is it [relevant] that so many [Mormons] voted for Romney but not that so many blacks voted for Obama?
Both are relevant, but Mormons were 25% of the Republican electorate in Nevada, while blacks were only 15% of the Democratic electorate in Nevada.
I have to agree with what you said C Stanley. That doesn’t explain the media spending time on one and not the other, though.
That’s true, Tap, but it could be that the Mormon bloc is a new phenomenon too (blacks voting en bloc is nothing new, though this is the first time I recall seeing that bloc being fought over among two Dem candidates.) And people DID point out similar trends among Huckabee’s supporters- that his support largely came from Evangelical Christians. If that was used to show that he wasn’t pulling enough support from other GOP consituencies, then really it would be a bias if the media didn’t note that Romney’s large margin in NV apparently was bolstered by the Mormons turning out to vote for him.
I don’t know, I haven’t seen enough of who is writing about this to have formed an opinion one way or another about media bias on this issue (I’m honestly just thinking aloud about other ways to view it, not saying that I think those are the correct ways.) It certainly could be that some in the media are trying to make hay over this to discredit Romney’s win, but I’d have to know more before I’d call it that way.
One should also point out that, relative to the rest of the country, Nevada has a high percentage of Mormons, so a stronger advantage among Mormons in Nevada suggests a weaker advantage among voters in the country at large, all else being equal. In contrast, Nevada appears to have a *low* percentage of blacks, so a stronger advantage among blacks in Nevada suggests a *stronger* advantage among voters in the country at large, all else being equal.
Mormons: 25% of the Republican electorate in Nevada, but about 2% of the population of the country as a whole (and thus no more than about 4% of the Republican electorate in the country as a whole, even if every Mormon is Republican.)
Blacks: 15% of the Democratic electorate in Nevada, but about 12% of the population of the country as a whole; since about 90% of blacks vote Democratic, blacks make up about 20% of the Democratic electorate in the country as a whole.