Frank Reichert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in part: >But you seem to >miss the larger picture that a lot of black voters aren't really >dedicated liberals. A lot of the black people I have worked with >and known over the years really don't have any axe to grind, nor >do they necessarily support left wing causes.
>Most of the black voters who vote Democratic do so because they >believe that the Democratic Party is most likely to represent >some of their interests in terms of Affirmative Action, and other >areas in which they are particularly sensitive. While I think that's true in part, I think the black-Democrat cx is based on much more inertia than can be explained by any ideologic concern. There are just layers upon layers of ASSUMPTION in their community (and not only theirs) that Democrats are the only candidates to CONSIDER, regardless of policy positions. It's like religion -- and, in this case, is literally religion-tied, via church socializing as one of those layers of inertia. That sort of inertia would take about a generation to overcome, very gradually. A Condi Rice could move things a few percent as part of that movement, but that's all. It doesn't shift over the course of one election cycle. The great majority of voting for candidates in any given general election, and even in most primaries, is not driven DIRECTLY by issues of policy -- or at least, not by the things most of us would consider policy matters. Voters are partisan for largely cultural reasons. Of course ideology figures in in the long run, and ultimately there are EFFECTS ON policy, but it doesn't swing elections except in marginal cases. One problem obscuring this is that you can't get honest answers about this from polling. If you ask people why they voted for or against candidate X, policy reasons will be strongly over-represented in their answers, even where the candidate has expressed the OPPOSITE policy preference from the voter. People like you to THINK they have "better" reasons for voting than they actually have; or even if they don't care what the poll taker thinks, being asked to explain their choice even a completely open-ended, unbiased question puts them in a different mind frame from simply making the choice. AIUI, this is not unlike what is seen in the marketing of goods & services -- that sales often contradict expressed preferences for qualities of the goods & services offered. Those of us who give students tests also know that choice questions will often elicit very different answers from questions requiring an explanation to be written, even where the questions theoretically test for the same knowledge or understanding. In Your Sly Tribe, Robert _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
