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Grex > Agora35 > #207: The faithless elector possibility | |
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| 13 new of 57 responses total. |
scg
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response 45 of 57:
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Dec 17 07:53 UTC 2000 |
(Because Carson has been using parentheses for years. It's his trademark)
I think I see the disagreement here. Larry is starting with the premise that
there may be Bush electors voting for Gore, and working his way back in terms
of if that happened, what sort of person would likely be responsible. What
Carson seems to be challenging is working through the scenario in the other
direction. Larry is saying that for somebody to get away with that sort of
thing, there is a certain background they'd probably have to come from, and
a certain type of community they'd probably have to live in. If I'm reading
Carson correctly, he's pointing out that it would not be reasonable to predict
that the sort of person Larry says could get away with this would be likely
ot try it, or would even want to. However, I don't think Larry was claiming
that such a person would be likely to try it, or would want to; just that if
it did happen it would have to be somebody from that background.
It's easy, maybe even reasonable, to inject race into this. The US
unfortunately has a racial history such that race often dictates how people
are treated, what oportunities they are given, and where they are allowed to
live. This was far more so in the past, but remains a pretty contentious
issue in American politics. It stands to reason that most (although certainly
not all) of the people most negatively affected by this (defined by Larry not
only in terms of race, but in terms of living in a segregated community),
would allign themselves with the political party seen as most likely to
improve their situation. As long as we're speaking in statistics, that seems
a pretty fair generalization to make. Of course, the moment it becomes an
absolute generalization ("all urban black Republicans are just opportunists
who would change their vote when it brings them personal gain") it does become
almost certainly false. However, Larry wasn't claiming it to be an absolute,
just a contributing factor.
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polygon
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response 46 of 57:
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Dec 17 07:55 UTC 2000 |
Re 36. Hmmm, good point about the original setup. I may have overstated
the case for independent electors. I will look into this some more and
get back to this.
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polygon
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response 47 of 57:
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Dec 17 08:13 UTC 2000 |
One slightly jocular point re 37. You write:
> you speak of these people voting overwhelmingly for Gore. didn't
> Democrats vote overwhelmingly for Gore too?
I didn't go looking for this, but as I recall from reading polls, only
about 75% to 80% of self-identified Democrats voted for Gore. Not as
overwhelingly, in other words, as self-identified African-Americans.
The objection to that, of course, is that lots of people self-identify (in
polls) with parties whose candidates they don't necessarily support very
often. Note that self-identified "liberals" and "conservatives" are even
less monolithic, perhaps because much of the public defines those words
differently than the cognoscenti do.
Further, a political identification is not really a "population group".
GWB did better among self-identified Republicans than Gore did among
self-identified Democrats, but not all that much better -- about 85% if I
recall correctly.
Maybe someone could go pull up the exit polls on a news web site and post
the exact numbers. I'm too tired to do it now.
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janc
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response 48 of 57:
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Dec 18 01:13 UTC 2000 |
The question of identifying race keeps coming up here. It's seems a
combination of genetics, skin color, cultural background, self-identification
and identification by outsiders. It's amazingly fuzzy. There are all sorts
of borderline cases. A Jamaican. An American-born child of Nigerian
immigrant parents. A person light-skinned enough to pass as "white". A
person who at the age of 40 discovers one of his parents was a light-skinned
black passing as white. A dark-skinned (East) Indian or an Australian
Aborigine living in the U.S. I think the whole "self-identification" thing
comes from trying to avoid writing rules about what race all the odd cases
are, while still preserving enough of a concept of race to allow discussion
of it. "I don't know if this person is black, let's just ask him." Probably
the honest answer would usually be "in some ways."
The problem with the "self-identify" buzzword is that it suggests you get to
choose. I could decide to be black, or Michael Jackson could decide not to
be (OK, bad example). It might help to think about how people become black.
Most commonly, you are raised by a family who impresses on you many ideas of
blackness, from cultural tastes to expectations about how you will be treated
by others. This is regularly confirmed to you by contacts with strangers who
seem to categorize you as a black in various ways. None of this is a
voluntary process, but it's not inherently evil either, it's the way we all
build our self-identity.
Most "black" people's families probably teach them values, tastes and
expectations that differ substantially from those "black" values seen on TV.
They find themselves in many ways not matching the expectations of "blacks".
The child of Nigerian immigrants might get almost none at all of those, and
might be astonished to be treated as "black" by strangers, just because he
looks black. He might rebel against this classification, or he might develop
a preference for the company of others who are treated the same way and accept
him more easily. He might decide he is black, or not. Only way to tell is
to ask. Hence "self-identification". But mostly not "self-identification
because you get to make up your own mind" but "self-identification because
only you can tell what the cummulative effect of mountains of external pressure
has been on your mind".
Being a Democrat is certainly part of the "as seen on TV black stereotype".
Politicians campaign at groups of people, not individuals. So the groups
are real to them no matter how fuzzy they are on the ground.
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polygon
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response 49 of 57:
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Dec 18 03:05 UTC 2000 |
Most of the data we have on group characteristics and attitudes come
from things like the Census and polling, which ask respondents to
identify their race or ethnic origin. If you, Jan, had put down on the
Census form that you were black, the computer would unquestioningly
added you and your characteristics to the "black" category. That's why
the weasel word about all Census-based data on this sort of thing is
"self-identified."
I specifically rejected "skin color" as being the measure of race because
it's such a poor determinant. My father, with no African ancestry of
which I'm aware, was darker than a number of black politicians I know.
The 2000 Census, for the first time, allows people to select more than one
race category. That will highlight and help explore the messiness of
these categories.
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carson
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response 50 of 57:
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Dec 18 06:09 UTC 2000 |
(one of the things I've learned in my political science classes at
college is that most political theory doesn't work in the real world,
and most political theorists don't even base their work on real world
examples. Larry's "analysis" not only didn't [and doesn't] jibe with
my admittedly-limited experience, it also struck me as offensive. as
Larry has clarified why he came to his conclusions, my initial reaction
has morphed into confusion, and is settling into understanding,
although I still disagree.)
(it's not that I think a faithless elector would have to make the
choice to be faithless well in advance in order to act; for the most
part, I've referred to Larry's example of the kitchen-table meeting,
which, if at all conceivable, could occur the morning of the vote.
it's certainly not that I think faithless electors don't become so for
moral reasons; indeed, gelinas's reference points out that, at least
with recent history, it's been one of the few reasons electors have
ever switched their vote. it's that Larry didn't, IMO, present a moral
dilemma, but instead described a scenario motivated by a poverty of
personal ethics. *that*, I personally found offensive.)
(I'm also unconvinced that being a self-described "black" Republican
and being a faithless elector are comparable, or even relatable,
examples of "going against the grain." rather, the way Larry presented
his scenario, tossing in details of neighborly acceptance and reverent
thank-yous, it's practically an example of going back to "the grain."
maybe Larry was thinking of it as "going against the grain" of "going
against the grain.")
(it bears repeating that my disagreement isn't with Larry, who's been
extraordinarily patient in responding to my challenges of his
conclusions. given his many years in politics, I'd normally defer to
his insight. however, I don't feel this is the appropriate forum to
gush about Larry's many accomplishments, but rather to discuss what I
feel is an embarrassingly faulty "analysis" of the possible impact of
faithless electors on this year's election. nearly all of my responses
to this item have been offered in the spirit of getting Larry to both
explain and rethink his position.)
(in hindsight, I'm surprised Larry didn't suggest the potential for
faithless electors in Florida. there you have electors who are, one,
pledged for Bush; two, faced with the prospect of voting for someone
who, in some minds, didn't earn the vote; and, three, pribly would have
diminished fallout from their surrounding communities, since the vote
was so evenly split. with both the compelling moral reason and a
potential for getting others on board, there's a recipe for throwing
the election to Gore, which is the situation speculated upon in the
first place. sure, it doesn't explicitly say so, but these electors
could be people with "against-the-grain qualities" and not necessarily
party loyalists. I vaguely recall reading an article focusing on some
of the Republican electors; a few of them sounded like average folk who
just happened to belong to the Republican party.)
(to briefly touch on a point Larry raised about his "analysis" in
resp:44 toward the end: sometimes it's OK to speculate about groups
you don't know as "undefined individuals," and you're correct in that
many people do so with varying degrees of success. however, it doesn't
hurt to learn as much as you can, and to change your hypothesis as new
information is discovered. there's a difference between good analysis
and poor analysis, and I'd like to think that you would prefer to be
credited with the former as opposed to the latter.)
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polygon
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response 51 of 57:
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Dec 18 06:54 UTC 2000 |
Re 50. Good points, and thank you for the kind words.
It was not at all useful to suggest that anyone would become a "faithless
elector" out of a "poverty of personal ethics." I think I was taking it
for granted that anyone who would even consider such a thing had much
deeper reasons for doing so. The "kitchen-table" scenario, which I
regret having mentioned at all, was intended to point out, not a
motivation for defecting, but the possibility that doing so would make a
difference as opposed to being just a protest vote.
Elsewhere, it has been pointed out that, though quite a few electors
across American history have voted in other than the expected way, only a
VERY few have actually crossed over and voted for an opposing party's
nominee. A North Carolina Republican elector in 1968 voted for George C.
Wallace. (That's why North Carolina now has a Michigan-style
vote-wrong-and-you're-out law.) A Virginia elector in 1972 voted for the
Libertarian candidates. There might have been a case in 1800. I think
that's it. There's a striking lack of Democrat-to-Republican (or Whig) or
vice-versa switches.
Much more often, stray votes are cast for other figures in the elector's
own party, e.g., a Dukakis elector in 1988 who voted for Bentsen, a Ford
elector in 1976 who voted for Reagan.
When I wrote the original, which was done admittedly too casually, I was
unaware of just how infrequent it has been for electors to vote for the
opposition. Of course, this is an unusual election in modern times, and
as I said earlier, it's the kind of situation which might conceivably
motivate an elector to cross party lines for reasons of principle.
Well, we should know the answer later today.
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polygon
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response 52 of 57:
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Dec 18 07:22 UTC 2000 |
In response 51, paragraph 2, 1st line, s/useful/useful for me/
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flem
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response 53 of 57:
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Dec 18 15:27 UTC 2000 |
The guy on NPR this morning mentioned that in some states, the electors vote
by secret ballot. FWIW.
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aruba
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response 54 of 57:
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Dec 18 20:43 UTC 2000 |
The Florida electors voted 25-0 for Bush.
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carson
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response 55 of 57:
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Dec 18 22:54 UTC 2000 |
(there goes that theory.) :^)
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bru
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response 56 of 57:
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Dec 19 01:50 UTC 2000 |
Nomore chance of faithless electors, Bush is confirmed as President elect.
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richard
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response 57 of 57:
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Dec 19 02:46 UTC 2000 |
well bush won the electoral college 271-266, the only elector who
flipped was a Gore elector from D.C. who entered a blank ballot in
protest of DC's lack of representation in congress. So Bush is the
next president unless congress refuses to ratify the vote.
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