Showing posts with label Voter Demographics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voter Demographics. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Same formula for victory for any democrat

December 31, 2014 Hillary Clinton , Middle Class 0 Comments
Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Need To Win The White Working Class

Paul Waldman, Dec. 29, 2014, Washington Post

We spend so much time contemplating what different demographic groups find appealing and repellent that it’s almost as though we forget that a vote is a vote. For instance, Democrats are often scolded for their unpopularity among voters in rural areas and small towns, because of a mythos that says those are the most virtuous and true Americans and therefore their votes are somehow more desirable than those of people who live in suburbs and cities. But they aren’t. The vote of a tattooed 20-something hipster in Des Moines is no less helpful than that of the 60-something farmer who lives a hundred miles north.

Read more: www.washingtonpost.com

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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Too late to stop passage

November 19, 2014 Jonathan Gruber , Marc A. Thiessen 0 Comments
Thanks To Jonathan Gruber For Revealing Obamacare Deception

Marc A. Thiessen, Nov. 17, 2014, Washington Post

As of this weekend, there are now seven Gruber videos, in which he mocks the “stupidity” of American voters and boasts of the Obama administration’s ability to take advantage of it. In a new video that surfaced Friday, Gruber explains that the Obama administration passed the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-value employer health plans “by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people, when we know it’s a tax on people who hold these insurance plans.” Americans would not support a tax on individuals, so “We just tax the insurance companies, they pass on the higher prices . . . it ends up being the same thing.” The ruse, Gruber says, was “a very clever . . . basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”

Read more: www.washingtonpost.com


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Friday, November 14, 2014

It isn't just GOP

November 14, 2014 Affordable Care Act , Jonathan Gruber 0 Comments
GOP’s Anti-Obamacare Push Gains New Momentum In Wake Of Gruber Video

Robert Costa and Jose A. DelReal, Nov. 12, 2014, Washington Post

The Republican Party’s ardent campaign against President Obama’s health-care law gained new momentum Wednesday as lawmakers reacted angrily to assertions by an architect of the policy that it was crafted in a deliberately deceptive way in order to pass Congress.

On both sides of the Capitol, leading conservatives said they may call economist Jonathan Gruber to testify about his remarks, which were made last year and surfaced this week in a video on social media. In the video, Gruber suggests that the administration’s signature health-care legislation passed in part because of the “stupidity of the American voter” and a “lack of transparency” over its funding mechanisms.

Read more: www.washingtonpost.com

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

More Immigrants = More Democrats By Larry Elder

April 17, 2014 Antonio Villaraigosa , Articles by Larry Elder 0 Comments
By Larry Elder, Apr. 17, 2014

What is the voting impact of “comprehensive immigration reform”? How would it change the political landscape?

Eliseo Medina retired in October as executive director of the SEIU, at 2 million strong, the fastest growing labor union in North America. In a speech after the 2008 election, Medina said more immigrant citizens mean more “progressive” voters: “We reform the immigration laws -- it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have even the same ratio, two out of three? If we get 8 million new voters that care about our issues and will be voting, we will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle."

In December 2005, the House passed the so-called “harsh anti-immigration” bill. In Los Angeles, some 500,000 protestors gathered in a downtown park. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the crowd in Spanish and, bullhorn in hand, shouted, "There are no illegal people here today!"

Just days ago, Vice President Joe Biden said, “Eleven million people living in the shadows I believed, are already American citizens. … These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully, and by that standard 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans in my view.”



Democrats support the restoration of voting rights for felons. Would they do so if the felon vote would go Republican?

Democrats support D.C. statehood. Would they do so if statehood would likely produce two new Republican senators?

Democrats support “comprehensive immigration reform.” Would they if those on the path to citizenship were also on the path to vote Republican?

The fact is that immigrants, whether illegal or legal, support Democrats. Washington Examiner’s Bryon York examined a new study from the Center for Immigration Studies.

York writes: “A 2012 study of 2,900 foreign-born, naturalized immigrants cited in the report showed that about 62 percent identified themselves as Democrats, while 25 percent identified as Republicans, and 13 percent identified as independents. At this moment, according to the report, there are an estimated 8.7 million immigrants in the U.S. who are eligible for naturalization. Not all will become voting citizens, but somewhere between 50 percent and 60 percent will. And it's a sure bet that a majority will identify themselves as Democrats.”Why do immigrants support the Democratic Party?

The study’s author, Professor James Gimpel of University of Maryland, offers several reasons: "[I]mmigrants, particularly Hispanics and Asians, have policy preferences when it comes to the size and scope of government that are more closely aligned with progressives than with conservatives." In other words, the tea party mantra of “taxed enough already” is, well, foreign to them.

Many immigrants are unskilled and therefore live or will live in low-income areas. The poorer the area, the more support for an activist government. Gimpel writes, “"It is from areas of higher income inequality that we find the most support for a robust government with an expansive regulatory and redistributive role in the economy, among all citizens, not just immigrants."

Does the political impact of new immigrant voters vary from state to state? No. York said Gimpel’s findings show, “If immigrants arrive in large numbers, areas that are already Democratic become more so, while areas that are Republican become more Democratic. That applies to Texas and other red-state strongholds as much as anywhere else.”

The take-away is simple. Republicans face strong headwinds going forward even if “comprehensive immigration reform” fails to get through Congress.

York writes: “Even if no changes are made to increase immigration, Republicans face a daunting, long-term task of trying to win the loyalty of immigrant voters. With about 30 million who have arrived here legally in the last three decades, plus about 12 million who are here illegally now but could well become voters someday, plus their natural-born citizen children on the way in the future -- it's a hugely important assignment for the GOP. But it's also reasonable for Republicans not to support policies that could worsen their electoral prospects, if not doom their party to decades of defeat. After all, Democrats are certainly acting in what they perceive to be their party's best political interests.”

However one feels about immigration, more immigrant voters mean more Democrats.


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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Five Decades Of Lies Help Dems Create Monolithic Black Vote By Larry Elder

April 10, 2014 Black Vote , Debbie Wasserman Schultz 1 Comments
By Larry Elder, Apr. 11, 2014

As recently as 1956, nearly 39 percent of blacks voted Republican in that year's presidential election. After the Civil War, Abe Lincoln's Republican Party easily carried the black vote -- where blacks were allowed to vote. Unwelcome in the Democratic Party, most blacks voted Republican and continued to do so through the early part of the 20th century. It wasn't until 1948, when 77 percent of the black vote went to Harry Truman, who had desegregated the military, that a majority of blacks identified themselves as Democrats.

Yet, as a percentage of the party, more Republicans voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats. For his key role breaking the Democrats' filibuster and getting the act to pass the stalled Senate, Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen, a conservative from Illinois, landed on the cover of Time magazine. President Lyndon Johnson called Dirksen "the hero of the nation." The Chicago Defender, then the country's largest black daily newspaper, applauded Dirksen's "generalship" for helping to successfully push through the bill.

Older black voters sometimes explain they're opposed to Republicans because of the "racist" Southern strategy. But Richard Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchannan, credited with inventing the "Southern strategy," considered the Democratic Party the party of the racists. Buchanan said: "We would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states' rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the 'party of [Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester] Maddox, [1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George] Mahoney and [Democratic Alabama Gov. George] Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"

But before that, another pivotal event occurred that helped the GOP-as-racist meme. In 1960, during the presidential campaign, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested following a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Atlanta. Hundreds of other protestors were released, but King was jailed on a trumped-up probation violation for failing to have a Georgia driver's license.

King's aides reached out to then-Vice President and Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon. They also reached out to the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy called the Atlanta judge handling the case. Shortly after that call, the judge released King. Nixon, according to Harry Belafonte, a King supporter, "did nothing." Is that true?

Nixon, it turns out, had a much closer relationship with King than did Kennedy. In the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., records show considerable handwritten notes and correspondence between Nixon and King. This includes a 1957 letter from King acknowledging their previous meetings, which thanked Nixon for his "assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality," and praised him for his "devotion to the highest mandates of the moral law."
But in 1960, on the eve of the election, Nixon was in a tough spot. Nixon's public silence might be misconstrued as acceptance of King's arrest. On the other hand, as a candidate for his boss's job, Nixon worried about the political costs of appearing ungrateful if he chastised President Dwight Eisenhower for not taking stronger action. Eisenhower, however, was content to let the Justice Department handle the matter.

According to historian and presidential biographer Stephen Ambrose, while Nixon made no public comments, he telephoned Attorney General William Rogers to find out if King's constitutional rights were being infringed, thus opening the door for federal involvement. Nixon, a lawyer, was concerned about the ethics of calling a judge to get him to release someone.

Nixon, writes Ambrose, told his press secretary: "I think Dr. King is getting a bum rap. But despite my strong feelings in this respect, it would be completely improper for me or any other lawyer to call the judge. And Robert Kennedy should have known better than to do so." That Bobby Kennedy, also a lawyer, nevertheless made a phone call to the judge did not alter the issue of whether it was appropriate. In retrospect, an easy call, but not at the time.

Two million pamphlets titled, "'No Comment' Nixon Versus a Candidate With a Heart, Senator Kennedy," were distributed in black churches. Never mind that in 1956 Nixon revealed he was an honorary member of the NAACP. Or that Nixon pushed for passage of the '57 civil rights bill in the Senate. Or that Time magazine wrote that Nixon's support for civil rights incurred the wrath of one of his segregationist opponents, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., who sarcastically called Nixon the NAACP's "most distinguished member."

But the GOP-is-racist meme can be heard nightly on MSNB-Hee Haw and in political science and history classes all over the country. Actor Morgan Freeman calls the tea party racist. Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., tells us that the GOP wants to "literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws."

Keeping blacks ignorant of history remains crucial to this caricature of the Republican Party -- and to the monolithic Democratic black vote. Not so black and white, is it?


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Monday, April 7, 2014

5 Ways Blacks Are More Like Republicans than Democrats --Nada on unemplymt and the rethinking of "hope and change"?

April 07, 2014 Affirmative Action , Atlanta Black Star 0 Comments
By Lynn Brown, Apr. 2, 2014, Atlanta Black Star

In response to the country’s rapidly changing racial demographics, Republicans have talked a lot about their intentions to start recruiting more people of color to their cause. Currently only 7 percent of African-Americans identify as Republican, but this was not always so.

In the 1800s the Republican Party counted such illustrious Black scholars as Booker T. Washington as members and they were known to be aligned with abolitionists. However, this all changed dramatically during Herbert Hoover’s presidency and after, as the Republican Party instated more and more racist polices in an attempt to attract Southern voters.

Today, the ideology of the African-American community is seen as light years away from that of conservatives, but though there are some major differences, there are also some surprising similarities. 

Read the full story:  www.atlantablackstar.com


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Saturday, April 5, 2014

Democrat Party Shafts Asian-American Kids -- Still Gets Their Parents’ Vote (Part 2) - By Larry Elder

Democrat Party Shafts Asian-American Kids -- Still Gets Their Parents’ Vote (Part 2) - By Larry Elder

April 05, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Asian Americans 1 Comments
By Larry Elder, Apr. 5, 2014

After 209, the number of Asian-Americans increased at the elite UC Berkeley and UCLA campuses. Thus, the repeal of race as a criterion starkly revealed that previously qualified Asian-American prospective college kids were being discriminated against in favor of lesser-qualified black and Hispanic applicants. The percentage of white students at the competitive campus stayed about the same. 

So when California State Sen. Ed Hernandez, D, tried to repeal 209, he ran into an Asian-American buzz saw. Three Asian-America state senators, who had earlier supported re-using race, heard from angry constituents. They withdrew their earlier support for the repeal of 209. Hernandez tabled the measure -- for now, he says.

When I interviewed Sen. Hernandez, I told him that race-based preferences caused greater drop outs among blacks and Hispanics -- and that “affirmative action” hurt the admission chances of Asian-American students with better credentials.

Hernandez didn’t hold up well: 


Don’t bet on Hernandez trying again this anytime soon. Asian-American parents know racial preferences discriminate against their sons and daughters, literally punishing them for the crime of being working hard and striving for excellence.

A few years ago, I wrote about the deep, mysterious “secret” of Asian American success -- hard work!

Here’s big question. Why do Asians-Americans, who place such a high value on education, vote 70 percent for the Democratic Party? After all, its party leaders, like Obama, push policies like “affirmative action” that compromise their children’s future. Why stay in bed with these guys?

Democrats talk the talk of a color-blind society, but walk the walk of a color-coordinated one -- and they’re the ones who do the coordinating.

Related:  The Elder Statement:  Democrat Party Shafts Asian-American Kids -- Still Gets Their Parents’ Vote (Part 1) - By Larry Elder

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Friday, April 4, 2014

Democrat Party Shafts Asian-American Kids -- Still Gets Their Parents’ Vote (Part 1) - By Larry Elder

April 04, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Asian Americans 0 Comments
By Larry Elder, Apr. 4, 2014

In 1996, when California voters passed Proposition 209, opponents went BMW (bitch, moan and whine). Prop 209 outlawed the use of race as a criterion in granting government contracts, in hiring for government jobs and when applying for admission to college.

Minorities -- or, more specifically, “underrepresented minorities” -- critics warned, would be shut out of UC colleges! (Fixing urban K-12 schools, so that such students would be better prepared to enter without an artificial boost, was not under discussion.)

One 209 critic, then-State Sen. Diane Watson, a black woman, attacked Ward Connerly, the black man who successfully led the measure. In a fashion worthy of David Duke, Watson said, “He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black."

Voters passed the measure passed 54 to 45 percent.

True, the numbers of blacks and Hispanics admits fell off at the more competitive campuses like UC Berkley and UCLA. But the numbers of “underrepresented minorities” at the less competitive campus such as UC Riverside and UC Irvine went up -- making the overall UC number of blacks and Hispanics the same post-209 as before.

More importantly, because these students were better academically matched to their schools than before, they were less likely to drop out. Turns out, the more UC college admission offices de-emphasize things test scores and grades, the greater the chance the student will drop out. UCLA law professor Richard Sanders -- a Democrat for what it’s worth -- argues using racial preferences in college admissions hurts the very students it’s supposed to benefit. This "mismatch" of credentials to campus competitiveness, writes Sanders, only serves to increase drop-out rates.

 Related:  The Elder Statement:  Democrat Party Shafts Asian-American Kids -- Still Gets Their Parents’ Vote (Part 2) - By Larry Elder


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