Comments
With the polls now closed in California, FOX News has officially called the election for Barack Obama as of 11 Eastern, trailing OTB by more than two hours.
Juan Williams is choking up at the significance of a black man being elected president. It is indeed quite incredible.
Bill Kristol notes, too, that Obama will do it getting more votes than any president ever and with the highest percentage of the vote than any non-incumbent since Dwight Eisenhower.
Categories
Just as you note, that $1/hour wasn’t that bad when you entered the work force, but today it would be, besides illegal, horrible. Not only is there inflation of the currency, but our population and our voting population grow. So normalizing to that number remove that kind of effect. To put it another way is it fair to compare the number of votes candidates get today with 100 years ago, in absolute terms? No, just as we don’t compare incomes in absolute terms.
Anyway, thanks for taking my comment somewhat seriously. As someone whose real job is statistics these kinds of measures actually do matter to me.
By the way, unless there are a bunch of votes still waiting to be counted, both Bush and Kerry in the last election got significantly more votes than Obama. Like 10 and 9 million more votes respectively.
Why would anyone consider it incredible? I thought race didn’t matter
Claiming to be “color blind” and presumably unimpressed that an African-American won the presidency for the first time is at a minimum disingenuous but, in your case, simply shows your true colors: ignorant and spiteful. Even if you are “color blind,” you don’t need to be ignorant of the historic nature of Obama’s win.
Tell us, O enlightened one: Do you feel the same way about Jackie Robinson? About any number of African-American–or any other minority–firsts? Is conservative “color blindness” the reason African-Americans flock to the Republican party in droves? Or the reason why conservatives use fear of race every time they run an ad on TV–you know, Bit.
Spare us all your fake enlightenment.
Claiming to be “color blind” and presumably unimpressed that an African-American won the presidency for the first time is at a minimum disingenuous but, in your case, simply shows your true colors: ignorant and spiteful. Even if you are “color blind,” you don’t need to be ignorant of the historic nature of Obama’s win.
This is supposed to be a post-racial America, and yet we spend all this time on a racial hurdle? Sorry, something doesn’t quite add up, here. Why would anyone think it was out of the oridinary if, as we’re told, race doesn’t matter?
Do you feel the same way about Jackie Robinson? About any number of African-American–or any other minority–firsts?
As a matter of fact, yes, but for reasons, apparently different from yours. The accomplishments of the people as you mention are worthy of mention and recognition because of their efforts as individuals not because they were/are of a racial category.
You meanwhile, can’t get beyond their skin color.
Can we normalize this “number of votes” thing to population for crying out loud. It is like saying Americans are richer than ever since even the lowest income today is several multiples of what was considered middle class in 1900. Clearly a nonsensical measure.
I remember hearing this in 2004, that Bush got a higher “number of votes” than any president in history. I think John Kerry also got more votes than any prior president, and he still lost. So yeah, lets lose this meme.
This is supposed to be a post-racial America, and yet we spend all this time on a racial hurdle? Sorry, something doesn’t quite add up, here. Why would anyone think it was out of the oridinary if, as we’re told, race doesn’t matter?
Because it is out of the ordinary, even though race wasn’t a primary issue in this campaign, it is still historically unprecedented.
Nobody was surprised when we landed on the moon in 1969, everybody knew it was going to happen, but it was still an incredible thing wouldn’t you agree?
Remember if you support the goal racial equality you cannot celebrate any milestone on the road to that goal. That would be racist
Well, let’s examine this.
Oddly, a goodly number of the folks talking about how this ends racism, are the same folks who were not supporting Clarence Thomas. Remember?
Come to thnk of it, I don’t recall Michael Steele being hailed by the usually long line of race baiters as accomplishing great things. I don’t recall J.C.Watts being so hailed, either. So do blacks only get celebrated for their huge accomplishments if they’re LIBERAL blacks?
Let’s examine this just a bit further to sharpen the point; If Hillary Clinton had won, we’d have heard all about how sexism was all done. Ask yourself; Had Sarah Palin been elected as VP, would the reaction have been anywhere near the same?
