Shorter New York Times: Barack Obama hasn't magically healed racial divide in the US. He's been the Democratic nominee for more than a month. What is he waiting for?
Update 7/16 2:54 PM: Brad DeLong objects to the sample sizes used in the Times poll:
I must admit that my breath is stopped by the idea of saying anything about Black-white opinion differences based on a poll with only 300 Blacks in it. That is bizarre statistical malpractice of a high order.
It's certainly true that the margin of sampling error for the black respondents is relatively high (six percentage points). But "statistical malpractice" seems really strong. Given the often enormous gulf between black and white opinion on many issues and the power of random sampling, we can still say with great confidence that blacks and whites have different opinions on every specific question cited in the article. (By my calculations, the margin of sampling error for the difference between black and white opinion is approximately 6.4 percentage points.)
The very intent and rationale behind some of these polls are no more than a crock of shit. Please excuse my language. Do some of these pollsters have their heads on their shoulders? How do they expect the barely 16 months old candidacy of one individual to close the racial divide in America? Many American are ready and working towards such healing. Healing takes time. Obama is not yet the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE, and how is his mere candidacy supposed to carry such a potency that ought to be undoing the seeds of hate and lynching, of Jim Crow and humiliations that have taken root for more than 200 years? Why are the pollsters not posing the same questions concerning McCain’s candidacy? McCain is also an American citizen seeking the presidency, and his candidacy must be closing the racial divide. Indeed, what have the candidacies of the 86 candidates over the past 200 years done to heal the American racial wounds? The IQ levels underpinning some of thsese polls are appalling. Let the American people vote Obama in November as their president. Then the pollsters can raise such disingenuous questions 8 years from January 20, 2009. Dictum sapienti sat est.
Posted by: Dr. Jesse Kally-Williams | July 16, 2008 at 03:20 PM
It's a bit strange to use the charged term "racial divide" to describe differing perceptions. That's not what the term traditionally has meant.
During the days of Jim Crow, there was a real racial. Segregation, de facto or de jure, was practiced throughout the country. Schools, jobs, neighborhoods, hotels, busses etc. literally divided the races.
Yet, if a survey at that time had asked whether whites were treated better than blacks, I imagine a big majority of both groups would have agreed that such was the case.
Posted by: David | July 16, 2008 at 06:02 PM