I posted something about this in ronebofh's journal, but it's been getting a lot of attention, so:

Did California's Proposition 8 pass because of increased black turnout in the state?  Barack Obama's Presidential campaign this year dramatically increased the level of black voter participation over its usual level, but exit polls indicated that black voters favored Proposition 8 by a 70-30 margin (whites opposed it by 49-51).  Obama himself is on record as opposing same-sex marriage, and has taken some heat for expressing only very lukewarm opposition to Prop 8 and only in the final days of the campaign.  So white liberals have begun asking: did Prop 8 pass because Obama incidentally drew homophobic voters to the polls?

CNN posted exit polls that tell some of the story: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1.  We have to assume that the exit polls are reasonably representative of how the general population actually voted.  That's not necessarily a safe assumption, but since people are already saying that black voters votes 70% in favor of Prop 8, it's clear that we've already accepted that premise.

Now, I'm no Nate Silver, but I don't think this question is that complicated:

10,357,002 votes cast on Prop 8.
5,425,000 were yes votes.

63% of all votes (6,525,000) came from whites.
49% of those (3,197,000) were cast in favor of Prop 8.
That's 31% of the total of all votes cast.

10% of votes (1,035,000) came from blacks.
70% of those (725,000) were cast in favor of Prop 8.
That's 7% of the total of all votes cast.

18% of votes (1,864,000) came from Latinos.
53% of those (988,000) were cast in favor of Prop 8.
That's 10% of the total of all votes cast.

So of all 10 million votes cast in California:
31% of them were white voters who voted "yes" on 8.
7% of them were black voters who voted "yes" on 8.
10% of them were from Latino voters who voted "yes" on 8.

So what?

So:

1. Black voters didn't pass Prop 8.  In terms of the percentage of the "yes" votes cast on the ballot measure and in the absolute number of votes, they were dwarfed both by white and Latino voters who voted for it.

2. Increased black turnout for Obama didn't pass Prop 8, either.  Black voters usually make up 6.7% of the electorate in California.  If Obama's campaign drew 300,000 more voters to the polls than usual, and 70% of those people voted for Proposition 8, that's only about 200,000 votes.  Proposition 8 passed by half a million.  It would have passed even if the black vote was at its usual non-Obama levels.

And, at the risk of sounding like the Monday morning quarterback:

3. Same-sex marriage advocates failed at outreach.  We knew that black turnout in this election was going to be extremely high, and that urban black voters have not tended to favor gay rights issues in the past.  In the end, 70% of black citizens voted to kill gay marriage.  We had an opportunity to engage in a more aggressive dialogue there and we blew it.  Not that we didn't try.  But it wasn't enough.

4. Same-sex marriage advocates failed at organizing, period.  White voters did vote against Proposition 8, but only by a razor-thin margin -- 49-51.  We should have been able to do much better than that.  Gay advocates got complacent with our early polls showing a landslide against the amendment, and we let the Mormons outflank us.

5. Dan Savage needs to get over himself, girlfriend.

Ballot Question 1: A Proposed Law To Eliminate the State Income Tax.

Voting no.  This one is so dumb it amazes me it made it this far.  Apparently the argument here is that depriving the state of income tax revenue will force the legislature to reduce wasteful and inefficient spending.  That's a noble goal, to be sure, but do people actually believe it's going to work out that way?  I'm sure that cutting the state's budget so drastically would result in some spending cuts, but realistically, the immediate effect will be a hike in sales, excise, estate, gift, gasoline, poll, stamp and every other kind of tax you can think of.  Expect property taxes to get hit especially hard, as the state slashes its local aid to towns, which then have to find other ways to make up the lost revenue.

Put another way, if you see the government as being fundamentally greedy, lazy and corrupt, do you really expect them to just roll over and take a pay cut if this passes?

Ballot Question 2: An Act Establishing a Sensible State Marijuana Policy

a.k.a. decriminalizing the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana.  Voting yes.  Even if you believe that marijuana is sufficiently dangerous that its use needs to be discouraged -- which I don't -- it's become impossible to make a case that our drug policy is an effective way to achieve that goal.  The income tax crowd should look favorably on reducing government waste and inefficiency here!

Ballot Question 3: An Initiative for an Act to Protect Greyhounds

a.k.a. "ban greyhound racing."

This one is not a no-brainer for me.  I'm inclining towards voting no.

I don't doubt for a minute the repellent stories that I've heard about how racetrack owners treat and mistreat their animals, and I have no objection to laws prohibiting animal abuse.  But it's not at all clear to me that outlawing racing is an appropriate, effective solution.  It seems more likely to push the racing industry underground, where there would be no oversight of the animals' care at all.

One of the arguments made in favor of Question 3 is that greyhound racing is a dying sport in Massachusetts anyway, so outlawing it only speeds the process along.  That seems more like an argument to me against outlawing it.  If the business is dying a natural death, don't interfere in the process -- God only knows what you might stir up that way.

Obama buttons are here!  I'm not likely to be in Cambridge/Somerville this weekend but will find a way to get these to y'all as soon as I am able.

Tuesday's Presidential debate had one clear winner: Tom Brokaw.

I stole this from urbpan, mostly so I wouldn't have to copy all of the links myself.

Are you an Obama supporter?

Do you wear buttons?

If so, you really really need to get yourself to DemocraticStuff.com:

   
      
     
      
     

And that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

Yesterday's On Point addressed the competing economic plans of John McCain and Barack Obama, with Larry Summers arguing for Obama's plan and John Taylor arguing for McCain.  (Summers and Taylor have apparently been serving as economic advisers to the Obama and McCain campaigns, respectively.)

There's audio for this interview here: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/09/the-financial-crisis/

The debate turned into a shouting match pretty quickly.  Lots of fireworks between from about 16:00 to 24:00.  This was one of the highlights for me (starting about 19:27):

Summers: "John, are you prepared to make available a detailed budget, documenting your claim that Senator McCain will balance the budget by 2013, for external scrutiny, and to show where the cuts are from? You've made that claim in a very strong and direct way.  Is that something you're prepared to make available for external scrutiny?"

Taylor: "Well, the information has already been made available to the Tax Policy Center---"

Summers: "And what was the Tax Policy Center's conclusion, John?  Its conclusion was that there will be trillions of dollars of extra deficits in Senator McCain's plan, relative to Senator Obama's plan, was the conclusion of the Tax Policy Center -- trillions of dollars of debt that would --"

Taylor: "I don't think they included anything on spending, they included nothing on spending on this, and so I'd say the information is there, you're welcome to go look at it, but their interpretation, where you just don't include any spending control, is completely--"

Summers: "John, I am -- I'm sorry -- I am sorry that you are speaking in this way."

You can hear him biting his tongue, trying not to call Taylor a liar on the air in as many words.  Marvelous theater.

Andrew Sullivan has been writing on what he calls the "odd lies" of Sarah Palin.  What makes these lies odd is that they are so naked -- so easily disproven.  It makes you wonder why they would even try to lie about such things.  Taylor seems to be doing the same thing here.  What does he think he can get away with?  It makes no sense.

Recalling Edwin Edwards' famous quote, that in order to lose re-election he'd have to be "caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy" ....

... anyone know how I could get in touch with the McCain campaign?

(I know, I should ask Soren, but somehow I don't think he'd be enthusiastic about helping me out with this...)

Barring some completely out-of-the-blue catastrophe (like two debate halls in a row being destroyed by meteors), in January we will have either a black President or a female Vice-President.

No matter what we think of either candidate, it's a long-overdue step forward.