Monday, January 21, 2008

an inane headline from HuffPost

Ethnic, Race, Male-Female Voting Patterns Deciding The Democratic Nomination

Voting patterns deciding an election? What a concept!

This is akin to my Super Bowl prediction:
The team that scores the most most points will win.
... and while I'm at it, why
Ethnic,
Race,
Male-Female?
Why not,
Ethnic,
Race,
Gender?
I'd like to be able to follow up with something like, "In fairness, the article itself presents a well-reasoned analysis of voting patterns across a variety of demographic categories." I'd like to, but I can't. Instead, we get the following:
The percentage of each primary electorate that is female, African American or Latino will be especially crucial to the outcome.

"The worry for the Democrats, I think, is a battle to the end that appears to the inattentive median voter as over identity politics," said Columbia University political scientist Robert Erikson. "Obama could face a danger of appearing as the 'black' candidate or Hillary as the 'women's' candidate."
This isn't analysis, it's words-strung-together-to-look-like-analysis.

I wondered why I never wrote about this stuff before. Now I know: there's nothing to write about!

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