Lakhota
Diamond Member
According to the exit polling numbers, Obama won mainly--not entirely, but mainly--by carrying the two bottom income groups by 21.5%, and these two groups accounted for 41% of votes cast. He lost among the four other income groups by an average of 8.5%, and those groups accounted for 59% of votes cast. But he made up for his 8.5% loss in the 59% block by winning the 41% block by 21.5%, a landslide margin of victory.
Obama also won handily among high school dropouts, 64% to 35%, and these voters accounted for about 2-3% of votes cast (I suspect this group mostly overlaps with the bottom two income groups).
This is not to say that everyone who voted for Obama is uneducated or poor. It is to say that Obama would have lost if he had not carried the two lowest income groups by landslide margins. So the least successful among us were the decisive factor in Obama's victory.
Here's the breakdown:
Income....Obama's Margin of Victory
------------------------------------------
0-30K..........+28
30-49K........+15
50-99K...........-6
100-199K.....-10
200-249K.......-5
250K+..........-13
Income.....Percentage of Votes
---------------------------------------------
0-30K..........20%
30-49K........21%
50-99K........31%
100-199K....21%
200-249K......3%
250K+...........4%
It's as if a company's CEO were elected, not by a majority of the most educated and successful people in the company, but by winning a huge majority among the janitorial staff, the new admin assistants, and the new interns. Would you have much confidence in that company's future if its CEO were elected by such groups?
so did EDUCATED women.
so did younger people.
and gays (who have the highest per capita income in the country as a group)
i'm sorry the whole old white man thing isn't working out for you anymore.
does it hurt to be so ignorant?
All these arguments are strawman arguments. I said that not everyone who voted for Obama is poor or uneducated. I stipulated that. But you simply ignore that qualifier and act as though I said the opposite.
The fact remains that Obama owes his victory largely to the two least successful groups in society. If he had not carried those two groups by landslide margins, he would have lost.
Please define "successful"...