We Are Who We Roll With

One thing I find interesting in opinion polls is the herd instinct. There's something cultural about being with your own kind, and the media narrative around it, that really homogenizes our views.

For example, check out the raw data from the latest NY Times/CBS poll. There are many interesting things (well, at least to me) here. First on page 30, 88% of the white respondents say they would vote for a black president. No doubt that's an overestimate (not that many people still want to admit they are a racist, which is progress), but it does suggest that at least a majority of whites are willing to do so. But, I digress.

I found it interesting that on most questions of race they broke out the results by race, but not registered political party. I wonder if the results would have been very different? On almost every question, even about the wives of the candidates, blacks differed from whites (and, usually, Hispanics as well). Hell, blacks and whites can't agree on how our population's percentage of blacks (see question 81 on page 27). I'd like to see that question broken out by income. Who are these whites who think that the country is more than 50% black? Dumb asses.

Gotta run to a meeting, but I'll write more about this.