Dan Walters: “blame Prop. 8 on the darkie”

Props to the good folks over at FiveThirtyEight.com.  Not only did they construct an incredibly accurate model of the 2008 election — they use their statistical acuity for good and not evil.

Here’s the latest example:  Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee wants to blame Latinos and black people for the passage of Proposition 8.  In a grand gesture of mangled statistics and twisted logic that is as homophobic as it is racist, Walters concludes that the new (minority) voter support for Obama is responsible for the passing of Proposition 8.  But by Walters’ own standard, white people are far more responsible for the passing of Proposition 8 than any minority, because the white people that voted for it comprise several times more than “enough to make the difference.”

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com calls bullshit.  Here’s a summary without the statistics:

1. On the balance, new Obama-inspired voter turnout HELPED increase Prop 8 opposition.
2. The yes/no gap is mostly generational, not racial or ethnic. New voters — and young people of any race/ethnicity — overwhelming voted to reject the measure.
3. Without the new Obama-inspired turnout, the measure would have passed by an even larger margin due to less youth votes.
4. Once a few more older voters die, similar efforts to enact institutionalized discrimination like this will fail on a consistent basis, regardless of who is voting.

You can read the full post here, a thorough debunk of Mr. Walters’ odd homophobia-by-proxy-of-racism argument.