This week, I'm reviewing two conflicting articles from very well-respected sources: Time Magazine and The New York Times. The articles both deal with the issue of race in the election. Time claims that race will not be a major issue in the race, while the article in The Times says that race will have a huge impact on the election.
The Times article, although it blatantly states its position at the beginning of the article ("A big question... looming over the race to the White House... is race."), does not back it up with much information. It only showed what two politicians (a former advisor for Hillary Clinton and the head of the Republican Party in Michigan, both of whom are probably against Obama) view about the effect of race. Both believe that Obama's lead in the polls would be cut by whites voting for their own race but who did not want to share their racism to the pollsters. This is a fair assumption, but the article then goes on to briefly mention that "newer research has cast doubt on that assumption." I felt that the article needed to explain this more: Does that mean that race is having less of an impact on the poll numbers, or does that just mean that whites who are voting on race are speaking their mind to pollsters? If the first is true, then this clearly contradicts the article's main point. If the second is true, it still means that racism is not affecting Obama's numbers in the polls. So, The Times has not backed up its claim that race will have a large impact on the race.
The post for the Time Magazine article will be coming soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15race.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1848469,00.html
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I think that while race is playing a role in the upcoming election, it also being over emphasized by the media. Most people now who vote are generally educated on policy and what really makes a candidate, since youthful voting is down in recent years. They are going to make an educated decision about what they think is best for the nation. However, there are those who cannot get past things like color and creed, and will tp the balance a little bit each way. If you go into Texas, and perhaps asked, "Why are you not voting for Barack Obama?" you might get the answer because he is black, as goes for McCain in an area like Alabama. These misconceptions are also distorted by the media, which is prodominantly liberal in this election.
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