It seems to me that the Giants' victory celebration tomorrow in New York, coinciding with primaries in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut is probably bad news for Barack Obama. Football fans, like Obama supporters, are going to be disproportionately male.
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Parades and Turnout
04 Feb 2008 11:45 am
Comments (26)
Hopefully - since they're already ditching work a little to celebrate - they'll hit the polls on the way to or from.
Go Obama!
Congrats to the Giants! Thanks for "stopping" history, and making some of your own.
Since they'll be feeling fired up and having just witnessed the fulfillment of their deepest hopes, they'll probably be more rather than less inclined to take a side trip to their polling place.
Do serious people actually go to those things? I'm as big a sports fan as any but I can't see someone not voting because they had to go to the victory parade instead. I don't see it having much of an impact.
If anything, it might help. If you're taking off of work to go to the victory parade anyway, you might as well take 10 minutes extra and vote, too.
You could also say it helps him in MA which is, from where I sit, more realistically within reach than NY or NJ (CT's a different story I guess).
Or it could just as well help him throughout the tri-state: the Beer vote is blearily occupied by the festivities while the Wine-sippers flood the voting-booths.
Wouldn't the effect have been the same either way? After all, if NE had won they'd be celebrating 19-0 in Boston...in fact, wouldn't that have been better for Clinton? Boston's young male fans are, how do we say this...generally not as enthusiastic about heavily pigmented individuals?
I'm with the alternate CW myself. People just aren't going to show up for work tomorrow, so it will be that much easier to make it to the polls afterward. If I was Obama's campaign, I'd be working on Strahan or someone to put at least a "go vote" plug in there in their parade speech or something.
The male thing might be right. but i feel like football fans are generally more hill's demo. hmm. i wonder if obama will use the underdog vs. inevitability winning thing in today's speeches
PK again: what do you mean "within reach"? Obama doesn't need to win New York, he just needs not to let Clinton take too many more delegates than him here.
Also, would anyone in MA cast a vote for HRC since she's affiliated with NY?
Usually, my sarcasm detector is infallible, but this got me. I can never tell when you crazy sportsfans are serious or not.
Where is it written that the victory parade has to be on the Tuesday following the Super Bowl? Can't they delay it a day so everyone can vote? I imagine that even for people not going to the parade, this is going to make it more difficult to get to the polls-- and for Hillary voters and Republicans as well as Obama voters.
Connecticut is split down the middle between Yankees and Red Sox fans (west part of the state Yankees; east part Red Sox). That dynamic may not hold for football; the Patriots' fans I knew up there were relative newcomers, while the Giants were born in the blue. But I'd call that even.
South Jersey probably pulls hard for the Eagles, and don't discount the Jets fans in both New York and New Jersey. Going strictly on that, I'd say Barack wouldn't have a whole lot to worry about.
Still, I'm with John SFL on this one: If people put a victory parade ahead of an election, it's probably good they're casting their ballots aside on Tuesday.
Not to mention the parade is going to block access to several polls in the middle of the day, and I heard that the election board will be forced to operate away from their headquarters.
What washerdreyer said. The goal is not to win states. The goal is to do as well as possible and get delegates. Even if you're clearly going to get the majority of votes in a state, or clearly not going to get the majority, getting a higher proportion of the total for a state (or even the total for a district) helps.
Yes, but the real question is, is it good news for John McCain.
No.
It's good for John McCain. It always is.
Do serious people actually go to those things? I'm as big a sports fan as any but I can't see someone not voting because they had to go to the victory parade instead. I don't see it having much of an impact.
Many sports fans feel this exact same way about primary elections.
Since everything is good news for McCain, the real question must be how this is good news for McCain.
Hmmm. Obama runs superbowl ad, stressing group events and victory against the odds. Underdog sports team wins against presumed front-runner. Victory parade coincides with super tuesday. Huge number of people taking time off from work, wandering around after a group event, all "fired up," and, just possibly, similarly influenced to accept the image of african-american men in positions of power (if all of your favorite sports heroes are black, why not your president, right?).
Therefore, I posit: helpful for Obama.
Probably wishful thinking on my part (if the Giants win the superbowl and Obama wins my district in NYC, it is a very good week for me!), but there you go.
We have very bad luck here in NYC with extraneous events popping up on primary election day.
And the answer is: it's good for Bloomberg, who needs a Clinton-Romney match-up before he can enter the race as the savior.
Since they'll be feeling fired up and having just witnessed the fulfillment of their deepest hopes, they'll probably be more rather than less inclined to take a side trip to their polling place.
If anything, it might help. If you're taking off of work to go to the victory parade anyway, you might as well take 10 minutes extra and vote, too.
/signed
Most people vote on their way to or from work. As most people don't work around the corner from their homes in the NYC-area, that means most of the poll traffic is 7-9am and 5-8pm.
What time is the parade?
The polls open at what, 7 am and close at 7 pm. If folks want to vote, they'll vote around the parade.
Comments closed February 18, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
"probably bad news for Barack Obama"
Yes, and its great news for Republicans.
Posted by MSM | February 4, 2008 11:54 AM