Re: ¡White Men Have No Electability Advantage¢ - CounterSpin interview with Brenda Choresi Carter on the electability... (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2019 11:47:57 -0700 (PDT)
 > 
 > related to what we were talking about

All the more reason that alternative voting systems are needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method

 >  > Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2019 20:35:15 +0000
 >  > From: "FAIR" <http://www.fair.org/~fair>
 >  > 
 >  >  ‘White Men Have No Electability Advantage’ - CounterSpin interview with 
 >  >  Brenda Choresi Carter on the electability myth
 >  > 
 >  >  Janine Jackson interviewed Brenda Choresi Carter about the electability 
 >  >  myth for the July 19, 2019, episode 
 >  >  CounterSpin . This is a lightly edited transcript. Play Stop pop out
 >  > 
 >  >  Election Focus 2020 Janine Jackson : “‘Electability’ Is the Most 
 >  >  Important, Least Understood Word in the 2020 Race,” was the headline on a 
 >  >  recent NBC News piece 
 >  >  That electability is important in an election sounds tautological. But 
 >  >  NBC is, of course, getting at the fact that Democrats, for example, when 
 >  >  asked by pollsters who they would like to see in office, will often give a 
 >  >  different answer than to the question of who they will vote for—the 
 >  >  difference based on some ill-defined calculations about who their neighbors 
 >  >  might vote for, or who media are telling them stands a chance.
 >  > 
 >  >  But what are those things based on? And, more to the point, if we continue 
 >  >  to define who’s electable based on who has been elected —ahem, white 
 >  >  men—how will change ever happen?
 >  > 
 >  >  The Reflective Democracy Campaign
 >  >  is an effort to illuminate questions of the demographics of political 
 >  >  power, and to disrupt them. Their latest report is called The Electability 
 >  >  Myth 
 >  >  . Brenda Choresi Carter directs the Reflective Democracy Campaign. She 
 >  >  joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Brenda 
 >  >  Choresi Carter.
 >  > 
 >  >  Brenda Choresi Carter: I’m happy to be here. NBC: 'Electability' is the 
 >  >  most important, least understood word in  the 2020 race
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Let’s leap right in. Describe the database—unique, I believe—that 
 >  >  you’re working with, and how does your latest running of the numbers 
 >  >  challenge the conventional wisdom around electability?
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC:   Our database looks at the race and gender of everybody who holds 
 >  >  elected office in America at the county level and higher, plus in the 200 
 >  >  largest cities. We also analyze the race and gender of candidates on the 
 >  >  general election ballot for those same offices.
 >  > 
 >  >  This is, as you noted, a first-of-its-kind database that provides this kind 
 >  >  of comprehensive mapping of race and gender and political power in America. 
 >  >  And we feel like it’s really important just to actually have the numbers.
 >  > 
 >  >  So we looked at who ran in 2018, up and down the ballot, and who won, and 
 >  >  who holds office now. And this is a continuation of studies that we’ve 
 >  >  been doing since 2014, tracking race and gender and political candidacy and 
 >  >  political office.
 >  > 
 >  >  And we found that when we looked at who was on the ballot in 2018 by race 
 >  >  and gender, and who won by race and gender, white men have no electability 
 >  >  advantage; they do not win at higher rates than other groups, and, in fact, 
 >  >  if you really want to get specific about it, they actually win at slightly 
 >  >  lower rates than other groups. So they are not the safe bet they are often 
 >  >  assumed to be when thinking about political candidates.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Now, you note at the outset, of course, that white men dominate 
 >  >  politics. And so when you say they don’t have an electability advantage, 
 >  >  what is it that you’re tracking that is showing that?
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: The reason that white men disproportionately hold political power—
 >  >  well, there are a lot of reasons.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Right.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: But in terms of just looking at the data, it’s because they’re 
 >  >  disproportionately on the ballot.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Right.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: So when candidates get on the general election ballot, regardless of 
 >  >  their race and/or gender, they win at the same rates. So the real problem 
 >  >  here is who’s ending up on our ballots, who voters are offered to choose 
 >  >  from when they go to vote. Newsweek: Women Are 'Less Effective in Politics 
 >  >  Than Men,' 1 in 5  Democratic and Independent Male Voters Say: Poll
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: So it sounds like Newsweek is assessing 
 >  >  
 >  >  it correctly when they say that the research suggests that
 >  >      
 >  >       the over-representation of white men in politics is less about voters� >  >       � discrimination, than barriers to entry that keep fewer women and 
 >  >       people of color from running in the first place.
 >  > 
 >  >  So let’s talk a little about some of the barriers to women and people of 
 >  >  color being on the ballot in the first place, that your report notes.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: Yes, that’s exactly right. When voters go into the voting booth to 
 >  >  vote, they are presented with a ballot that is the result of a long and 
 >  >  usually invisible process of selection and support. There are pretty high 
 >  >  barriers to entry into politics for everyone, but women and people of color 
 >  >  face even higher ones.
 >  > 
 >  >  And, in particular, the problem of political gatekeepers is one that I 
 >  >  think even engaged voters often don’t understand, because it’s so 
 >  >  invisible. So political parties, major donors, advocacy organizations, 
 >  >  groups like the Chamber of Commerce or the Sierra Club, or other 
 >  >  organizations that shape who is on the ballot, and which candidates get the 
 >  >  support to run and win, are a crucial bottleneck in the system here.
 >  > 
 >  >  Those political gatekeepers are themselves disproportionately white men; 
 >  >  they really capture the phrase “old boys’ club.” And when they’re 
 >  >  looking around, deciding who they’re going to support for political 
 >  >  office, they often choose from their own networks, from people they already 
 >  >  know, and from people who end up looking a lot like themselves.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: And you note that a lot of that gatekeeping is hidden, really, from 
 >  >  public view; by the time you get in the voting booth, it’s already 
 >  >  happened. When I think of gatekeepers, I also do think of media; they 
 >  >  clearly have a role here, they have their own criteria for electability 
 >  >  that has to do with fundraising, but then also they can kind of themselves 
 >  >  declare candidates unelectable.
 >  > 
 >  >  Listeners might remember the Howard Dean scream 
 >  >  ; media were just like, “Oh, he’s toast,” you know? And everyone 
 >  >  said, “Oh, I guess he’s toast.”
 >  > 
 >  >  I think using actual numbers, you know, as you, as you said, at the outset, 
 >  >  would be a great advance beyond anecdote, but how could media talk about 
 >  >  this set of issues more responsibly?
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: I do think the numbers are incredibly important here. You know, you 
 >  >  really can’t argue with them. And having reality-based conversations and 
 >  >  analysis, rather than coverage that’s based on hunches or feelings or 
 >  >  conventional wisdom, would be incredibly helpful.
 >  > 
 >  >  Of course, the electability conversation is really swirling around the 
 >  >  Democratic presidential primary right now, for very good reasons. There’s 
 >  >  so much hand-wringing about whether a woman can win. And, you know, I’m 
 >  >  not a prognosticator about political elections; that’s not what I do. But 
 >  >  looking at the historical data, we have one data point to look at, where 
 >  >  there was a woman as a major party nominee in recent history, and that was 
 >  >  Hillary Clinton, and she won a majority of votes.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Right.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC:  It’s surprising to me how often that gets overlooked or swept 
 >  >  under the rug in the discussion on this question.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: I find something just heartrending about the disconnect, about people 
 >  >  saying, for example, as they do, they would be happy with a woman president,
 >  >  but their neighbors wouldn’t be. Or the Democratic poll that said 
 >  >  that people said if they had a “magic wand,” this person would be 
 >  >  president, but that’s not who they’re going to vote for. It sort of 
 >  >  reminds me of parents who say, “ I’m not sorry that my child is gay, it�>  >  ��s just that I know others are going to be unkind to them.”
 >  > 
 >  >  It’s a kind of pre-worry, based on this kind of Gresham’s law ,
 >  >  that the worst is always going to win out, so we should just do what’s
 >  >  been done, to keep safe. And it ensures that the future is going to look 
 >  >  like the past.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC:  Yeah, that’s very well put. I think it’s also, maybe a different 
 >  >  way of saying it, it is a kind of illustration of the really diminished 
 >  >  expectations that people have come to have of political life and political 
 >  >  representation. We are so used to one group, white men—and in most cases, 
 >  >  wealthy white men—dominating political life and political decision-making,
 >  >   that to imagine anything else seems just to be almost like it’s hoping 
 >  >  for the impossible. But our data shows that that’s not the case.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: Exactly. Yeah. Brenda Choresi Carter
 >  > 
 >  >  Brenda Choresi Carter: “The problem here is not, by and large, voters; 
 >  >  they are not the reason we don’t have a reflective democracy. They are 
 >  >  voting for women and people of color just as often as white men.”
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: And so that’s why I do think our research and the data that we found 
 >  >  is actually incredibly hopeful. The problem here is not, by and large, 
 >  >  voters; they are not the reason we don’t have a reflective democracy. 
 >  >  They are voting for women and people of color just as often as white men.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: And then, because it’s not, after all, an artificial exercise to get 
 >  >  more women and people of color into elected office; it’s working towards 
 >  >  there being a real relationship between power and people.
 >  > 
 >  >  And I guess I also am very heartened by the report, and I guess I also, 
 >  >  based on what we’ve just been saying, I’m also heartened that so many 
 >  >  women and people of color see electoral politics as a place for them, as a 
 >  >  ground that they won’t cede, despite the way they’re often treated, as 
 >  >  we’re seeing right this minute. And so part of my takeaway from this 
 >  >  report is that people are thinking, “The water’s not fine at all, but 
 >  >  you should still jump in,” if you are thinking of standing for office at 
 >  >  any level.
 >  > 
 >  >  BCC: Yeah, I think that’s true. I mean, we saw a real uptick, really a 
 >  >  surge of women of all races in 2018, running and winning up and down the 
 >  >  ballot. And I think it reflects the incredible urgency that people feel 
 >  >  about the moment that we’re in, given how really unwelcoming the 
 >  >  political field is to nontraditional candidates.
 >  > 
 >  >  Like you said, the water is not fine. People are still willing to plunge 
 >  >  into it, because it’s very clear that leaving decision-making power in 
 >  >  the hands of the groups who have long held it, to the exclusion of the rest 
 >  >  of us, is not working. And we can’t wait for that to somehow work itself 
 >  >  out, because it won’t work itself out. We have to bust in and insist that 
 >  >  power be shared in a different kind of way.
 >  > 
 >  >  JJ: We’ve been speaking with Brenda Choresi Carter of the Reflective 
 >  >  Democracy Campaign.
 >  >  You can find their work, including the report The Electability Myth