When party label is misleading
The New York Times on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s strong showing in pre-election polls of the city’s black voters:
The numbers suggest that these voters are up for grabs, evidence that the black vote has been undergoing a transformation and is becoming harder to predict.
That statement is wildly misleading.
Michael Bloomberg is a Democrat-turned-Republican for political expediency; more importantly, he’s a bona fide liberal. That a substantial number of black voters support him is not evidence of the black vote having become harder to predict, for the black vote is predictably liberal.
Whether African Americans in New York City vote for Mr. Bloomberg or for his Democratic rival Fernando Ferrer, they will be casting a vote for a left-of-center candidate, which is what 80-90% of African American voters usually do.
Partisan identification in the U.S. usually predicts ideology, but not always. Former U.S. Senator Zell Miller of Georgia is a Democrat. He’s also a conservative. Were I a resident of his state, I would have voted for him. But that would have hardly suggested a “transformation” in my voting pattern.
Perhaps the Times intended to say that New York’s black vote is now up for grabs between liberal Democrats and liberal Republicans, thereby suggesting an (inconsequential) change in partisan voting pattern. But if so, the article doesn’t make that point explicit.