There's a difference between saying a group of people haven't voted for someone before now & saying [View All]

[EffieBlack]

that group of people WILL NOT vote for someone in the future.

Therein lies the problem with, not only Sen. Clinton's remarks, but the observation of many of the pundits who insist on slicing and dicing the voting patterns of various demographics.

Politics and campaigns are about convincing people to do something they might not naturally do until they are shown a different way. Otherwise, what is the point of campaigns - why not just look at the polls and then swear in the person who is ahead at the time?

This political season show exactly how important campaigns are. A year ago, Hillary Clinton was miles ahead of any of her Democratic opponents and Barack Obama was a fresh-faced but not-taken-too-seriously alternative. Rudy Giuliani was the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee while John McCain was lost somewhere in the wilderness.

But something happened on the way to the Clinton/Giuliani nomination: a campaign. And the candidates spent time with the voters, the voters learned more about all of them and many of them changed their minds. That's what happens in campaigns.

So the consistent harping on the white male blue collar vote or the black vote, etc. is pretty useless beyond giving a snapshot of how people are thinking NOW and providing some helpful data on how to appeal to these various individuals moving forward. But saying that black voters are voting for Obama or certain white voters aren't is one thing - saying those people will NOT vote for a particular candidate down the road is not only incorrect, it is an insult to those voters who are being treated as ignorant, bull-headed bigots who have no capacity to learn, grow or - God forbid - change their minds.