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Blogs Eric Reads
Egg On Their Faces
I’ve been glued to CNN ever since the polls closed here in Missouri. For the past year I’ve been working for my school’s chapter of Students for Barack Obama, and I spent all of Super Tuesday handing out literature, escorting voters to polling places, and helping to ensure that students were allowed to cast ballots.
At 7:00, I had done all I could do. I went home, turned on the TV, and waited for almost four hours before Wolf Blitzer announced that, with 99% of precincts reporting, Barack Obama had eked out a narrow victory in the state where I’ve been working. I’m glad that I was watching CNN because if I had been getting my election news from anywhere else, I probably would have gone to sleep hours ago, disappointed.
It all began with an AP News Alert: (I’ll be posting images since I expect some stories might be updated and/or deleted)
At 10:08 PM CT, USA Today picked up on the AP report and announced that Hillary Clinton had won Missouri.
At 10:16 PM, Reuters posted an article entitled “Clinton wins Missouri Democratic presidential vote.”
A couple minutes later, my school newspaper, which had conducted exit polling all day, compared student voting with the “declared” statewide vote.
At the same time, as votes in Kansas City were being counted, local Kansas City affiliates began reporting the Clinton victory:
And finally, a triumphant Clinton campaign issued a press release touting her stunning defeat of Barack Obama:
Barack Obama outspent Hillary by $300,000 in TV ads in Missouri. He also benefited from the endorsements of high-profile surrogates across the state such as Representatives Carnahan and Clay, and Senator McCaskill, all of whom actively campaigned for him and appeared in ads on his behalf.
Despite these challenges - and with the help of Kansas City Congressman Emanuel Cleaver and Former Majority Leader Dick Gephardt - Hillary Clinton won this important toss-up state.
All across the country, Hillary Clinton supporters were celebrating their incredible Missouri victory, but after all the votes were actually counted, the AP, Reuters, various national and local news outlets, and the Clinton campaign all ended up with egg on their faces. Why? Because they all made pronouncements based on “projections” of how Missourians voted, rather than, as CNN did, waiting for the votes to be tallied.
This is not meant to be an all-encompassing endorsement of CNN’s election coverage–they’ve certainly made mistakes (PDF)–but tonight, in Missouri, CNN got it right by waiting for 99% of votes to be counted before correctly announcing Obama’s victory. The entire primary process (and, I’m sure, the general election) could benefit from a little less projecting and a little more accuracy. Thanks to the media’s emphasis of projected results (without the emphasis on the word “projected”) some of my friends who worked on the Clinton campaign may be getting a few extra hours of sleep, but they’re going to be in for quite a surprise when they wake up.
Missouri Law Recognizes Gay Couples?
Missouri, though trending blue in recent elections, is in no way a bastion of liberalism. Last year, in fact, Missouri legislators introduced a bill that would make Christianity the state’s official religion (it failed), and Missouri law allows LGBT people to be fired, evicted, and even cut off from statewide public services because of their sexual orientation. That’s why I was surprised to hear a story from Kansas City where Missouri may have legally recognized a lesbian couple.
A lovers’ quarrel between two women got out of hand, police said, and one found herself nearly set on fire. She said it was the first time in their 10-month relationship that she had seen her girlfriend get violent.
…
The victim said [ex-girlfriend Nicole P.] Selectman called her several times and asked her not to pursue charges, but prosecutors charged Selectman with unlawful use of a weapon, second-degree domestic assault and tampering with a motor vehicle.
Let me perfectly clear: this–and every case of domestic violence–is a terrible crime that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and I’m in no way trying to suggest that assaulting your partner is an appropriate way to gain recognition for your (soon-to-be over) relationship. But I found it interesting that Selectman was charged with domestic assault. Under Missouri law,
A person commits the crime of domestic assault in the second degree if the act involves a family or household member or an adult who is or has been in a continuing social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the actor
In this case, the law apparently includes homosexual partnerships in the same category as heterosexual relationships (and for good reason, because domestic abuse is not a specifically homo- or heterosexual crime). I wonder, though, if this law could be used to argue that homosexual relationships should be given that same equivalence when it comes to adoption, or parenting rights, or hospital visitation rights, or joint banking, or tax dependency, or other benefits that are currently only available to heterosexuals. In a very morbid sort of way, could this domestic violence law be the first step to LGBT rights in Missouri?