#whitegirlproblems

Dang, girl, what the heck happened? It seems Salon's editor-at-large Joan Walsh nearly started a Twitterverse race riot the other day. In her latest column ("How I ignited a Twitter race brawl!"), Walsh, a very smart liberal's liberal, explains what happened. Apparently, what degenerated into a kerfuffle began as a Twitter conversation about Obama's true base (progressives vs. minorities), or something. Then people starting throwing rhetorical Molotov cocktails. And the next thing you know, it's a big trending topic. (I recall seeing some out-of-context tweets about this yesterday, but I kept walking.) The Atlantic also has a good take, if you're interested.

Me, I'm abstaining, thank you very much. Life's too short for these circular firing squad debates. However, Walsh (who I like a lot), posted some interesting election 2008 stats that were worth capturing:

Here's who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, courtesy of CNN:

* 95 percent of African Americans
* 85 percent of white Democrats
* 67 percent of Latinos
* 62 percent of Asians
* 43 percent of whites

Of 125,300,000 voters in the 2008 presidential election:

* Blacks made up 13% of the electorate, and gave 15.3 million votes to Obama.
* Latinos made up 9%, and gave 67% to Obama; Obama got 7.5 million votes from Latinos.
* Asian Americans made up 2%, and gave 62% to Obama; Obama got 1.5 million votes from Asian Americans.
* White Democrats made up 23%, and gave 85% to Obama; Obama got 24.5 million votes from white Democrats.
* Whites overall made up 74%, and gave 43% to Obama; Obama got 39.8 million votes from whites (John Kerry only got 41 percent of the white vote, by the way.)

Interesting.