In a Detroit News survey of 400 Michigan voters, opponents of racial preferences outnumber proponents by 64% to 23%. (Hat Tip to Number Two Pencil)
A poll breakdown shows support for the ballot initiative cuts across age groups, gender, religion and union and nonunion households. The proposal is supported by about two-thirds of voters in the suburbs and outstate, but is opposed 47 percent to 42 percent in Detroit.
Survey respondents were split along racial lines, with 67 percent of whites in favor and 19 percent opposed, while a small sample of black voters showed 47 percent opposed and 45 percent in favor.
Respondents of all party affiliations backed the affirmative action ban, but the proposal won far more support among Republicans (77 percent in favor) than Democrats (51 percent in favor). Among independent voters, 59 percent supported the initiative.
Opponents of the initiative are hoping to keep it off the ballot.
On Monday, about a hundred demonstrators marched in frigid weather at U-M in support of affirmative action. Cyril Cordor, a local organizer for the group By Any Means Necessary, charged that promoters of the ballot proposal are using deception to gain signatures. The way the petitions are worded, Cordor said, Michiganians might not realize they’re being asked to turn back the clock on racial progress.
“It doesn’t even use the words affirmative action,” said Cordor, a 22-year-old senior from Detroit. “That’s why there’s a legal battle to get the petition (language) changed. Our emphasis is to keep it from getting on the ballot.”
With early poll results showing overwhelming support for the initiative, I can see why opponents hope to prevent a vote.
1) I don’t think you meant to say
“opponents of racial proponents”.
2) It’s clear why opponents of the initiative — that is, proponents of racial preferences — want the ballot to use the phrase “affirmative action”. In this case, they will then say that “affirmative action” is misunderstood and doesn’t imply racial preferences.
You are right. The irony, after we made this abundantly clear from our inception, is that they now say “affirmative action” is equal to “race preferences” (ignoring socio-economic affirm action, outreach, the CRA itself, etc.). If we had gone the other route, they would have pointed out the vast reach of “banning affirmative action” and said it is not equal to just the type of “race preferences” U-Michigan implemented (they would have been right on that). The opposition’s arguments are fully inconsistent, and they will do anything, apparently.