What an exciting election year for demographers: This percent of the women’s vote; that percent of the black vote; another percent of the Hispanic vote; the Starbucks crowd; the youth vote; the evangelists; the Wal-Mart shoppers; the green-collar workers. Each group with its predictable characteristics and behaviors, right?

Nope. The pollsters, demographers and political analysts continue to wring their hands in bewilderment at one primary and caucus result after another – results that betray their predictions based on outdated demographic profiles.

One look at the three leading and diverse presidential candidates offers immediate evidence that it’s time to rethink those old classifications. Unless, of course, we keep hearing the candidates classified too globally as black, veteran, woman.

Where one stands depends upon where one sits. And where one sits depends upon where one stands, so the saying goes. The new demographic profiles should focus on and evolve based on the real relevancies of people. Demographers should be rolling up their sleeves with enthusiasm as they dust off their drawing boards. People’s relevancies are as varied within regions as they are nationally.

Americans are of many cultures, many tastes, needs, talents, opinions, problems, experiences, skills, concerns, dreams — while technology continues to broaden consumer access to more and more information. Whew! Looks like demographers have all kinds of new and exciting discoveries ahead.

KRYSTYN HARTMAN
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.