GSP mock election result not as unsettling as it may seem
Matt Gunterman July 8th, 2008
I notice over at the C-J’s Area blog, that the very old and decrepit man-whore that the Republicans have running for president (what’s his name? I can’t remember because he’s so overshadowed by the Obama Sublime) won the mock election held across the campuses of the Governor’s Scholars Program. The final tally was 49.4 percent to 46.9 percent.
Now, on first reading, you probably get a bit depressed that such a plurality of Kentucky’s “best and brightest” are still drinking the crazy Kool-Aid of the GOP.
But those numbers are actually very encouraging because GSP is skewed towards rural perspectives. For example, the ten largest counties in Kentucky by population contain roughly 1.8-million people, or about 43-percent of the state’s population. Those same counties in 2007 had roughly 380 of the 1,148 Governor’s Scholars — or about 33-percent.
So, you see, if you’re a bright kid in Kentucky at a large urban or suburban school, you’re less likely to get a spot at GSP than your rural counterpart. And, as someone who was at GSP as a student from a rural high school, the students from urban schools are (on average) a notch above the ones from rural areas, if for no other reason than they’ve had a bit more cosmopolitan upbringing. But, let’s be realistic, urban schools have more resources to offer their students and parents of students at those schools have higher expectations of the schools themselves because more of them have been through higher education and work in environments that value higher education.
However, I am myself in favor of a bit of rural affirmative action because GSP for me was an eye-opener at just how inadequate my high school education had generally been.
Seeing as how the Governor’s Scholar Program skews its student population to the rural demographic and thus to the political right, it’s pretty encouraging in my book that the result was so close in the mock election.
It would be interesting if every student’s vote were weighted by the population of the county they’re representing. For instance, if there were 100 students from Jefferson County, then those votes would be representative of 7,000 votes each, while the 3 or so from a county like McLean would be worth 3,000 each.
- Mitch McConnell
- Comments(5)
Those results are encouraging, to say the least.
yea but to bad that most of they will not go to the polls.. i am sorry to say that kentucky is going to be a red state in this election.
Oh, the Obama folks will be holding plenty of registration drives and we will be offering rides too, no fear : )
Democrats may fall in love while Republicans fall in line, but we have the Supreme organization.
As a Governor’s Scholar who voted in the mock election that you are referring to I am here to tell you that the numbers were not skewed. There were representatives from EVERY county in Kentucky and McCain won at all three campuses individually and obviously overall. We had several classes of debate over the presidential election before we voted. You are being very stereotypical in saying that rural people would automatically vote for McCain over Obama. We are the best and brightest students in Kentucky and we voted off of who we thought would be best fit for the position. I am from a rural school that had 3 scholars chosen and I did just fine at Governor’s Scholar. I was even asked to give the final speech at the end of the program. Please reevaluate your facts before you lash out against the Governor’s Scholar Program. Also, you based your findings off of the demographics for the 2007 Program. This is 2008 and things may have very well changed!
Quote from previous post - “We are the best and brightest students in Kentucky”. Do I detect narcissism here?