AS it is in many states. It is a vile ploy on McCain's part but it will probably work in the sense some people will never admit to pollsters or even friends how they really feel on the issue.

Michigan Civil Rights Initiative passed with 58%

66% poll support for Colorado Civil Rights Initiative.  Poll conducted by jointly WSJ and Washington Post

Washington State poll. "Brian Komar of the D.C.-based Leadership Conference on Civil Rights said the challenge for affirmative action defenders will be educating voters about the initiative's true consequences. But with polls reflecting as much as 69 percent support for I-200 statewide, he conceded it'll be tough."

"The goal of affirmative action is beautiful - but it's the wrong tactic to reach the goal because you are trying to include people by excluding people and expect the excluded people to be open to the idea."

Wish I could give you a thousand highfives for that statement.  Simple.  Clear.  Correct.

Re TL AAs....who knows?  No Demographics except for those who self-reveal.  I've seen a few here, both male and female...same for Hispanic.  Others?  Occasionally.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Funding is not the problem...not in all bad schools.  See D. C. public schools, for instance.  Perhaps Michelle Rhee can do something about that.  She's certainly trying.  And NYC is having 'a go' as well.

So clear.

There was a case in a Fire Dept., I don't remember which city. Someone was promoted because of extra points given to him for being Hispanic. Others who were not promoted opposed this on the grounds that he was a white guy with some distant Spanish ancestry. They wanted a committee to be established to determine who was "really" Hispanic after looking into applicants' backgrounds.

Of course they had a very good point. What lunacy to give someone preferential treatment for having a Spanish last name, when he could be a Spanish aristocrat or a Guatemalan Indian or a white American with one Spanish great-great-grandfather.

this is a serious issue for some of us. If all you want to do is blast Obama then you do not care about the issues.

that seems to be a pattern with a few of you.

John McCain has adopted an outrageous position and your insitinct is to defend it, driven by your dislike of Obama.

you are now part of an anti-cult.

... if we say affirmative action at leading American universities is now open to poor people, regardless of their race, no more of these middle class blacks who have lower test scores getting into places like Princeton or Harvard or any place like that. The result of that, the actual result of doing it, just like that and nothing else will be for every black that might have benefited, there are going to be ten poor whites who could potentially benefit.

It will be a significant reduction of the number of blacks at these institutions. Now, maybe that's okay. Maybe that's not okay. But to reach that result without explicitly engaging the question, what will happen to the racial representation of African-Americans if we make this shift, will be to do blind universalism. And I'm not for that.

If you support such an outcome fine.  I don't.

And later in the interview Loury says:

But the other thing that I wanted to say about Obama is with respect to blacks is who are voting to Barack Obama in 90 percent levels in the primary season, and who constitute a very important element of his political coalition. I don't know that they recognize that they're voting for the end of race as we've known it in the country. I don't know that they recognize and I don't mean to belittle them. I'm just asking a question. I'm not sure they recognize that--

We saw that revealed in this primary season.  Yet, affirmative action benefited women (white AND black and hispanic and asian, etc.) more than any other defined group/classification.  

George Stephanopoulos asked Obama if his daughters should be able to benefit from affirmative action when the time comes for them to go to college. The girls "should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," Obama said.

Stephanopoulos was driving at the question of whether race-based affirmative action programs are still needed. Another way to frame the issue is whether race or class is the more important factor in our society. Are minorities raised in middle-class or wealthy homes still held back by racism? Or should we now focus on socioeconomic status as the principal barrier keeping people from reaching their potential?

Obama's answer, basically, was yes. To both questions.

Obama has repeatedly gone on record as a supporter of affirmative action. But "if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it," he said in the ABC interview, then "affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society."

He seemed to side with those who think class predominates when he said, "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."

I am not shy about criticizing Barack Obama. But I criticize him for things he says and does, not things I want to imagine being true.

Asked if his young children would be candidates for affirmative action when they reach college, Obama said their middle-class upbringing should disqualify them.

"I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any [college] admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," Obama said in an interview with ABC News. "We should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."

On the other hand, he has said this,

In response to a Globe request for comment, Obama's campaign issued a statement by him that said affirmative action programs, when properly structured, "can open up opportunities otherwise closed to qualified minorities" without harming whites. Yet, "we shouldn't ignore that race continues to matter" in American society, Obama said; to suggest otherwise "turns a blind eye to both our history and our experience - and relieves us of the responsibility to make things right."

"The only way to introduce class equitably into university admissions, for example, would be to decrease the advantages that wealthier applicants have."

Another way is to expand access by increasing the actual numbers admitted to the school/college/university/department, etc.