Fair point. I am sure some Turkish Germans voted for him who would have otherwise not voted green. But his agenda is so clearly against the mainstream Turkish population that I am very sure that he was not made what he is by a minority voting for him.

Ah yes, but that may also be having an effect. If you know somebody well, you are more likely to step beyond some prejudice and vote for (or against) him, because you see the individual and his or her contribution and less the ethnicity.

However, in local elections, you are often chosing between different nobodies. Local politicians don't get the same media exposure as national politicians, so if you are a prejudiced person and if you are undecided between two candidates, you are more likely to let the name influence your decision.

It could... but if someone has an extremist idea and doesn't fit your political view, you won't vote for him, are you?

Same for someone from a minority. Many black republicans didn't vote for Obama despite having the same skin color.

In this exemple, maybe people conciously made the decision to not allowed any foreigners to take some power in the country no matter their same political views. Let's call it making a statement?

But believe me, my In-Laws are on the conservative side but would never ever vote for someone promoting a culture clash between turks and germans in Germany. Nor they would never ever support anyone connected to the PKK.

But honestly: I have participated in plenty of votes at home. I even volunteered to count them afterwards. People take the paper, cross the party the like at the top and done... It takes really initiative and will to go through the list and cross out names you don't like. Making a second cross behind a name you know and like is one quick thing, but actively filtering out foreign names is really strange for me - espeically if you are a SP voter. that this happens so frequently that it indeed changes the list and has an impact on the seats is amazing me. It would already surprise me if it happens with one candidate that had some bad press, but if it happens systematically over all parties it is a really weird mind-set for me.

Obama was elected into office because of the white vote, not the black vote. The black vote alone could not put Obama in office, even though a majority of Black Americans voted for him. An immigrant should be allowed in politics of his host country when they can fully identify with their host country and their values. If you have a middle-eastern Muslim elected to politics preaching the glories of Shariah law and that all Muslims should obey it then they haven't integrated and this can be dangerous for their host country.

In the case with Obama, voting for someone just because they "look like you" or have the same roots can lead to disappointment. He can't be the president for "Black Americans only." Many Black Americans realized that Obama is a real politician, and no, he wasn't going to pass special laws that allow Black Americans to be free from filing income taxes for example. Not saying they thought this, but just proving a point.

But the evidence suggests that it is happening. Maybe even left wing voters have prejudices but are less prepared to admit it.

Well there you go, I do admit that I am prejudiced against the SVP/UDC

It's not a prejudice if you build an opinion based on their own marketing materials. Crossing out a name because it ends on "-ic" is something different.

As much as I like to bash the SVP - it is in a democracy absolutely ok to disagree and have many different opinions. "Tolerance" literally means that I can bear to accept their (completly wrong ) opinion. But the voters overall and especially the non-svp ones being so bigoted to talk tolerance and then vote intolerant did surprise me.

coincident:

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/...story/22405899

Both of your 'positive' examples here rather prove the point that a foreign name is disadvantageous in elections in Germany as well.

The leader of the green party gets selected by party members. 'The people' in Özdemir's electoral district voted for Stefan Kaufmann during the 2009 elections, preventing Özdemir from entering the Bundestag.

Also Rösler is a child of his party. As far as I know he got into all his political functions through the party, not via a direct vote from regular folks.

For comparisons sake and a bit of cynicism, the head of the east Europeans Romanies is called 'Zarkozy' - oops.

I don't doubt that there is a bias against people with such names, even on the left. But the conclusions drawn in the article you posted seem unsound at best, statistically speaking. IMHO,some serious multivariate statics would be needed for that.

This article http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/...story/23091160 lines out that not all cases were as clear as the article you cited makes you believe (there were several candidates with foreign sounding names that fared quite well, plus the actual place on the list (the measure used) wasn't as good a predictor for the result of "swissier" candidates either.

Well, let's just see how the vote goes this coming weekend in Ticino.

(what happens up 'north' really is of no interest)

Tom

Ok, little lecture on the German voting system: You can win a seat in the Bundestag in two ways as voters have two votes:
The first vote is for the local district with second you choose a party. The candidate in your district gets you a seat who has a simple majority of the votes and the rest is then filled up with "list candidates" according to the percentage a party got. pretty complicated...
The two guys I gave as an example did not win this district as they represent two SMALL parties. The majority is typically for a member of one of the two BIG parties. I had a short look through the MP list and there was exactly ONE green MP that won a majority: Ströbele in Berlin Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg is not exactly an average part of Berlin which is in turn not exactly an average city... so expecting them to get elected directly as green or liberal candidate is honestly a bit much.

That a party like the FDP is most likely voting an Asian looking guy as their president is remarkable and a positive sign of integration for me. After all are their voters not as liberal as the name suggests... but rather conservative pro-business folks. On the other hand is their current president openly homosexual, I guess that was a discussion before as well...

Thanks for enlightening me...

Özdemir was at the time of the election already a high-profile and well known politician. He had a good chance of winning.

Business people (FDP) are pragmatic and will choose the person that is best suited for the job, independent of his origin.

I understood your previous posts in this thread as: you were unpleasantly surprised that the swiss people (even the 'tolerant' SP voters) seem to have an aversion against politicians with foreign sounding names. As an example for the contrary you gave Germany's Rösler/ Özdemir. But the two are party politicians and not voted for by citizens imo. Just like the swiss parties put foreigners on the top of their lists who then got voted away by the people. I think that (unfortunately) any politician with a migration background's facing problems and that this is nothing especially seen in Switzerland.

So how on earth did they come up with Westerwelle then?

I do not agree that the comparison you are drawing is fair: Winning a majority of votes in a district like Stuttgart - which till two weeks ago has always been as black as the night with a relatively extreme green agenda is something completely different from getting your name crossed out by many voters in a local election who probably don't know you at all and simply do not like your name. Özedmir btw got nearly 30% - that's a lot for any green politician, immigration background or not. Deducting from this result that the voters in his district might have the same bias against immigrants that Tagesanzeiger is suggesting Swiss have is in my eyes not logical at all.

This discussion may not be worth getting into, but I can't help myself.

Who voted for Obama? This Telegraph article explains it pretty well:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...d-for-him.html.

Yes, most African Americans voted for him (wouldn't you?), but that constitutes only 20% of the voting public. Obama won in a number of northern states with small African American populations. The only people who I know personally who voted for McCain are either 1) old or 2) hopelessly conservative (often both).

It is everywhere the same. I know some fairly large Silicon Valley companies that only hire Asians. They will never admit it of course but it is a deplorable fact.

In the USA, 16% of the US Congress is a minority while 32% of the country is a minority. I'd say its a good percentage

The German FDP is a rather mixed bag, with different sorts of people. There is a conservative right wing edge which will occasionally spit out something that's semi-racist (remember Möllemann), there is the pro business section that says anything goes as long as its good for business, and there is a small but dedicated pro-freedom section that takes issue with the state getting too much power. At least that's my observation of the Germany FDP. That three so different outlooks can work together as one party surprises me.