I have heard this quote repeated a number of times, and it is generally attributed to a "Manhattan socialite" or "a member of Manhattan's literati". The speaker is also generally described as female. Then, today I read a piece in Commentary (http://www.commentary.org/0101/teachout.htm; third paragraph) that attributes it to longtime New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. But a search on the Web didn't reveal any other references to Kael, or to anyone.

So was this quote ever actually uttered, and if so, was it Kael who said it?

This quote pops up here in New York every now and then to show how left wing and out of touch the West Side Manhattanites are.

Well, they really are.

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Originally posted by Anthony:
This quote pops up here in New York every now and then to show how left wing and out of touch the West Side Manhattanites are.

Well, they really are.

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There's a famous quote from 1972 by a surprised Democrat that goes something like, "How could McGovern lose? Everyone I know voted for him."

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I think they've got the context wrong. The point wasn't that Democrats were truly surprised McGovern lost (everybody knew he was going to get creamed); the point was that after Nixon was forced out of office, nobody would admit to having voted for him. Thus the ironic question was how Nixon managed to win if everybody had voted for someone else.

- snopes

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Originally posted by snopes:
I think they've got the context wrong. The point wasn't that Democrats were truly surprised McGovern lost (everybody knew he was going to get creamed); the point was that after Nixon was forced out of office, nobody would admit to having voted for him. Thus the ironic question was how Nixon managed to win if everybody had voted for someone else.

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That's really interesting, because I've NEVER heard the quote repeated in that context. It's always used as Anthony describes it, to poke fun at out-of-touch lefties.

I actually live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and when I went to vote last month, there was a large crowd, and the poll workers were rather disorganized, meaning that I had to wait nearly a half hour before I could get into the booth. As we all stood around, I thought about yelling out, "C'mon, this is the Upper West Side! Just count how many people are in the room, give that many votes to Gore and Hillary, and let us get out of here."

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Originally posted by snopes:
I think they've got the context wrong. The point wasn't that Democrats were truly surprised McGovern lost (everybody knew he was going to get creamed); the point was that after Nixon was forced out of office, nobody would admit to having voted for him. Thus the ironic question was how Nixon managed to win if everybody had voted for someone else.

- snopes

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