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Interesting Analysis
Topic Started: Nov 5 2008, 10:45 AM (160 Views)
Dwayne
Profanity deleted by Hoss
Quote:
 
Notes from the collapse

posted at 10:35 am on November 5, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

This morning, after having absorbed the substantial victory of Barack Obama, I noticed a couple of interesting items in the data. Barack Obama certainly won this race, but he won it with just a little more votes than George Bush won in his re-election bid, and the turnout models came up short.

In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry by winning 62.04 million votes. In 2008, Obama won 62.443 million, a gain of only 400,000. In 2004, Kerry garnered 59.028 million votes; John McCain only got 55.386 million. That means this election saw 3.24 million fewer votes than four years ago. Far from being more energized, the nation appeared to be more apathetic.

Using these numbers, we can see that Barack Obama succeeded in turning out his base much more effectively than McCain did his. How do we know that it’s a base turnout rather than a tsunami of opinion to Democrats? For one thing, Dems didn’t pick up a boatload of new seats in the House, and they may underperform expectations yet in the Senate. They did gain some strength with independents, but only gaining between 11-20 seats in the House tells us that they found votes in districts they already control, more than finding converts.

There’s nothing wrong with that; George Bush won two elections doing the same thing. He only gained 3 million votes over John Kerry’s 2004 performance. It does reflect a certain brittleness about Obama’s support that may not be evident in the flush of his Electoral College victory. That doesn’t mean he can’t broaden his appeal after winning office, but it does mean that he primarily won among friendlies and not through appeals to bipartisanship.

John McCain and the GOP didn’t get their turnout in this race. They lost almost seven million voters from 2004, a rather stunning number. We’ll be chewing on this for a while, but that’s more than 10% of the Bush vote that got lost in this election. Did they stay home, or did significant numbers of them defect to Obama? I’m guessing the latter. The GOP demoralized their base by acting like Democrats for too many years, and the winds of “change” proved too dispiriting this time around.

Is it his fault? I don’t think it’s his fault as much as the historical trend. Republicans faced two strong headwinds in this race: history and their own fecklessness as a party. History tells us that the White House almost always changes party after two terms with one, and Bush is a particularly disliked incumbent. The Republican Party lost its soul when it launched its K Street Project, and the spendfest of 2001-6 only made that more clear.

If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite. The Republican Party needs clarity, purpose, and most importantly, an end to the hypocrisy of talking smaller government while porking up their districts. When given only a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, Americans will choose the former, which we found out in 2006.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/05/notes-from-the-collapse/
Edited by Dwayne, Nov 5 2008, 10:46 AM.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Quote:
 
John McCain and the GOP didn’t get their turnout in this race. They lost almost seven million voters from 2004, a rather stunning number. We’ll be chewing on this for a while, but that’s more than 10% of the Bush vote that got lost in this election. Did they stay home, or did significant numbers of them defect to Obama? I’m guessing the latter.


My own anecdotal contribution to this would be to say in my neck of the woods I know a lot of conservatives who did not take the time to vote in this election because their was nothing to prove for them. In 2004 I remember many people saying they would be going to cast their vote for Bush even though the state (NY) would be a lock for Kerry; because they wanted to prove that Bush did have a mandate to lead after the 2000 fiasco. They knew their vote wouldn’t gain him electoral votes, but they wanted to bolster his popular votes. I heard no such things this time around, in fact many of these same people stated they weren't "wasting their time" to support the GOP.

It would be interesting to see how that 10% missing vote is distributed over the states.
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Dwayne
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Yes, many true conservatives (Not the Dixiecrat social conservatives, but the libertarian constitutional conservatives.) just couldn't bring themselves to support McCain. Palin inspired some of the social conservatives and some of the fiscal conservatives, but she never really inspired the 'Don't Tread On Me' type of conservative.

Frankly, that's where the democrats are the weakest and most hypocritical, and where I think the republican party can totally redefine what people see as conservative.
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RTW
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I don't understand this logic.

Why not vote for a conservative 3rd party candidate?

Wouldn't it be a stronger message if a conservative 3rd party picked up those 7,000,000 votes?
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Sgt. Jaggs
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How about a Voyager Movie
RTW
Nov 5 2008, 08:23 PM
I don't understand this logic.

Why not vote for a conservative 3rd party candidate?

Wouldn't it be a stronger message if a conservative 3rd party picked up those 7,000,000 votes?
Fuzzy Logic maybe?

Perhaps not Logic at all, maybe anger, rejection of having to "settle" for the very not conservative McCain. Not to mention his age and getting him and Palin elected would diminish the possibilities of a True conservative ticket in the primaries in 4 years.
I felt like a Maverick myself voting for McCains opponent :spank: .
I delight in returning him the favor.
My consternation has been well documented here and I got over it to a point but it resurfaced after the third debate.

I believe I said this was like running JFK vs Bob Dole.
:tsktsk: Bad Jag NO I told you so-ing!!!! Stop it or you are asking for it :bat: !!!!!

There was even some :rollingpin: from others who thought it could be a blowout for McCain. :unsure:

So if there were NOT record turnouts of new numbers of voters then Pissed off Conservatives? I agree with that Fuzzy Logic. Maybe that will galvanize the self righteousness of some evangelicals to get it right next time quicker

A few bullets from my perspective:

. Pat Robertson rushes to endorse Gulianni as soon as he can, early I thought. :chin:

. Hoss blames Huckabee for derailing Romney VIA Mormonism propaganda :ermm:

. I question many of those evangelical sentiment I know personally including my Brother who saw a Mormon conspiracy to infiltrate Government, Like the people in 1960 feared JFK would take orders from the Pope. :no:

. Hoss said he liked Romney but was secretly buying and stashing Ron Paul gear in his CLOSET!!!!!! :yuck:


Not sure whaere I was going with those points since my kids have interrupted me 25 times!!!!!!! :bat:

Anyhoooo Rush Limbaugh made an interesting point today. He said Conservatism was not defeated today, Republicans were.
In fact where conservatism was clearly defined it was victorious, as Prop 8 in California.

:crowded: <--Swid in Cali between a gay couple?????????? :unsure:

There needs to be a way to undo Judges who Legislate from the bench AND their trumped up rulings.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
RTW
Nov 5 2008, 08:23 PM
I don't understand this logic.

Why not vote for a conservative 3rd party candidate?

Wouldn't it be a stronger message if a conservative 3rd party picked up those 7,000,000 votes?
People are apathetic to third parties candidates. Most people don’t even know who they are.
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RTW
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Sgt. Jaggs
Nov 5 2008, 08:54 PM
There needs to be a way to undo Judges who Legislate from the bench AND their trumped up rulings.
Agreed. Many are now wishing for nothing but health and long life for all current judges and justices. ;)
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Dwayne
Profanity deleted by Hoss
I blame conservatives in general for trying to have a my way or the highway attitude on issues, but a shades of grey attitude on principles.

I guess the best example I can think of is that conservatives have made an issue of the principles of individualism and individual rights, but in practice they support drug usage laws, favoring laws on morality type issues like sodomy or prostitution, and other such laws.
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