Posted on 12/13/2004 7:59:31 PM PST by macbee
Overview
We have written a lot about the red shift of the last decade, the trend toward the Republican party at every level of government. Today’s question is: if you were running the DNC, where would you try to find the votes you need to win. It’s a hard task, given the location of your voters, the growth trends of Republican areas, and the structural problems of the Democratic party. Here are some of the issues in play.
The 3 - 4 million Democrats who turned to the dark side
John Podhoretz put the figure at 3.6 million; Roger Simon says 3 million, and adds this:
The Democrats lost in the last election much more seriously than is commonly understood. A swing of three million votes is gigantic in our society where party allegiances are formed in childhood and reinforced by an omnipresent media. We can see the primitiveness of these allegiances in the remaining popularity of Howard Dean, a man who a very few years ago presented himself as a pro-gun centrist, jumping around like a re-upped version of Jerry Rubin to appeal to a segment of the Democratic Party that hasn’t changed one view about anything in thirty-five years. But… and here’s the crux… these people are not that exceptional. Few of us change our views over a lifetime.
Yet, three million did.
He has it exactly right. These Democrats didn’t stay home; they didn’t leave the presidential ballot unmarked. They crossed over to the dark side. One supposes they weren’t brought to the polls by anyone’s GOTV effort, though that is hard to know. In any event, they showed up, having voted for Al Gore, and pulled the lever for Bush...
(Excerpt) Read more at dinocrat.com ...
Gonna have a tough time replacing future Dims when they are being aborted.
One killer for Dems is that they can't raise funds in Miami. Some hip, modern Hispanics and Jews in Miami can still be convinced to vote for Democrats (for now), but they've already decided to not support the Dems with their own pocketbooks.
That's an enormous "red" flag for the Dems. Watch for other Democratic Party areas to gradually follow Miami's lead.
I predict a continuing conservative surge for at least 10 more years. Then all the illegals have a shot.
Maybe so, but more rats also increased their votes. More rats voted in this election than at any previous point in history. It seems that the rats held their voters, but Republican votes grew by leaps. 911 happened and for a lot of people who never voted this was the catalyst.
Sorry, just messing with your heads.
Maybe.
You'll never know.
I have a couple of ideas. How bout you teach children to read and write in those city schools? Then you could get some bulldozers and knock down decrepit old housing in those rat and roach infested cities.
But I thought MoveOn.org held the pink slip for the Democrat Party now. Let them pony up the money they need to stay competitive.
They won't get me back, even after 28 years of voting Democratic. Not after the weak response to 9/11 and the terrorist appeasement that followed. Not after allowing a scum sucking bottom feeder like Cynthia McKinney into the party and then taking her back after getting rid of her once. This long-time Democrat is through, through with the party. You'd have to resurrect Harry Truman from the dead to get me back. And even then you'd have to prove you will fight for this country. Pulling that republican level for the first time felt really good. Again, again!
A lot of those democrats are most likely Southern, from the UP or Northeast Michigan, or from places like West Virginia. Working class folks mostly who are conservative.
The republican switchers are usually liberals from rich areas.
I have not scrubbed numbers, so please pound on me if I'm wrong, but I highly doubt that Bush's 3 mil-vote advantage was due to Gore voters changing sides. Just cannot see it happening. I think it's much more likely that those 4 mil Christians who supposedly sat home in 2000 actually went to vote this time around. (I'm strictly speaking in general terms here, realizing that this soup is made up of many ingredients.)
Good for you..............you join a growing group of dems who realize that the party left THEM, not the other way around.
I heard on the local radio yesterday that in New York State, President Bush won 5 more counties t han he had in 2000 and got over 500,000 more votes in the state than he'd gotten in 2000.
A quick glance at the exit poll numbers supports your view. In both 2000 and 2004, the same percentage of Democrats voted for Bush -- 11%. Of all voters who voted for Gore in 2000, 9% switched over to vote for Bush in 2004. But that's cancelled out by the 10% of Bush voters from 2000 who voted for Kerry this time. It doesn't look like there was any significant net erosion on either side.
Good stuff. Thanks
You are probably right for the most part; but I was a Gore voter who switched sides. I can't be the only one who wised up after our country was attacked on 9/11.
The term "Sept. 12 Republican" is sometimes used for this change; Dennis Miller and moviemaker David Zucker describe themselves this way. Numerous traditionally Democratic voters decided that Kerry and the DNC simply are not deep-down committed to ensuring that the US deals seriously with the terrorist threat. The fact that Howard Dean is now being seriously considered for DNC leadership simply reinforces this pacifist/isolationist image for the party.
Ain't that the truth!
Actor Ron Silver is another Sept 12th Republican, as you put it. I like the term, it certainly fits!
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