AP/Star Ledger: Bush Cuts Kerry's 20-Point NJ Lead To 4

Newsday ^

[SunkenCiv]

Also, I agree with your point regarding the Dims and the electoral college. And I forgot some URLs, so I'll settle for this one:

"At the same time, the painful truth is that slow-growing New York has become increasingly less important in national electoral politics. When Dwight Eisenhower was nominated in 1952, the state had 45 electoral votes; this year it will cast just 31. Republican presidential aspirants may need the campaign money they raise here, but they have shown that they can win the presidency without New York's electoral votes."

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/feature-commentary/20040607/202/998

[Wolfstar]

So if you can volunteer...

Agreed. We are all foot-soldiers in this war, even if here at home our weapons are yard signs, bumper stickers and the like.

I have given up every Saturday through the election (and evenings if I can manage it after work) to volunteer at the Bush-Cheney/Rep HQ in my locality. I wish I had the resources to do far, far more.

[SunkenCiv]

Dems' Ad Buys Show Race Down to 14 States
Newsday.com | September 8, 2004, 7:01 PM EDT | By RON FOURNIER and LIZ SIDOTI
Posted on 09/08/2004 4:34:11 PM PDT by jacko63
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210511/posts

Battleground State of Michigan a Key
Las Vegas Sun / AP | September 07, 2004 at 10:58:15 PDT | RON FOURNIE
Posted on 09/07/2004 12:56:46 PM PDT by rface
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1209428/posts

[Wallace T.]

The slow growth of states like New York is a serious weakness to the Democrats' strategy to be sure. Additionally, Florida will probably surpass New York as the third most populous state in the 2010s, further diminishing its importance. Additionally, most of the strongly Republican states, like Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, are growing more rapidly than the national average, in part due to in-migration of people from the Northeast and Great Lakes region whose political ideology (though not cultural tastes) is similar to those of the natives. Neither Neal Boortz (a Marine brat) nor Sean Hannity (from the New York suburbs) are native Southerners, yet their radio shows derive their audience to a great extent from the great-great grandsons of Confederate veterans. They both got their big break in Atlanta.

However, offsetting this gains are troubling problems. The Hispanic vote is overwhelmingly Democratic, except for Cubans. Their population is increasing rapidly via immigration (legal and illegal) and larger families. The Hispanic increase is the primary reason California is now dominated by Democrats. Asian-Americans, though often better off financially than the Hispanics, tend to be Democrat in political affiliation. The second area of concern is what might be termed "liberal drift" among the white middle class in "Greater New England": areas initially settled by the descendants of Puritans, including New England proper, upstate New York, the Great Lakes region, the Upper Mississippi Valley, and the Pacific Northwest. Liberal drift is also evident in the suburbs of the New York to Washington corridor and in California. Reagan carried the Empire State and New Jersey in 1980 and 1984 because he did well because the GOP was strong in the "collar counties" surrounding the Big Apple. By 2004, the Democrats were dominant in these areas. Similar changes were evident in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. In 1996, Clinton came close to winning the popular vote in Orange County, California, which had in the 1960s been so conservative that a local politician joked that he had joined the John Birch Society to win the middle of the road vote.

The fact is that the GOP must recognize the danger in immigration and liberal drift in calculating its future electoral chances nationally.

[dfwgator]

If NY, NJ and California go "in play" Kerry is really toast.

[firewalk]

.