Posted on 09/09/2004 12:16:21 AM PDT by hawaiian
NEWARK, N.J. -- Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has lost his double-digit lead over President George W. Bush in New Jersey and is nearly tied with the GOP incumbent, according to a new poll.
Bush, coming off his party's national convention, slashed Kerry's lead among Garden State voters to 4 percentage points, according to a Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll released Thursday. <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--bush-kerry-poll0909sep08,0,3304612.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire>Full Story</a>. NJ is now officially a swing state! Kerry enjoyed a 20-point lead over Bush after the Democratic National Convention in July.</p> <p>
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
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
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.
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
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.
If NY, NJ and California go "in play" Kerry is really toast.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.