Posted on 11/27/2004 5:55:56 AM PST by chiller
Jann Wenner interviews Ruy Teixeira, David Gergen, and Peter Hart....generally good analysis.
Let's start with the major factors in Bush's victory.
RUY TEIXEIRA: If you want to look at ground zero of how Bush expanded his coalition, the key change from 2000 was that he did a lot better among white voters. His margin of victory among whites widened from twelve to seventeen points -- and almost all of that was among white working-class women.
DAVID GERGEN: The decrease in the gender gap alone was enough to give him the victory. But he also increased his margin among Hispanics. And I don't think there's any doubt that in some key states, such as Ohio, he rallied his base through a strong organization and symbolic politics -- especially the ban on gay marriage.
PETER HART: The other thing that's really important to understand is the Mississippi River: Since 1912, whoever has won a plurality of states along the Mississippi has won the presidency. This year, a sense of Republicanism crept up the river. The president won Missouri -- which was always a toss-up state -- by more than seven percent. Iowa flipped in his direction, and in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we waited all night to find out that Kerry had just barely carried each of those states. In state legislatures, the story is even more dramatic: going from huge Democratic majorities in the Seventies to watching the GOP dominate in Missouri and Wisconsin. Only Illinois remains solidly in Democratic hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
Illinois flipped. It looks good in WI and MN. I see a lot of GOP pickups in 2006. Especially toppling mediocre wannabe Mark Dayton in MN.
Dayton cannot be forgiven for his cowardice, fleeing from Washington to find safety in an underground shelter in MN.
The agenda is huge and could be monumental; courts, tax reform, tort reform, soc. sec., Mid-East peace....jeez..maybe even immigration.
I grew up in Minnesota, althogh I left many years ago. But I still have family and friends there. The voters will crucify him for being a wimp and bugging out by closing his office.
The real question of this election is: how did Kerry come so close. The Answer is the relentless pounding Bush took for four years, escalated in the last year, by the "Main Stream Media," who I see as the REAL losers on 11/2. Couldn't have happened to a better bunch.
Interesting read. I dumped my 20-year Rolling Stone subscription in 1999 after I ceased being an Independent fence-sitter and became a Republican. Jan Wenner's overt liberalism and agenda against conservatives became all too apparent.
That's why this article is kind of surprising.
Athough, he did manage to balance it out with the opening cartoon that slams W and Christian America. I'm sure that made him feel so much better.
Glimmers of the beginning of comprehension. For Democrats, it's all about "who debates better" and "who'll promise you social programs." Yeah, who ever talks slick and throws money at you. They sneer at anyone who'll "do anything for money" and then are appalled to find that voters are voting on values and not crass materialistism.
And this "getting the youth on our side" business... Little do they understand that the young who were so easily influenced by Jon Stewart et al are NOT securing the Democratic future. They'll become more conservative as they grow up. Everyone knows this except for Democratic strategists, I think.
These idiots can't seem to grasp the idea that just maybe the Democrats "did" get the specifics across, and the electorate didn't like what they had to offer.
I broke my rule (not to read leftie rags) and clicked the link, and I'm glad I did. The image with Bush and Jesus confirmed for me why I have said rule, but the analysis is educational and enlightening.
..but I also wonder how 57 million could vote for that elitist POS. Old media certainly facilitated Kerry, and maybe they are the reason, ...afterall, they're assault was relentless...non-stop for more than a year.
And the Iraq war can't be called a popular war...that's certainly part of it, too.
Perfect summation of my feelings. :-)
Pretty good article, but it is STILL obvious from this discussion that the Democrats are delusional, as Gergen pointed out, about the need to "tweak" instead of overhaul. Also, the bit about red vs blue states should be put to rest, anyone want to write a decent essay about the counties, if not the individual voters...
"And they went for Kerry by nine points in an election in which the country as a whole went for the other side by three points. That's the biggest difference between youth and the country as a whole that we've seen in the last four elections -- even greater than in 1996, when Bill Clinton carried the youth by nineteen points and carried the country as a whole by eight points. I think there's real potential there for the future."
A nine point Dem. margin is p-poor, imho. It was great to see young conservatives step up.
Let's see! Oh! Yeah. I read it in the prestigious Rolling Stone. N O T ! David Gergen? Sonny Tufts? Aren't they both dead?
Desperate acts of desperate people. Expect more of this dreck as failed Liberals exhibit their post election hierarchy of failure responses.
Hugh point. The red state/blue state focus will and should move in the future to red counties/blue counties. Even more specifically, red cities/blue cities.
but who made the war in Iraq unpopular? Not the soldiers who are fighting there or their families. It's the elitists in the "Main Stream Media" whose abhorrence of war under virtually any circumstances have shaped that opinion by their coverage, their photos, the opinion pieces. If coverage of the war had been less biased, it would not be unpopular.
I read the entire article and the comments of Peter Hart, a longtime Democrat pollster, clearly belie the intro of him as a non-partisan. But that's ROlling Stone for you. At least Hart isn't Peter Fenn or Bob Beckel. He is from a more rational era in the Dem party.
Wenner printed this stuff because it promotes myths about the electorate that he favors.
The one thing they haven't even touched (they came close, but no cigar) is the fact that middle America has noticed that the democrats are the party of the rich. They keep talking about "tax breaks for the rich" and yet see for themselves that all the rich folks are the ones screaming about it. They've figured out that the rich are NOT the ones getting the breaks, it's the guy in the middle, the one who is your employer who is going to get soaked. The filthy rich remain filthy rich. When Teresa Kerry pays 12% taxes it tells you all you need to know. Let's go for the national sales tax and see what happens.
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