Posted on 06/07/2002 2:53:20 PM PDT by cd jones
The coming Bush landslide
Politics/Elections Front Page Opinion (Published) Keywords: IT WON'T BE A LATE NIGHT ON NOVEMBER 7TH. IT WON'T EVEN BE CLOSE
Source: National Review
Author: Joel Rosenberg
Put a fork in it. Gore's campaign is done.
The media's conventional wisdom is wrong. It won't be a late night on November 7th. It won't even be close. The hedging, bobbing, and weaving from the political punditry is mere psychological projection that Gore still has a chance. He doesn't.
Swing voters and swing states are beginning to break for Bush.
Voter turnout and intensity favor Bush.
Internal divisions within the Gore campaign favor Bush.
President Clinton's thinly veiled criticisms of the vice president's campaign in Friday's front-page New York Times bombshell only confirm what all but the most partisan political analysts would admit there's trouble in River City and it starts with "G" and stands for "Gore."
Bottom line: An electoral landslide for the Texas governor is shaping up. And with it will come a dramatic mandate for conservative-minded reform.
Two weeks and one day before the first election of the 21st century, here's how I predict it will play out:
Final Popular Vote Prediction
Bush 51%
Gore 43%
Nader 5%
Buchanan 1%
[* NOTE: Bill Clinton never received more than 49% of the vote.]
Final Electoral Vote Prediction
Bush will rack up at least 404 electoral college votes far above the 270 needed to win and this will include California in the mother of all political upsets.
[* NOTE: This could actually be a conservative prediction. Reagan won 489 electoral college votes in 1980 and Bush, Sr. won 426 in 1988. Clinton won 370 and 379 respectively in 1992 and 1996.]
Leading Political Indicators
People don't like Al Gore. They don't think he's honest. They don't think he's trustworthy. They think he'll say anything to win. They believe he reeks divisive, mean-spirited political partisanship. In a word, they think he's creepy. And they're right.
By sharp contrast, voters and particularly swing voters like Gov. Bush. They think he's honest, strong, and comfortable in his own skin. And as the Mideast crisis heats up, they prefer the Bush-Cheney-Powell team to Clinton-Gore-Albright.
At the same time, the Gore team keeps spinning, effectively, "Sure, people may not like Gore personally but he's got the right issues."
Nonsense, for two reasons.
First, a recent Zogby poll showed that on 23 of 25 specific issue positions, Americans favor Bush to Gore. That's because Americans in the 21st century lean center-right ideologically. They want less government and more personal freedom--and these are the themes Bush internalized and sharpened in the GOP primaries in response to the center-right campaign of Steve Forbes (in contrast to John McCain's center-left campaign: freedom to pay fewer taxes, freedom to choose personal retirement accounts, freedom to choose from a wide range of Medicare plans, freedom to use MSAs, freedom for inner-city parents to choose schools that work for their kids. And such themes have worked spectacularly.
Second, Americans believe the vice president takes positions based on politics, not principle. Indeed, to try to hold his liberal base (and woo back Nader votes) Gore has venomously attacked Republicans for positions he and/or his running mate used to hold (tax cuts, Social Security choice, school choice, restrictions on abortion, opposition to special rights for homosexuals, etc)--positions most Americans still favor and haven't flip-flopped on.
Thus, the latest polls:
Portrait of America
Bush 46
Gore 41
Newsweek
Bush 48
Gore 41
Zogby
Bush 45
Gore 41
Battleground
Bush 44
Gore 40
Gallup
Bush 50
Gore 41
ABC News
Bush 48
Gore 43
Where Bush Will Win 404 Electoral Votes
Again, most analysts say this race will be a squeaker. Not true.
Bush has strong leads in states with 188 electoral votes. He is tied or slightly ahead in states with roughly another 120 to 160 electoral votes. He's also rapidly gaining ground in California and is pouring an additional $8 million there on TV ads over the next two weeks. Even Gore's California campaign chief now worries publicly that Bush can win the Golden State. He not only can, I believe he will.
Here's your election night scorecard:
Bush Country 188 Electoral Votes
Alabama 9
Alaska 3
Arizona 8
Colorado 8
Georgia 13
Idaho 4
Indiana 12
Kansas 6
Kentucky 8
Louisiana 9
Mississippi 7
Montana 3
Nebraska 5
Nevada 4
North Carolina 14
North Dakota 3
Oklahoma 8
South Carolina 8
South Dakota 3
Texas 32
Utah 5
Virginia 13
Wyoming 3
Swing States Bush Will Carry 122 Electoral Votes
Florida 23 Missouri 11 Minnesota 10 Michigan 18 Ohio 21 New Mexico 5 Pennsylvania 23 Wisconsin 11
Democrat States Bush Will Carry 40 Electoral Votes
Arkansas 6
Delaware 3
Maine 4
Tennessee 11
Washington 11
West Virginia 5
Mother-of-All-Surprises 54 Electoral Votes
California
The 5-10% gains at the voting booth DemonRats get due to vote fraud. They're getting so brazen about it now, it'll probably be more like 10-15% in future elections.
The problem is a majority of polling places are staffed with career-volunteer liberal DemonRat seniors, who are as corrupt as a Bill Clinton $13 bill.
Hope we can see the results of this Congressional election a little more clearly...
Final Popular Vote Prediction Bush 51% Gore 43% Nader 5% Buchanan 1% Browne - (crickets chirping)
Democrats cheat....Big Time.
Actually, its the Bill Clinton $6 bill.
Well, that's because the exit surveys couldn't cover voters who didn't vote. Karl Rove estimated that Bush lost 16 million to 19 million votes from conservative Christians who stayed home. The late revelation of the DUI charge was intended to keep these voters away from the polls, and it worked.
I didn't say anything about changing minds. I'm specifically talking about people who didn't make up their minds until they pulled the lever. Such people typically make up about 8% or so of the voting public, and they tend to vote 3-to-1 against the incumbent party. Exit polls showed just the opposite, however - that these voters went for Gore by the same margin, and that the DUI story was a large factor in their decision. If true, that's a 4-percentage point swing in Gore's favor. It certainly makes sense, considering the large shift in voter sentiment (as reflected by every poll) over the last three days before the election. Of course, this is all worthless drivel on my part without some source to back me up, so I'm off to go looking... :)
As long as the Dow stays above 5000, that landslide will arrive Nov. 2004
Red herring.
Nobody seriously thinks Gore can win in a rematch against Bush. It's not Gore we should be worried about.
Stealth candidate Hillary is lying low for now, but she is bound and determined to be President someday.
In a legitimate election, she doesn't stand a chance, but the Dems have already proven that they will lie, cheat, and steal for the Clintons.
And with the media in their back pocket, who knows what they will try to pull in 2004.
This excerpt is from a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute report entitled "The 2000 Vote for President" by Kenneth M. Goldstein, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison:
"Given how close the race ended up, and contrary to some of the snap polling conducted in its aftermath, it seems plausible that the release of Governor Bush's drunk driving arrest did have an impact on the race. In most national polls, Bush seemed to be gaining ground and had a three or four percentage point lead. As we all know, the race ended up even and exit polls suggest many late deciders went for Gore. Although we will probably never have the data to know for certain that it was the drunk driving arrest that stopped Bush's momentum and caused late deciders to go for Gore, I think it has to be part of the story. It is very unusual for undecided voters to break toward an incumbent (which Gore essentiall was) in the last days of campaign."
Granted it's not a real scientific piece, but it does back up two of my important points: 1.) Exit polls showed undecideds went for Gore; and 2.) This is against the normal anti-incumbent trend.
Though I don't have the source material, I do recall reading shortly after the election that the DUI story was the dominant issue cited by those undecided voters who went for Gore.
For those interested in reading the entire report I have cited, you'll have to do a Google search on Kenneth Goldstein and the report title. For some reason, the direct link does not work.
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