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Posted on 08/25/2003 1:50:59 AM PDT by goldstategop
The most interesting thing about this race is the turn out polls show that this special election will be much like a regular primary elections. The latest polls all show that 45 percent of the turn out will be Democrats, 40 percent Republican and only 15 percent Independents. It was the lack of Independetnt turnout that allowed Gray Davis to win in 2002. It may come as a huge shock to the uninititated, but when a California race has only Democrats and Republicans voting, the Democrat wins. Even a very damaged Democrat wins. When one of the Republican candidates suporters has taken positions that drive a third of the Republicans away, that candidate fixes it so Gray Davis has a real chance to win the recall.
The huge problem for Arnie is that about 1/3 of the Republicans are single issue voters. They will not vote for a pro abortion candidate. That is what single issue voters do. They only vote for candidates that support their single issue. I am amused by the posters that say this race does not involve abortion at all. To an anti abortion single issue voter,that says... this race does not concern you... you have no need to vote. So they won't. They also will not vote for a gun control advocate. The pro life voters will kill Arnie. The reason is nearly every pro life voter has been told over and over that they must never vote for a pro abortion candidate no matter what he or she is running for. The pro life movement is NOT strong enough to elect a candidate, but they can defeat any pro abortion Republican and they will. They believe they should never vote for a pro abortion Republican for anything...not even dog catcher. If pro abortion Republican candidates can be elected to some offices, the Republicans will continue to run them for all offices. But if no pro abortion Republican can ever be elected to anything, even stupid republicans will learn to only run pro life Republicans. The pro life voters won't care who is governor as long as a pro abortion Republican is defeated. They accomplish that by one of two means, voting for a pro life candidate if one is on the ballot, and not voting at all if one is not.
That is why the last polls showed the combination of Simon Uberoff and McClintock with more votes than Arnie. Arnie had 22 percent and the combined conservatives had 25 percent.
When Uberoff drops out,if he does, McClintock may pull into a dead heat with Arnie. But even if Arnie is ahead, a lot of the McClintock voters will not vote at all if he withdraws.
Unless Arnie moves sharply left to try for more Democrats, he is a beat bunny. He needs more votes than the votes he can get from the center and Republicans. If he can't get the far right,he must go after the left or lose.
But if the Republican party succeeds in causing McClintock to drop out then Davis or Bustamante will almost certainly win. Look at the polls. It is 50 to 46 with 4 undecided for recall. That recall vote is made up of the conservative 25, Arnies 22 and 3 percent from the Democrats. If the anti abortion voters drop out, as they will when arnie and Bustamante are the only major candidates, then 11 percent of that conservative 25 percent will not vote at all. They won't vote for Arnie and they won't vote for Bustamante. So they don't vote.
Take 11 percent off the recall Davis vote and we have 54 percent to retain and 46 percent to recall. Davis wins.
If you succeed in driving McClintock out, you will allow Gray Davis to win the recall.
I know lots of people on this sight do not believe the latest polls. They say the media screws with the numbers. That is the same thing we said when the media's 2000 polls said Bush-Gore was too close to call. We believed the right wing polls that said it would be Bush by 5 to 7 points for an easy Bush win in 2000. The media was not lying in 2000.. The LA times was not lying in 2000. I don't think they needed to lie. I don't think they need to lie now.
The polls showing a tightening race.Arnie has the Independents wich make up 15 percent of his 22 percent. Repubicans make up Arnie's remaining 7 percent. McClintock and and Uberoff will take the rest of the Republicans.
Those that think that all conservative Republicans will go for Arnie are wrong. A third of the Republican total are single issue voters. They will not vote for a pro abortion and a "senseable gun control" candidate. If Arnie can't find a way to win them he loses. And if he veers far right to get them, the center will go away.
The only way a left leaning social issue Republican can win is if most of the independents vote. If all indpendents vote and voted for Arnie they make up 30 percent of the total. In that case Arnie needs just a tad less than 2/3 of the Republicans to win. That is how the centrist Republicans won in the last 20 years.
The kicker this time is the polls so far show that only about half the indpendents will vote. That is very bad news for Arnie. Up until about a week ago the pollsters were using the 2000 turn out numbers for poll multipliers. They were very similar to 96 and 98. They thought 2002 was an aberation caused by the davis ad campaign. But there has been no Davis ad campaign and teh turn out looks like 2002. Maybe it is a new trend in California or more likely no candidate has figured out how to get more than half the center interested in voting.
I will give you a clue. The half in the center votes for the candidate who will do things for them. They don't see getting rid of Davis or balancing the state accounts as doing anything for them.
When half the center does not vote a very appealing conservative can win and a social issue centrist Republican can only loose. Is McClintock appealing enough? Perhaps not and that is very good for Bustamante and Davis.
If that proves true Bustamante does not need all the Democrats to win.
As long as Arnies followers insist on claiming victory and insisting the right wing candidates withdraw, the turn out will decrease and the Democratic advantage will increase.
Funny...I suggested that McClintock would be a good candidate to run against Boxer.
For my troubles, I've been accused by kellynla of being either a Kennedy or a Nazi. Who is trashing whom?
Like all other moderate Republicans who run statewide in California--with the sole exception of Pete Wilson--he will lose. Fong, Huffington, Lungren...There's always Simon but he lost because he was an idiot, not because he was conservative.
When people say conservatives can't win in Calif., I reply, "How can you say that when it's never been tried?"
Gee, I guess any effect the media may have is irrelevant. They choose what they cover and who and how.. They work for the leftist agenda. Bill was not a leftist,, that's why the CA GOP was less than lukewarm in supporting him last year.
The fire burns as hot as ever in the bellies and hearts of conservatives in CA. We fight illegal immigrants devouring social services, we take abuse from out of staters as our businesses move, we are constantly under assault by leftist legislation.. Yur right ,, it's all the conservatives faults wanting to lead better and more decent lives.. I'll guess we need to be just like the demRats and lie, smear, yada yada...
Note to Parsky and Firestone.. Fight Dirty.. Then wait to see who they fight for. (Nice move inserting Arnie in at the least minute.. and then McClintock gets portrayed as the bad guy.)
Speaking of which, did you see Arnold say he won't name any specific budget cuts he'd make until he's won the race and done a 60-day audit of the state's finances? That's with a $38 bn deficit!
And people think he's the electable one. I say he's just an idiot who knows a lot less about California than the average Texan.
That's probably true. It's also the mirror image of what Nader supporters said after the 2000 election.
OTT, a very good analysis.
Try tums or some antacid, and quit being like a bunch of hysterical old women about everything.
We fight illegal immigrants devouring social services, we take abuse from out of staters as our businesses move, we are constantly under assault by leftist legislation..
That is because you California "true conservatives" have been diligently working to drive moderates into the arms of Democrats for years with your "all or nothing" shrieking the last several years.
That seems to have been lost somewhere along the line,, by both parties and almost all the incumbents.
Is that hysterical too?
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