[Meldrim]

And a whole lot of new voter who'll be casting a straight democrat vote on a bilingual ballot...

[alnick]

Also, we cannot rule out the many new republican voters picked up by Al Gore's temper tantrum in 2000. A lot of people who didn't pay much attention to politics prior to that follow very closely today and are deeply offended that he tried to steal the election in broad daylight. Couple that with President Bush's post 9/11 performance.

In my state, Louisiana, a few hundred republicans switched their registration to democrat; a few thousand democrats switched their registration to republican, according to a news report I saw in 12/00.