Posted on 06/26/2005 8:20:21 PM PDT by flixxx
it is possible that liberals have become so demoralized, they ownt vote...i wouldnt count on it however.
Does anyone know what Rove plans to do after 2008?
In 98, coattails mattered since Engler beat Fieger by 25%. In 02, there were no coattails at all in Granholm's 4% win.
That would not be correct.
Bush nationalized the state elections in '02 with a platform that centered around WOT, judges, and tax cuts. By nationalizing the elections people that might opt Dem locally went Republican. In the '04 elections we saw that nationalization of the elections continue, and it is largely why '06 is considered to be a bad year for Dems even though midterms are supposed to be good for the party out of power. By making these referendums on the head of the ticket and the platform states that vote Rep are now far more likely to vote for a Rep in the Senate, and vice versa.
In '04 specifically Bush's coattails helped in Alaska, South Dakota, and a few other states that were very close. Some of these candidates were slated to lose, and barely squeaked by as it was. The high turnout for Bush, and '02 the nationalization of the platform, helped coast many of them over the finish line.
But New Jersey has been a solid blue state recently. Perhaps the understanding of how corrupt the Democrats (Torricell, McGreavy) are has sunk in there.
Barone is about the only one I will listen to concerning the breakdown of electorates, and forthcoming analysis. Election night he was particularly impressive, not being fooled by the exit polls. Breaking it down with fact.
He had said 2004 was his last election but he has since back tracked on that.
He appears to want to get out of politics all together, and retire and do the whole book writing, occasional TV appearance thing.
Most folks though think that he may wind up working for Senator Frist (given that the 2 of them are actually friends).
I'm hoping he stays somewhere in the RNC somehow.
The top 10 states that had the highest increases in voter turnout all went to Bush in 2004.
The bottom 10 states with the lowest increase in turnouts, 7 out of 10 of them went to John Kerry.
Including NYS which actually had a decrease in voter turnout in 2004 as compared to 2000.
I've heard cali had the same thing but couldn't verify that one.
IMO, this is not a signal that N.J. will flip soon but rather conservatives/Republicans are getting more active even in solid blue states. That bodes well.
Just as the Dems cannot rely on winning only 17 states to take the W.H., Reps shouldn't abandon "blue" states either. The key is to activate the people in those states to turn out. Motivate them to campaign to go door to door, to engage in grassroot activities to build on their numbers within the state so one day it will be competitive.
The MSM happily blathers on and on about how the rhetoric of Howard Dean, Dick Durbin, et. al. energizes the Dim base, about how the Dims are so "unified" thanks to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, how everyone is so in love with Hillary that we may as well just go ahead and coronate her now and save the bother of an election in 2008.
I think all this is energizing and unifying the Republican base instead. Even with all the discontent with President Bush among so many in the GOP, they take one look at the nutburgers and looney tunes on the Dim side, listen to their wild-eyed conspiracy theories and rants about how they hate everyone except hard-core communists and Islamic terrorists, and demonstrate their views not by making stupid puppets and chanting worn-out slogans, but by quietly turning out in huge numbers to vote for GOP candidates.
It is a mistake to use primaries to extrapolate voter interest. In VA there was a primary for Republican candidates for Governor but the rat candidate was unopposed. This explains the greater Republican turnout. There was no compelling reason for rat voters to care about the primary because the top ticket was already decided for them.
If you look at the results for the Ohio state house district 57 (the only one where there was more than one candidate for both the rats and Republicans) you find the rat primary voters exceeded Republican primary voters. Does this mean the rats are all fired up or is district 57 a rat leaning district.
In 1996 Clinton ran unopposed for President on the rat ticket. He received 12,884 votes in the March 9, 1996 rat primary. Dole, Forbes, alexander, ect received 347,482 votes in the February 27, 1996 primary. Dole alone got over a 100,000 votes. I didn't look up if Clinton beat Dole in AZ, but I can guarantee that Dole didn't get 10 times more votes than Clinton...as the primary might have indicated to Barone.
In 1996 Clinton ran unopposed for President on the rat ticket...IN AZ.
small edit.
You will find this trend of disinterest in uncontested primaries all over the USA. Here are the rest of the primary results in 1996 http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe1996/presprim.htm
I agree...I have liked Barone for a number of years now, but on election night 2004, he was easily the best analyst around.
Can't go wrong with a Barone post.
Does anyone know what Rove plans to do after 2008?
He'll rove around a lot.
Michael Barone *ping*
If Barone missed that, it's extremely sloppy research for one who's reputedly such a good analyst. OTOH if he knew it and ignored it to make his point, that's striking in its intellectual dishonesty.
There was no contest in Dem primaries in NJ. Why would people turn out? They already knew that Corzine will win.
Barone addressed Once-Ler's points in his article.
And I don't know that you could really call the Virginia GOP gov primary contested. The fact that there were two names on the ballot doesn't mean the result was even remotely in doubt. It's been a Kilgore-Kaine race for over a year.
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