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Reagan's "Big Reach" had more to do with attracting the "Wallace Vote" than anything else. They are the reverse of the demographic the author references. That is how he nearly beat Ford.

To expand, the Todd-Whitman-Republican business has always been around (Senator Javits, Mathias, Governor Romney) and they were precisely the folks undermining Ronald Reagan in 1976 and 1980.

Again, an interesting article. I don't believe that a demographic study would back up the thesis though. The last analysis of the election I read (published in the Economist) covered the difference between the "Red Zone" and "Blue Zone". In this article the primary determinant of voting habits was race and the frequency of church attendance. Frequency of "South Park" viewing was not examined.

As I said, your milage may vary. It was Reagan's fyscal conservatism that drew my family across. Reagan did a lot of reaching, I htink we're both focusing on the part that spoke to us the most. But notice Reagan didn't put into law any of his social conservatism (IMHO becuase most of it shouldn't be a matter of law, it's just how things should work in our society). The fyscal conservatism became a matter of law. From my seat the reason he almost beat Ford was because Ford schlumped through most of the primaries, and the election (until the last couple weeks, which was almost enough to beat Carter). Also Ford symbolized Viet Nam and Watergate, to episodes people really wanted to put behind them. I've long been of the opinion that the GOP threw the 76 election. Nixon era price controls were starting to have their impact on the economy, the press had quite effectively laid Viet Nam at Nixon's feet, everything was a mess. 1976 to 1980 were already staged to suck rocks, better to have it under a Democrat (who miraculously found a way to make things worse, Carter has hidden talents) and let a GOP pres ride in and save the day.

I think a demographic study would back up this article quite thuroughly. A quick perusal of FR shows it. There's a significant body of people on FR that watch South Park, listen to heavy metal, and might even purvey smut once in a while. Yet they're GOP all the way. It's a much bigger group than you think. It has to be.