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  • Election Questions

       November 03, 2004

    Our long national nightmare is over. The airwaves can once again ring with the sound of dish detergent and car advertising. When the phone rings, you can rest assured that it won't be Bill Clinton or Rudy Guiliani asking you to vote for their candidate, it may even be a real, live friend instead.

    But, even though the election is behind us, some questions remain.

    1. Democrats are perplexed at losing even when voter turnout was apparently at all-time highs. How can this be, they ask? I think there are a couple of possible answers:

    • The Dems have some assumptions which have now been proven wrong. First, they assumed that the country was just teeming with non-voters who agreed with them. Second, they assumed that a) new voters were young voters and b) those younger voters were, by the mere fact that they were young, liberal.
    • Even Republicans hear the rhetoric about getting out the vote and this being "the most important election of your lifetime". Every "get out the vote" drive is going to have the unintended effect of also getting out the vote for the other side. Dems seem to forget this.

    2. So, what did happen with younger voters? I've heard several pundits say that younger Americans didn't make a difference. But, is that because they didn't actually turn out, or is it because younger Americans are more conservative now? I've felt for a long time that America's youth are not liberal by default. I think that Generation Next or the Millenial Generation or whatever you want to call them, is more conservative than Gen Xers or Boomers were at that age. I'll be curious to see if voting patterns prove me right. Can anyone point me in the direction of voting stats like that?

    3. I heard that over 60% of Ohio voters were against gay marriage. I'm not surprised by that. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans are against gay marriage. What does surprise me is the number of times I've heard that Americans voted for Bush because of social issues. It wasn't just national security. For a long time, I thought that most Americans wanted a strong defense and less government involvment in both the economy and in our personal lives. These results make me think I'm completely wrong. America is far more conservative socially than I thought (and than I am). What does this mean for 2008? I think it probably means that a socially moderate Republican cannot win the nomination. And, it means that if the Dems have a brain they need to find themselves a fiscally conservative hawk or else they're doomed for another 4 years.

    What are you curious about or what did you learn from this election?


    Posted by kris at November 3, 2004 04:28 PM

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    Comments

    #  March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM      Converted_Comment
    Converted comment: Posted by: Dittybopper at November 3, 2004 06:18 PM

    Isn't is obvious what happened to all the young voters? They all went to Canada to avoid the draft.

     
     
    #  March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM      Converted_Comment
    Converted comment: Posted by: at November 4, 2004 05:28 PM

    I'm afraid you are incorrect on just about all your points.
    For this election, you see the large voter turnout and assume it was equal (or similar) parts lib and reasonable in that extra block. I think you should actually find that the "young" knownothings in fact again voted against reason and for the liberal, but the reasonable people outnumbered them by such margins that they still lost.
    I suggest looking at the MNI papers this week - WSJ usually prints a breakdown of the wards. If you really need to, compare against the same data from 4 years ago. But, for now, look at the voting wards for the campus areas - I think you'll find those campus areas voted almost as heavily lib as the mid-isthmus wards - and that's where the know-nothing students and other libs are.

    The same can always be found for any college campus - look at the wards around Marquette, UW-M, UW-LaCrosse and Eau Claire, and probably UW-Oh.
    UW-P can be an exception, ag students tend to ave a little more sense and basis in reality.

    Ever since Ford botched things in '76 by not letting Reagan's winning nomination vote be effected, every 4 years the vote has been conservative, with Perot splitting '92 and '96, even against such a non-candidate as Slick Willie. The "incumbent's 2nd term" elections for conservatives have always made gains for conservatives over the 1st term. In '84 RWR had more than '80, in '92 the votes against Clinton were more than against Dukakis in '88, and now in '04 the results are better for GWB than in '00.

    Oh, and umm, college liberals learn something? Naaawww, that ain't gonna happen. Plus, there is sure to be a fresh batch of know-nothings to replace them 4 years from now.

    And GWB is a socially moderate President, so I see no reason another can't be nominated in '08 - but who to pull in the female/feminist vote to rival Hillary? Liz Dole? Condi? Christine Todd Whitman? Will the GOP need to nominate a woman or otherwise just default? Would even a woman VP even cut it in terms of pulling in the women voters?

    Something for GWB to consider, for the benefit of the party and America's future: If Cheney decided to resign "for health reasons" around 2007 or so, perhaps the new VP Bush selected would be able to carry the torch forward - and if that were one of the above prospects, that would make the GOP the 1st party to put a woman (or even minority woman) in the top pair of offices. That would make a Hillary challenge difficult.

    Anyway, for your premise to hold up, we would have to see the '06 voters still split about even, still slightly conservative. But I think you will actually see the margin in '06 greatly exceeding the '02 margin, indicating the "core voter" margin in '04 was also greater than in '00. it's just that the Dims had to have such a huge turnout of know-nothings (largest ever, right?) just to make it close.

     
     
    #  March 7th, 2005 6:48 PM      Converted_Comment
    Converted comment: Posted by: 02hawk796 at November 4, 2004 05:37 PM

    Also, IIRC, the new laws make it illegal for election officials or offices to release voter age or birth data. Not sure if they can do that in generic age "groups" or "blocks" - but if they did, you'd still have to trust the liberal felony-commiting election officials to give you un-biased factual data.

     
     

     

     


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