if i read correctly...,
2004-11-05 18:01:57
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Assault on Fallujah began. Ir...,
2004-11-06 16:40:53
dumbest analysis I've seen yet:
makin the rounds on the talk of the town:
"45 percent of the people who voted for Bush are self-described liberals or moderates. (Earth to Democrats: That’s why he beat you.) Only 55 percent of the people who voted for Bush are conservatives." (totten, citing coyne)
This is based on CNN's exit polling, see 2000 and 2004. Assuming the exit polling is accurate, lumping moderates and liberals together in this fashion of reading tea leaves doesn't make sense, and here's why:
More conservatives voted for Kerry (15%) in this election than liberals voted for Bush (13%), but fewer conservatives than voted for Gore (-2%): so first of all Kerry lost Gore's conservative vote, Bush kept his liberal vote. This is exactly the opposite of what Totten/Coyne argue. I wonder why?
Since 2000 Kerry gained more support from the moderate vote (54% to Gore's 52%) than Bush did (45% to 2000's 44%). The total 3% difference was made up by the lack of moderate Nader/3rd party voters.
The biggest difference since 2000 was that fewer moderates overall made up the electorate (-5%, down to 45%), most of the difference going to conservatives (+4% to 34%). What Kerry lost according to the CNN's exit polls, the same used by this superduo, was moderate voter turnout and conservative votes. What Bush gained was conservative voter turnout. There's what lost the election for Kerry, so far as peoples' self-descriptions mean anything. You can compare the results by party identification and end up with about the same conclusion.
Why? Stir the owl droppings and invent any narrative that conforms to the evidence. For now I'm going with the: more conservatives turned out over terrorism/democrats are appeasers/republicans stronger of foreign policy mythology, if Kerry was elected - and Uncle Cheney told us - we were all gonna die.
Other narrative confluences would be: moderates picked sides, and now self-describe as conservative (check PEW studies on such shift in public attitudes); liberal get-out-the-vote drives backfired and found a lot of conservative lurkers in 'blue' areas; conservative efforts at getting out the vote were more effective than liberal efforts; Kerry failed to energize "base" sufficiently to get out liberal/left voters in sufficient numbers to balance out turnout of conservative "base", who were definetly energized by Bush; Karl Rove was a better campaigner than Kerry's team of muck mucks; etc. etc.
