If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

How quickly you forget.

More people voted against Bush than have voted against any presidential candidate in the history of the United States.

That sounds like a mandate for the opposition.

And Bush got 3.5 million more than that.

So be it.

A deeply divided nation with republicans in charge an a lot of support for an angry opposition.

I guess we will all have to live with that.

Isn't it amazing that Bill Clinton was given a 'mandate' with 43% of the vote and never with 50% of the vote? But Bush with more popular vote than has ever been won in this country must preside over a deeply divided nation. I will be so glad when this generation of Democrats hangs it up and lets the Truman Democrats have the power back.

Yup, indeed we will. And quite a good life it is in this great country. .

I find it quite telling The Democrats have abandoned "We're gonna win bigtime this time", siezing now on "Since we didn't get absolutely trounced everywhere, lotsa folks still see things our way". What they miss is that their most recent loser scored lower percentages just about across the board than did their immediately previous loser. The lesson is there. There is little reason to suspect the lesson will be heeded.

It's both telling and amusing when you think about it and when you consider Zogby predicting a Kerry victory a full six months before the election.

Remember when he said "Kerry is a good closer"? No doubt that was in reference to Kerry coming from behind and beating Weld in 1996.

But...consider Kerry only won 52% of the vote in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1. (There were only 470,000 Republicans in the entire state with a population of 6,000,000 at the time.)

The outcome of this election should have come as no surprise to anyone, least of all the Democrats. You are right in assuming they still won't pay attention.

I recommend they keep choosing candidates from the New England area.

That works for me too OBill, except I can remember a time when I felt we were okay no matter who won because it was only a difference of process, not a difference of values between the parties.

Like....Hillary :wink:

When was that? For a clue, check Foxy's signature quote. That was the beginning of the values war.

Extremism for the right reasons is okie-dokie.

Holy cow. But a lot of people in the 60's believed that, H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X, The Chicago Seven to name a few, but not enough Republicans to stop LBJ's landslide victory.

Nixon beat Humphrey on a values war theme, remember he was going to be the Law and Order President?

After Nixon and the "Whip Inflation Now" buttons of Gerald Ford, we got Jimmy Carter. Both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were two of the most genuine men to hold the office of President. I thought Ford did as well as he could with the mess he got handed and I thought it was a shame that Carter fell victim to the extremism is no vice believers in Teheran, how's that for a little irony?

Extremism is extremism no matter who is holding either the Uzi or the GOP banner.

That's what Newt figured out. So while Reagan soared above the fray, Grinrich hatched the perfect value wars strategy. NO extremism, don't even say the word, say instead the Pledge of Alligience and make teary-eyed protests about the lack of prayer in the schools. Make all the right sounds to your base about the mealy-mouthed tax and spend opposition and get that base to the polls.

Clinton, no dummy, zinged right through all that embroidery with one phrase "I feel your pain." George HW Bush looked at his watch. 'zoll over folks, Clinton in the White House and then the real buckets of mud started being thrown. You talk about your values war, why this guy a cheater and a thief and maybe a murderer and who knows may be he hasn't paid some parking tickets, the message being--- he's not like us.

And along comes George W., a man who learned to fake sincerity when he was trying to get into the pants of all those sorority girls, a man who knows how to play that values card. "I am not in favor' he says " of a Constitutional Amendment regarding gay marriage." So not extreme. "But," he drawls on," if the States wanted to approve civil unions I can see it being okay." Sounds so reasonable. Knowing all the time that the various states are about as likely to do that as the Colonists really wanted representation in Parliament to be improved.

Kerry's problem was that he never found a way to be like one of us and still be seem as one of the best of us.

Meanwhile, while the economy teeters along, the war rages, our worldwide status stands in tatters, the voters turned out in droves to make sure a moral value was protected, that marriage would be defined as that union between a woman and the man whom she finally got dragged up the aisle and made to stand still for an hour on a Saturday afternoon during football season.

And so it goes.

Joe Nation

evening all. Going back a few pages, Blatham mentioned the "young" voters. They said they were going to register and they said they were going to vote but they really didn't (as a percentage of the eligible people in that age group). Why not?
FLASH! Johnboy finally agrees with Foxfyre and Timberlanko about something. The Electoral College made sense 200+ years ago and it still makes sense today.
When I get elected President, however, I would suggest that the term of office be 6 years with no right of a second term. That would be long enough to actually get some stuff done (can you say social security reform) and without having to run for re-election from the git-go.

Didn't they? I had the impression that turnout among the young was markedly higher this year than in 2000. Just that it was more than counterweighed by also-higher turnout among other age groups and by a shift to the right among other age groups, particularly those 60 and older (among whom Bush did 7% better than in 2000).

I dont have any exit poll numbers from 2000 by hand tho, and those from this year do indicate how Bush's percentage rose or fell compared to then (hence the number for 60+ voters), but not how the proportion of each age group on the whole of the electorare itself changed, so I cant doublecheck.

But yeah, from what I've read I understood that the significant rise in turnout also included a higher-than-normal number of young voters (data welcome).

No link at hand, but its my understanding the "Youth Vote" this year was 17%, roughly the same as in 2000 and in line with the performance of that demographic for a good long while and many, many, many elections.

I heard no significant change for youth voters. They enjoyed some free concerts, though.

2004 Demographics

2000 Demographics

Yup, 17% both elections. Didn't check any further back. Some interesting stuff there, comparing the 2 sets of demographics ... not all favorable to The Republicans, but in general troubling for The Democrats.

Overall, nearly 52 percent of all eligible 18- to 30-year-olds in 2004 pulled the levers and punched the cards, compared to just 42 percent in the 2000 election. Voters aged 18-30 supported John Kerry over George W. Bush, 54 percent to 45 percent, the only age group to do so (Bush won the popular vote 51 percent to 48 percent). And according to data collected by The Chronicle of Higher Education, a majority of college freshman supported the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.

I'm sorry?

Are we in facts-be-damned mode again today Timber?

Nationwide, Gore got 48,4%
Nationwide, Kerry got 48,0%

Oh yeah, "across the board" lower percentages - the collapse of the Dem vote is obvious.


Because although Bush won more actual votes than ever, so did Kerry <shrugs>.

Clinton, fair's fair, could hardly claim to have much of a popular mandate, with just 43% of the vote in 1992. But considering he still netted 6% and 9% winning margins against his Republican competitor, a narrowly divided nation it was not.

The margin by which Bush beat Kerry on the other hand is smaller than any since 1976 - Bush's last victory excepted. Narrow margin = divided nation - seems straightforward enough.

Cool, guys. Thanks to both of you for the data.

Regardless of Lash's snide remarks, both of course can be true at the same time.

If the proportion of young voters remained 17%, that meant that their turnout went up in the same pace that overall turnout went up. Up nicely, thus.

Looks like those free concerts did some good after all.