Results! Election night'04 ... your armchair expert analysis

Would a black lesbian be able to reflect your community values?

(Yes, it's a bait - sorry, couldnt help myself )

I'm not so sure that everyone votes to reflect their values. It could be that they voted for her because she was the best person for the job. Isn't Texas in the bible belt.

Whats your definition of mainstream? If the elctorate splits up in two halves of almost the same size (say, 48 out of 100 people on one side, 51 out of 100 people on the other), how can you say one is "mainstream" and the other is not?

I would like to see the demographics of the Bush supporters to compare with the sterotypes that are assigned to them by the Left. Nimh did give a break down of sorts on the Bookies and Polls thread.

My definition of mainstream are the people you go to church with, people you work with, people you live next door to, people you bump elbows with at the grocery store, people you swear at when stuck in traffice. They are doctors, lawyers, teachers, small business owners, construction workers, gardeners, shop clerks, and just about anything else you can think of across the spectrum of the nation. They are black, white, gay, straight, male, female, young, old, etc. etc. etc.

Foxfyre wrote:

I would like to see the demographics of the Bush supporters to compare with the sterotypes that are assigned to them by the Left.

I' dlike to see the same thing for the Kerry supporters and see how it compares to the stereotypes that are assigned to them by the Right.

2004 Demographics

2000 Demographics

Yes, I'm just now looking at other basic breakdowns and it looks like not just moderates, but independents, too, gave the nod to Kerry (be it by a very narrow margin, 49%/48%). But the effect of that was outdone by how Bush succeeded better in mobilising partisan Republicans than Kerry managed to mobilise partisan Democrats.

It appears that there are, as the pundits have been telling us, "two Americas," but they are not the ones people usually talk about. They are "divided America," where people split roughly evenly between Republican and Democrat, and "decided America," where everyone is a Democrat. The Democrats of "decided America" number about 5.9 million, or 11% of all Democratic voters. These people are unlikely ever even to encounter a Republican voter in their home town.

Clinton, Bush, and Kerry hatred are all reflections of precisely the same phenomenon, which results from the transformation of politics into theater. In The Fall of Public Man, Richard Sennett argues that, as the old boundaries between public and private began to collapse in the nineteenth century and personality became the measure of trustworthiness, politicians began to relate to citizens in psychological terms. Sennett writes, "The modern charismatic leader destroys any distance between his own sentiments and impulses and those of his audience, and so, focusing his followers on his motivations, deflects them from measuring him in terms of his acts." Television has exponentially increased the personalization of politics, encouraging citizens to indulge the narcissistic conceit that their illusion of emotional connection with a politician is more important than his or her actions.

What is it about Democrats that their finest moments are their concession speeches? Gore's speech in 2000 was the best of his public life. Kerry's concession, gracious and concise, was better than a thousand of his stump speeches. He really is a good closer.

I listened to Bush's speech in a cab on the way to my hotel. The president won reelection by relentlessly attacking Kerry and by emphasizing terrorism and culture war issues. So what is his mandate, according to his victory speech? Tax reform and privatizing Social Security.

A 25-year-old from Georgia who was distraught over President Bush's re-election apparently killed himself at ground zero.

Andrew Veal's body was found Saturday morning inside the off-limits area of the former World Trade Center site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.

Veal's mother said her son was upset about the result of the presidential election and had driven to New York, Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Friends said Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry.

"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the lab, told The Daily News. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."

Police were investigating how Veal entered the former World Trade Center site, which is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority.

With media types, no event is self-contained or mundane. It must be a watershed moment or part of a burgeoning trend or the sign of something monumentally sinister to come. [..] Thus, Tuesday's Very Bad Day for Democrats can't be just that. It must have some sort of historic, enduring import that will give the chattering class something to chatter about for at least another few weeks.

By far the most annoying post-election line I'm hearing over and over again is how remarkable it is that George W. Bush managed to become the first presidential candidate since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote. Oh my God! How remarkable! Let's see: This means that, with his 51 percent of the vote, W. managed to break the long, non-popular-majority string of exactly two presidents--Bill Clinton and himself. Of course, to make the comparison meaningful we need to factor in that, unlike 1992, 1996, and 2000, this year there was no serious third-party challenger peeling away votes. But still, W. managed a better electoral margin than one whole president other than himself. How ever will he handle the burden of it all?

more than 20 million Americans under 30 took the initiative to vote -- resulting in a 51.6 percent turnout for that age group, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at the University of Maryland.

CIRCLE researchers based their calculations on exit polls done for the Associated Press and others by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, and found that 18- to 29-year-old turnout was up by 4.6 million voters and more than 9 percentage points from exit poll data from the 2000 election.

The figures also beat exit poll numbers from 1992, the last time the youth vote spiked amid an otherwise general decline in turnout since 18-year-olds first got the chance to vote in 1972.

Turnout increased among other age groups, too, leaving young voters with the same proportion of the total electorate nationally as in 2000.

The youth vote went in Kerry's favor, 55 percent to 44 percent over President Bush nationally, according to exit polls.

In Michigan, Kerry had a 2-1 advantage, according pollster Steve Mitchell.

Ed Sarpolus of EPIC-MRA had it closer but with a substantial 56 percent to 30 percent margin.

Kerry needed those extra votes from the young, since he won here by a narrow 51 percent to 48 percent.

"It was one of the factors that helped him win," Mitchell said.

[..] East Lansing City Clerk Sharon Reid said 5,600 people registered to vote between the August primary and the October registration deadline.

[..] The turnout rate rose dramatically. In 2000, turnout at polling places in MSU dorms ranged from 31 percent to 40 percent. This year, it averaged about 55 percent.

Democratic consultant Mark Grebner, who helped register about 2,600 MSU students, said the actual turnout rate was closer to 80 percent because many of the people on the rolls at MSU dorms have since moved.

I am impressed that such a large percentage of the new young voters voted for Bush. I think usually the young are more liberal, idealistic, and find the more liberal candidate to be more appealing.

I would like to think a majority of his opposition will accept that, will get behind him and support him and help move the country forward.

What is it in Bush's agenda that you feel someone like me should support? I'm interested. My priorities are the environment and maintaining a good neighbor attitude both within and outside the country. I also want there to be a diverse and encouraging job market for my children --- especially jobs which seem meaningful.