2008 Voter Turnout: Lots and Lots More Democrats

Hi KT — Any chance you might please post a couple of those charts. I read trend lines better than I read copy.
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Any thoughts on why Xavier Becerra turned down a position in Obama’s administration. I asked in the prevous thread but, you were otherwise engaged.
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Thanks for interacting here.

Thank you Howard Dean.

Fascinating.
Is there any way of extracting how many of those “Democrats” were Republicans in years past vs how many are new voters?

Apologies in advance if its in the link…..

Just looking at the Republican convention it was easy to see that they are currently struggling with a demographic problem. But we will probably have to see what the trends look like over the next couple election cycles to see if voter trends really are changing.

Hey. changing internet providers.
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Saw my name a few times on another thread.
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But I only skimmed. Is cincy still around? What’s the question?
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I see the Obama campaign had the same view about The Page that the Swampland commenters had.
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We all love The Page. Not.

In case you missed it:
‘Staff members were encouraged to ignore new Web sites like The Page, written by Time’s Mark Halperin, and Politico, both of which had gained instant cachet among the Washington smarty-pants set. “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing,”‘
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21Gibbs-t.html?_r=1

Jay, i was challenging KT about the interview you did w/ her and Jay Rosen:
“Come on KT, the ‘I don’t do the hiring at Time’ has a total cop out quality to it. I don’t think Jay liked that answer any more than I did.”
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/12/16/newt-to-the-rnc-take-down-that-ad/?apage=4#comment-28482

How did I miss that Presidential election in 2002?

But how will all of this affect Caroline Kennedy?

dumdedum – this must be from the West Wing universe.

Lots of interesting stuff out there when you Google Gang of 500. And the “Gang of 500″ reads Halperin, why? To think up your own campaign coverage, too much like work?

When I set that up, the idea was that Jay Rosen, journalism professor and media critic in a discussion with Karen Tumulty, journalist and part of the media would be interesting.
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One of the unfortunate, and weird, things about those programs is that I often cannot remember what was said. It turns out that the listening carefully and thinking what to say interferes with longterm memory.
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Personally, I think “management is responsible for any biases” is a perfectly reasonable response. I also think it’s true. Glenn Greenwald’s remark at YearlyKos in 2007, that the right wing is very well represented in the media, but the left wing, especially the part of the left wing that Paul Dirks refers to, the one opposed to the Great American Hegemony Project, are not represented at all*.
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However, it is not Michael Scherer’s fault that Noam Chomsky or Chalmers Johnson doesn’t have a column in TIME. That would be Stengel’s fault.
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The dite of media cricism I have found most difficult to communicate to what seem to be otherwise intelligent people is that the left and the right have different criticisms. The right wants “balance” without regard to accuracy, while the left wants accuracy without regard to balance. Balance being the lower of the two bars, it is the one that seems to dominate. What i believe is going on with the pumping of the Blago/Obama connection is an attempt to insert “balance.” They need to run some negative stories, even if they are inaccurate or inconsequential.
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Personally, again, what is bothering me most about this is that we are now in a great deal more trouble than we were on September 12, 2001. The public opinion polls, with the very high favorability rating for Obama, indicate a rallying around the president in crisis effect. The press joined into that rallying around business in spades after 9/11. It’s disturbing they are not doing so now, but are instead picking nits.
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*I think this is particularly reprehensible because opposition to the Great American Hegemony Project is a very widely held view, so widely held that the government finds it necessary to misrepresent the project under other guises. The press collaborates in this effort. You never see polling on questions like whether the US should continue the Japanese and German occupation, for example.

Forgot to add that the interview program is resuming on January 8th, Line up so far James Fallows on the 8th followed by Ian Welsh, Deborah Howell, Marion Nestle, clammyc of DKos, and Will Bunch.
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Juan Cole in March.

Not stated in KT’s post is that WV’s overall turnout was down. Makes me so proud.

There are many reasons why Democratic turnout was up – including in the primaries – but I have to think the groundbreaking candidacy of Obama was a factor, as was HRC’s in the primaries. And not just in a “I want to be a part of history” way. It is demoralizing to never see people who look like you (or your kids, or your spouse, or your friends) win the big prize in politics.
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Personally, again, what is bothering me most about this is that we are now in a great deal more trouble than we were on September 12, 2001. The public opinion polls, with the very high favorability rating for Obama, indicate a rallying around the president in crisis effect. The press joined into that rallying around business in spades after 9/11. It’s disturbing they are not doing so now, but are instead picking nits.
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jayackroyd, well said. Although I disagree a little with your characterization of the left as being unconcerned about balance. For example, I’m not sure the press should be rallying around Obama now or that they should have supported Bush so much after 9/11. I’m uncomfortable with the press being cheerleaders for anyone. But if they rallied around Bush, they should do the same for Obama; My criticism in this case is mostly about balance.

but I have to think the groundbreaking candidacy of Obama was a factor,
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Ian Welsh remarked to me in a telephone conversation that Obama won Iowa by bringing out new caucus-goers, that Edwards did just as well as expected, and would have won if the same people had turned in 2008 as did in 2004. He came to this conclusion after a close analysis of the voting numbers.
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I agree, Rose, that by and large the press should play a critical rather than a cheerleader role. I’d be perfectly happy if they just reported stuff straight, all the time.

I’m uncomfortable with the idea that the press should “rally ’round” Obama. But I’m disgusted at Bush sycophants suddenly finding religion and self-righteously declaring that they need to be tougher on Obama because they kissed Cheney and Bush’s . . . rings.

jay, do you have a link to that interview between yourself and KT? Thanks

This is pretty much OT, but I feel inspired: I serve as a civic commissioner for the city in which I live. Last night I witnessed the swearing in of our new mayor and city councilmembers (a majority shift mirroring that of the national election). Our local congressman took the opportunity to speak about the importance of local government, and it’s relationship with national government. He said cities are where the problems start (foreclosures, lay-offs, health care and education issues) and where the solutions end (policy made on the national level), and the more we can do in our own community the better – he referenced a unique initiative my city passed to create our own growth boundaries, rather than defaulting to those of the state. Anyway, it got me thinking about Swampland, and the incredible depth of knowledge, wisdom and passion from the commenters that I read here daily. It is my hope that many of you are serving or will serve on your local commissions and councils. There couldn’t be a better time than right now to consider it, as Barack Obama embarks on rebuilding the country from the ground up.

Speaking of bad media coverage, here’s the start of a NY Times piece on Caroline Kennedy: In a carefully controlled strategy reminiscent of the vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, aides to Caroline Kennedy interrupted her on Wednesday and whisked her away when she was asked what her qualifications are to be a United States senator.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/nyregion/18upstate.html?hp
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She just started her campaign! It’s a little soon to be comparing her to Palin. And it would be great for the media to stop comparing each woman politician to other woman politicians. Palin was compared to HRC, HRC was compared to Margaret Thatcher, and now Caroline Kennedy is being compared to Palin.
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BTW, that story was linked to by Ben Smith. Which brings up an interesting dilemma for feminist progressives looking at media coverage: the CW in the progressive community is that someone like KO is much better and more “progressive” than Ben Smith or Cokie Roberts. But those last two were among the least sexist members of the MSM in the campaign, unlike KO. Roberts in particular often talked more intelligently about gender issues than pretty much anyone in the MSM. Yet it’s obvious that both of them contribute to the right-wing bias and triviality of the media.

Barack Obama seems to be doing his level best to prevent a recurrence of this turnout in 2010 and 2012.

By the way, Joe Klein might be encouraged to hear that Obama has just joined him as a leading Wanker of the Day.

You don’t have turnout without a well organized ground game. You don’t have a well organized ground game without strong party apparatus. And you don’t have that without Howard Dean.

The increased dem turn-out is obviously the result of left-wing-community-agitation-group ACORN’s campaign of voter fraud in support of radical Obama. (deep breath through mouth) How many of these “new voters” are named Mickey Mouse? How many dead people voted? How many times were these supposed 1st time voters able to vote?

With the exception of Colorado, and possibly Indiana, the common denominator might be a large percentage of Black Americans.
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It helps to explain Newt’s “change of heart” over tawdry ads.
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It also means that the Black community is a voter block that should not be taken for granted.
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After all, if the GOP were to make a strong effort to divest itself of it’s race trolls, many, after the liberating effect of having the clout to be instrumental in deciding this election, might migrate there.
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That is, if the GOP were smart…

Ahh memories-
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/11/06/record-turnout-not-so-much/
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KT and Gans a month ago-
“Despite lofty predictions by some academics, pundits, and practitioners that voter turnout would reach levels not seen since the turn of the last century, the percentage of eligible citizens casting ballots in the 2008 presidential election stayed at virtually the same relatively high level as it reached in the polarized election of 2004.”
“Americans who cast ballots for president in this year’s presidential election will reach between 126.5 million and 128.5 million when all votes have been counted by early next month”

archive here:
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http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking
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It’s november 20th, top of the list.

P-NNTO, I was wondering about that too. Were the initial numbers wrong or did Republican turnout drop? Or both? Or maybe – as Paul Dirks suggested – some of these Democrats used to be Republicans.

I think it was just a matter of wanting to rush out a contra-storyline story, Rose. “Lots of people at the polls? No there wasn’t”
I was just having some fun with it.

An archive that goes further back.
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http://inworldstudios.com/vs/
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Particularly good are John Dean, Rick Perlstein, KT solo, the first Cliff Schecter and NBER head Jim Poterba.

I was just wondering what the real story is. If in fact Republican turnout did sharply decline – which some people were predicting – I think that’s an interesting story.

The Borgen Project has informative statistics on addressing global poverty.

$30 billion ends world hunger
$550 billion is the US Defense budget

This organization has the ability, resources, and policy-makers to suppress the threat of global poverty by enacting legislation here in the US, which is tied to the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals. Please support organizations such as The Borgen Project so that we may rid the world of poverty.

This reminds me of 2 things. First, my stomach turning watching Bush proclaim “politicol capitol” and how he was going to spend it. He ran a severe deficit, as we all know.
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Second, my theory that he was even reelected being due to so many citizens giving up and not bothering to vote. I used to scoff at the notion addage that “every vote counts”. I don’t anymore.

Rose, Bush got 62,040,610 in 2004 McCain got 59,930,180

Oh I should have added BHO received 69,460,098

dunedweller # 20, I could not agree more. The depth of knowledge here leaves me sometimes hesitant to voice my opinion. But I do anyway.

I would be interested to see early voting correlations. I think working with the DNC to consolidate and extend early voting is the single most effective thing Democrats can do to lock in its current electoral advantage.

pour, this may be useful
http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2008.html

Thanks formerly. I should also add that reading and participating here has made a difference in my communication skills on the dais – I’m becoming more articulate and concise when making my points. Unfortunately it hasn’t helped my spelling at all.

@ P-NNTO – Thanks; clearly early voting was a big factor in GA and NC being at the top of both increased and overall turnout. Missouri has NO early voting: my hunch is that getting it in place would have made the difference in that state for the Democrats.

jay: What i believe is going on with the pumping of the Blago/Obama connection is an attempt to insert “balance.” They need to run some negative stories, even if they are inaccurate or inconsequential.
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On that point, digby has a barn burner up:
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The other concerning thing is that both Brewer and Stoddard seem to be banking on the public validating their obsession by losing faith in Obama. It’s possible, but in no way is it assured. And the inevitable result of that is to make the press all the more determined to find something that will. They will come to see the president as having some sort of illegitimate hold on the public which must be broken. If it doesn’t take with this scandal, the press will harbor resentment and jump on the next one with even more fervor.

Republican turnout did sharply decline – which some people were predicting
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They picked Palin to prevent this. Dirks was right. (I think it was Dirks. It wasn’t me.) McCain should have said eff it to his advisors, let’s roll the dice, won a floor fight over Lieberman as veep, separating from the wingnuts. Turnout woulda been just as bad. But he might have picked up independents. Pitching to the base was a losing strategy.
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What will be remembered from this campaign was McCain’s embrace of the daily news cycle and Obama’s rejection of it.

Digby asks a very good question:
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“Two more things stuck out at me about that exchange. First, Brewer brings up something that I’ve now heard half a dozen times on MSNBC by various talking heads: reporters are “taking a lot of heat” for not being aggressive enough toward Obama. Taking heat from whom?”
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Not only from whom but what sort of heat? Angry emails or phone calls from their masters on the right? You know full well its not coming from the left because complaints from the left are not considered “heat.” They are just complaints from people that do not understand how the press works.

From over at the Daily Howler:
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“Let us repeat what we’ve told you before. There is no way to understand this group without understanding a basic fact: Your “press corps” is a D-plus elite—our slowest, dumbest professional cohort. For the record, we’ve been surprised by the way they’ve behaved in the ten days since the Blago tale hit. They’ve been dumber—and faker—than we would have dreamed. Nothing derails their sad culture.”
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Oh and the rest will have you rolling in the floor.
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http://www.dailyhowler.com/

Pintortwo wrote: The increased dem turn-out is obviously the result of left-wing-community-agitation-group ACORN’s campaign of voter fraud in support of radical Obama…. How many dead people voted?

Well, here in Illinois, I personally decided to vote for Barack Obama at least 3 times. I kinda see a lot of me in that guy….

Thanks gunny. We had a lot of discussion about that crowd in KT’s last thread. It would be better if no one listened to them, but sadly far too many do.

P-NNTO, thanks for the info.
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jayackroyd, I actually think Palin was the right choice, but they should have started prepping her earlier in the summer. I don’t think the pregnancy would have prevented her from spending 20 hours a week learning basic facts about the constitution and foreign policy. McCain-Lieberman would not have won significantly more independents and they would have hemorrhaged support in the base. That could have been a Dukakis-style loss.
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Anyway McCain is the one who bears the most responsibility. They were not doing that badly before McCain’s public meltdown with the economic crisis. Sure the overall economic and political environment was unfavorable for the Republican party, and Obama ran a solid campaign, but McCain’s character flaws were largely responsible for the scale of his loss. Wasn’t that the line in the un-aired Wright ad? Character matters.

“jayackroyd, I actually think Palin was the right choice.”
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Rose-the entire time I watched Palin during the campaign I kept getting this feeling that she really is a faker and not really a republican. She not only did not know basic government she did not even have the party’s basic standard talking points down.

I think Palin was the perfect choice. By Repugs drowning in their own bile. Last ditch effort. It didn’t work.

My instant take on Palin was that she was for down ticket energizing as this was going to be a top of the ticket loss. After all was said and done I’m not sure I was wrong.

jay, thanks for the archive/link, there’s a lot of interesting stuff there. if you have any pull over there could you push for transcripts rather than just audio links? makes things easier for those of us who are textually rather than verbally inclined.

Paul, heads up. Palin will be down ticket, up ticket, around ticket. Time marches on. The splendid Obama victory is not the end of the road. Our country will continue to wage the current version of a civil war. We got religionists seathing. We got liberals reveling, but wondering (I am in there). It ain’t over until it’s over, and the fat lady sings. That never happens. We just push on through the endless opera.

This is good news for Republicans.

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But who does it help more, Romney or 9iu11iani?

Quite poetic james .
People on the left are happy, as well they should be after the last 8 years, but I don’t know of anyone who is laboring under the impression that all is well.
The actual hard choices in front of us will sober everyone up. That the republicans are kind of/sort of down only makes the job a tiny bit less onerous.

[...] was … pretty good! According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, the 63% participation rate in the 2008 election was the highest since 1960, when the Kennedy-Nixon contest topped the ballot, and the third-highest [...]

Paul nnto, agreed.

I will be TOTALLY honest here. I had actually said several times to family members of mine that Barack Obama had no chance of winning. I just felt like average white male voters were going to go for McCain. The day McCain picked Sarah Palin I literally called everyone and told them Obama actually had a chance. When they found out she was lying about the bride to nowhere I said it was over.
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McCain’s strongest selling point was experience. By selecting Sarah Palin he totally took that off the table. Yeah he still was catching hell because of Bush and because people wanted change but if you go back and look at the polls there were pretty big margins of error before he picked Palin. I was sure most of the undecideds would go to him like an old blanket that you just never throw out because you know its comfortable. With our nation in two wars and with the Surge looking like it was a genius move all McCain had to do in my opinion was not make a mistake.
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Now I personally don’t think Lieberman was the answer because you would have basically had the two heckling guys in the balcony from the muppet show as a visual. Besides that Lieberman comes off as the milkiest of milque toasts. But imagine this scenario. The financial crisis hits, McCain walks up to the podium and says “I had a speech prepared today but in light of this mornings report of the potential collapse of our financial system I am going to yield to my VP nominee Mitt Romney who has had extensive and postive experiences in the business world” And then he reads off the litany of Mitt Romney “success” stories. Then what if instead of McCain flying back to washington he sent Mitt Romney instead while he kept on preparing for the debate. Mind you Romney to me is a slash and burn guy but to average joe blow undecided voter Romney passes the look test, the experience test AND the resume test. Now you have a situation where you have Obama and Biden running and neither have had a lot of experience in the business world. And you have McCain and Romney one of whom is seen as a war hero and the other is seen as a businessman’s business man.
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Now I for one am HAPPY that McCain jumped the shark because while Sarah Palin riled up the lower 50 percent of the base she also repulsed the upper 10 percent of that same base. Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker and the others who spoke out against her would have never done so against Romney and the truth is they helped drive people away from the McCain ticket with their words.
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Its true that there is no way we can go back in time and see if McCain and Romney would have won but I feel pretty comfortable saying it would have been a helluva lot closer than it was on Nov 4th.

sg, thankfully none of that happened, and we have hope for a better future.

formerlyjames
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Amen

@sgw – Lieberman’s lies are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE. Never gets old for me.

pourme
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heh?

SG-This is all a game, certainly, but take a look at McCain’s numbers before and after each of the debates when people were engaged the most. He went down every time.
People couldn’t be clearer – the more they saw the less they liked.
And if he had picked Willard Romney then everyone would have known exactly how he became such a “successful” businessman. I’m not sure being a guy who got rich(er) destroying jobs would have played well this year.
Add that to what Biden, unconstrained, would have done to him in the debate and he would have been a drag.

PNNTO
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You have to admit thought that by the time the debates rolled around McCain was already in trouble because of Palin. People first thought he was trying to cancel the debate to give Palin more time to prepare OR to make sure she never had to debate at all. I really don’t think he would have performed the same way if he wasn’t under the same kind of pressure.
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Lest we forget, Biden put his foot in his mouth several times late in the campaign and but for Palin would have definitely dragged the ticket down some. I am not convinced that Biden unconstrained is really what we wanted to see in a debate.
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As for Romney’s bonafides I just don’t know how Obama and Biden could have attacked them without once again pointing out that neither of them had ever been involved in the financial world. Besides that Romney brought universal healthcare to Massachusettes as Governer no matter how screwed up it may be.
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Understand that we are on the same team here. I wouldn’t have voted for McCain if he had Superman on his ticket. But I really do think Rummy would have pulled his sorry ass across the finish line. Come to think of it McCain could have been the one painted as the “Team of Rivals” guy

Again SG this is just a parlor game but… nothing from August 2005 on gave any evidence of a republican winning.
Money raised, mid-terms won, special elections won, number of voters in the primaries, number of ground troops, number of new voters. There really was nothing that was going to change the end.
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Don’t believe me? Ask PE Obama and Senator Clinton. There was a reason the Democratic nomination process was as hard fought as it was, they knew the winner would be the next president.

PNNTO
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Ah but you just allowed me to pull out my trump card. Romney is a fundraising MACHINE and he has no compunction about putting his own money in the kitty. The money thing wouldn’t have been an issue with Romney. Plus he is anti union and pro big business. There would have been rich folks lining up to sign checks.

In case you are wondering, YES this did put a smile on my face

Money didn’t equal money this cycle SG, money equaled voters.
And if you reject that and want to be so vulgar* as to count straight dollars even Willard couldn’t have come up with BHO money, which likely would have been more had there been a real sense of urgency. Look at how BHO fundraising numbers actually tailed off at the end.
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*hoping you take that as the joke it is.

PNNTO
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No offense taken, I actually look for the joke instead of otherwise in most posts.
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I guess we have to just agree to disagree on the Rummy thing but we can both sleep easy knowing that it didn’t happen and thus we will never have to worry about that particular what if.

Agreed SG -and to all a good night!

SG@pg 2, item 7: that would be an interesting scenario – IF the Repugs had had the Nation’s interests in mind. They didn’t – never have – and so they went with what they thought was good for their “base,” giving the rest of the country a big middle finger in the process. Shouldn’t be a surprise; Bush and Cheney have flipped us off for years.

I am not much surprised with the demographics as stated in Curtis Gans Final report.I would like to believe that the confidence in Obama being part of the motivation, the belief was that it was now or never as far as rooting out Bush’s unpopular policies is concerned.
Fundamentally, I can say it was more like ‘we can’t continue with this’ mentality .And the ‘it’s either us or nobody’approach,.

KT here–

SG and PNNTO: By the time the debates rolled around, the stock market was tanking and we were in full economic crisis. I think that hurt McCain a lot more than his choice of a running mate. I can tell you that this was also the view of the top strategists of both the Obama and McCain campaigns. In fact, here are Robert Gibbs’ exact words on that score, in an interview with me on election day:

Those two or three weeks around Lehman’s collapse, AIG’s collapse, the politics of the bailout. When we look back, those were the three most momentous weeks in the entire campaign over an entire two-year period. That may boil down to choosing the next President of the United States.

That may have been the trigger that allowed wavering “independents” to go where they were going to end up anyway, KT.
I think the timing of the RNC (late in the cycle) giving McCain the traditional bump as the debates neared made his inevitable fall back look more tied to the AIG collapse than it was.
It’s not as if McCain was even an average candidate outside of the stock market crash.

KT
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I understand your point and I know nobody wants to really throw Sarah Palin under the bus but McCain’s numbers were already trending down before Sept 15 and I can pull them out if necessary. What tanked his numbers was his REACTION to the financial crisis not the financial crisis itself and again I think picking Romney would have changed that whole dynamic
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What was the refrain that stuck against McCain? “He’s erratic”. When did the Obama team start pushing it? After he “suspended” his campaign and parachuted in to Washington and then the House Republican stiffed him and the stock market tanked. Then he flies back to Mississippi and gets his ass handed to him on a platter.
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Like I said if he doesn’t do all that I really think the erratic thing doesn’t stick, he fulfills his promise to get a VP that helps him on the economy. The promote Romney as having “saved” the Olympics and now he will help “save” our economy.
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Tell you what, I know you don’t think that media necessarily drives opinion but just at random pick 10 publications that endorsed Obama even historically conservative ones, and see how many of them did NOT mention Sarah Palin as a factor.
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The financial crisis only hurts if you don’t have anyone around to help solve it. Obama was helped by keeping Paul Bunyon Paul Volker and Warren Buffett around him at all times. Rummy could have been sold as a counter to that.
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And again “universal healthcare”. Can you say “Reagan Democrats”?

@KT,
I think you’re trying to separate out events that are related. Don’t you think that having a running mate who was knowlegable and noted for competence might have changed people’s perceptions of how the bailout negotiations were handled? Particularly, the scenario described above where VP candidate Romney directly participated in negotiations could have been a game changer.

KT here–

PD: I do think, in retrospect, Romney would have been a better running mate, because he is at least comfortable with the language of economics in a way that McCain never was. But I think the best pick–again, in hindsight–would have been Bobby Jindall. He got good reviews for the way he handled the hurricane (competence!), there would have been the excitement of some ethnic diversity on the ticket, and the base loves him.

I have a serious question that will sound like snark-where does all this Willard Romney would have been a big help as Veep come from?
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He was a disaster during the primaries. Quayle-like when answering questions during debates and really only gave one well received speech, his farewell at some Con-Convention where he threw red meat at the true believers.
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His supporters, K-Lo etc. always were in live with the idea of what Willard was but he just was poor as a candidate.

KT here–

P-NNTO (I’ve got to sign off soon)–I don’t think the guy who ran in the Republican primary would have been a good running mate at all. But that other Mitt Romney, the one sgwhite wrote about, would have been a big help.

KT
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re Jindall
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one word
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EXORCISM

KT is right. The financial collapse had more to do with McCain’s demise than Palin. Palin did make a difference among some swing voters (as in turned them off), but she also energized a part of the base that simply was not going to vote (trust me, I know a lot of them). Personally, I think McCain’s reaction to the crisis was a gamble he had to go with. It came off as reactionary and political, but what was he to do? The republicans were going to be blamed no matter what because it was/is a republican administration. He had to do something in an effort to separate himself from the republican noose. What he did was ham-fisted and it didn’t work, but I credit him for trying to change the game. Had he done nothing, he was still going to take the heat and people were going to turn away from him because, for all the maverick schtick, there still is an “R” after his name.

On the first page of this thread, someone, I think it is “Paul, no not that one” nailed it — ground game is the key — Obama had it from the start of the primaries. He ran a 21st century campaign, to be sure, but in the end, politics comes down to the same basics that have been in place for decades/centuries — get out the vote with a good ground game. It is why W was elected in 2004 and it is why Obama beat the Clinton machine and won the general.

dancingoutlaw
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I think there were more Republicans who DIDN’T vote because of Palin than there were those that did vote because of her. The numbers don’t lie. If you go and read Gans’ report he specifically points out that many moderates likely did not turn out to vote because Sarah Palin repulsed them. I would venture to say there are more modoerate Republicans than there are face painters. It is what it is.

KT-
I must point out again, and I think that it is rather than being so reluctant to say it, she should acknowledge that it is indeed the Black Community that supplied a large impetus in this election.
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Colorado, among that list of states, is the only state (and to a lesser extent, Indiana) among them, and that is due to it’s small size population wise.
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EVERY state mentioned has a large Black constituancy and KT needs to acknowledge the importance of their contribution.
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These data are so blindingly obvious that giving ones’ due is definately called for here.

I think, dancingoutlaw, is that the Republicans truly do deserve the blame. I won’t go into it too much because it’s been all rehashed.
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Besides the fact that a lot of Republicans flew the coop because of that crackhead down-ticket from McCain, they skillfully antagonized a preveiously maligned voter block, which finally, promptly, and summarily kicked the GOP in the teeth.
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Looking at the list of states and my previous post, it won’t be hard to figure out who I’m alluding to…

[...] year of high turn out level of 63 percent of eligible voters , democratic turn out was increased by 5.4 percentage points to 31.6 percent of the eligible vote. Of course Democratic National Commitee developed 50 state strategy of [...]