"electability"

[Napoleon]

Fox News likes to promote the more conservative, DLC type of Democrats. They were, and the Clintons both agreed, the least biased news network against Hillary's campaign. Networks gave Hillary a lot of undue negative coverage, and that is a fact. Kerry was this guy in 2004, once Lieberman was no longer viable. Dean was the candidate of the moveon.org types much like Obama was in 2008. A lot of Democrats watch Fox News, you know. They just tend to be older, and probably vote mostly Republican but are still registered Democrats from the old days. West Virginia and Kentucky primary voters, for example. Plus Fox tends to have this uncanny power to drive the news of the day as you see they did with Death Panels. They were able to destroy Dean similarly. Sucks, huh?

[Napoleon]

I don't know how you can characterize Kerry's performance as a strong one.  Bush looked strong in the early part of 2003 but his approval ratings fell dramatically in that year and in 2004.

The climate wasn't particularly favorable or unfavorable to either Bush or Kerry.  Kerry could have plausibly spun Iraq as a failure and the economy as sputtering.  There was an opportunity for Kerry to win and potentially win big.

Unfortunately for us Republicans, there is a ceiling on the number of electoral college votes we can get these days and Bush's 280 + isn't that far off (perhaps he could have plausibly won Pennsylvania) considering that Washington/Minnesota are not serious possibilities without third-party help.

Dirty tricks may have sunk Kerry. Do you remember the photo montage that showed him with Jane Fonda? It was a Soviet-style fake, as shown by the shadows showing the sunlight hitting them from different directions.  Figure that if that photo didn't appear, Kerry might have won  somewhere between 1.05% (which would have flipped Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio to Kerry) and  2.51% of the vote (which would have also flipped Nevada, Colorado, and Florida).

You are right about the ceiling. With an electorate like that of 2010, the GOP will win the Presidency, take over the Senate, and consolidate its gains in the House.

 

Wrong on 4 out of 6.  Bush won Ohio 50.8 to 48.7 = 2.1% margin, Nevada 50.5 to 47.9 = 2.6% margin, Colorado 51.7 to 47.0 = 4.7% margin, and Florida 52.1 to 47.1 = 5% margin. 

Iowa and NM were both under 1% margins for Bush. 

You're wrong. Shifting 2.51% of Florida's voters from Republican to Democrat would leave us with 49.61 Kerry to only 49.59 for George W. Bush. And of course, that means the others would all flip as well.

[Napoleon]

I don't know how you can characterize Kerry's performance as a strong one.  Bush looked strong in the early part of 2003 but his approval ratings fell dramatically in that year and in 2004.

The climate wasn't particularly favorable or unfavorable to either Bush or Kerry.  Kerry could have plausibly spun Iraq as a failure and the economy as sputtering.  There was an opportunity for Kerry to win and potentially win big.

Unfortunately for us Republicans, there is a ceiling on the number of electoral college votes we can get these days and Bush's 280 + isn't that far off (perhaps he could have plausibly won Pennsylvania) considering that Washington/Minnesota are not serious possibilities without third-party help.

Dirty tricks may have sunk Kerry. Do you remember the photo montage that showed him with Jane Fonda? It was a Soviet-style fake, as shown by the shadows showing the sunlight hitting them from different directions.  Figure that if that photo didn't appear, Kerry might have won  somewhere between 1.05% (which would have flipped Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio to Kerry) and  2.51% of the vote (which would have also flipped Nevada, Colorado, and Florida).

You are right about the ceiling. With an electorate like that of 2010, the GOP will win the Presidency, take over the Senate, and consolidate its gains in the House.

 

Wrong on 4 out of 6.  Bush won Ohio 50.8 to 48.7 = 2.1% margin, Nevada 50.5 to 47.9 = 2.6% margin, Colorado 51.7 to 47.0 = 4.7% margin, and Florida 52.1 to 47.1 = 5% margin. 

Iowa and NM were both under 1% margins for Bush. 

You're wrong. Shifting 2.51% of Florida's voters from Republican to Democrat would leave us with 49.61 Kerry to only 49.59 for George W. Bush. And of course, that means the others would all flip as well.

No, that assumes that all the voters completely flip from Bush to Kerry.  That's a faulty assumption.  This only makes sense from a one-sided view.  Perhaps Kerry voters stayed home b/c of the photo thus only adding to his vote total if the picture doesn't exist.  to suggest that that % of Bush voters would change their mind based on a picture is really reaching. 

It's the same theory as the DUI in 2000.  While, there may have been some flips from Bush to Gore, it hurt most with Conservatives staying home and not voting. 

You're ability to prove your claims are just as impossible as my ability to prove pbrewoer2's. that doesn't mean that you were wrongly interpreting what he was saying in his post though.