2004 User Predictions - Discussion

[agcatter]

Realpolitik,
You and I have had this discussion before.  Forget the South.  The cultural divide between the national Democrats and southern whites is waaaay too huge.  You keep implying the possibility that somehow economic issues might trump cultural and social issues in the minds of Southern voters.  It has never happened before and is even less likely today when that cultural gap is larger than it has ever been.  I know you are not predicting a GOP loss in Virginia, Georgia, and NC, but the fact that you even mention it as a possibility tells me you severely underestimate the very conservative nature of the southern region of the country.  Believe me, nothing would delight me more than to have a Howard Dean take his core message to the South. in a general election.

I firmly believe there is a Liberal Democratic cacoon on both coasts whereby Democrats are so isolated from the rest of the country that they actually believe what plays in New York, Los Angelos, and Boston is not going  to bother the "folks" in Raleigh, NC.  They get this by constantly talking amongst themselves and having no exposure whatsoever to people in "flyover country".  They literally live in a cacoon.  It doesn't help their situation at all that the Democratic candidates are madly dashing even further to the left to capture the lefty activists that form the majority of Democratic primary voters.  That will get the nomination, but what good is the nomination if the nominee gets buried in the general election?

Read Zell Miller's book.  It will be an eye opener.

[agcatter]

I'm afraid that's the kind of stuff Democrats are reading and buying into these days and there lies the Dems problem in a nutshell.   It may make them feel good and all of that, but it's no recipe for winning a general election.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a partisan and I admit it.  That's why I have no problem with liberals ceding the middle to the Republican Party.  Nominate Howard Dean.  Buy into Franken, Michael Moore. the hollywood left, the whole thing.  I'm just saying that you can't afford to run too far left or right if you want to win.

How far left has the Dem Party veered?  Well, case in point is Florida which was 50-50 in the last election.  Mason-Dixon released a poll yesterday showing none of the current Dem candidates within 20 points of Bush in Florida.  BTW, Mason-Dixon hit Florida right on in 2000 and was right on the button in the 2002 governor's race.  You are alienating a hell of a lot of swing voters when you go from 50-50 to 20 down.

[agcatter]

I think you just about nailed it state by state.  I can't really can't see a state that I'd argue much with - percentages are about right I'd say.

[agcatter]

At the Presidential level?  Not a chance.

[agcatter]

No northern Democrat has carried Tenn since '48 (border state Truman from Mo.).  The last 4 northern dems have gotten killed - Humphrey 68 actually finished 3rd in that election.  McGovern lost by 38.  Mondale lost by 18.  Dukakis lost by 16.  

Dean has as much chance of making Tenn competitive as Bush has of making a run in Massachusetts.  It aint gonna happen in either case.

[agcatter]

<1968 is a bad example and you know it>

Not a bad example at all.  I don't know where you get that.  It is entirely reflective of  the weakness of every other Northern lib Dem running in Tenn since then.  As a matter of fact, 68  was CLOSE compared to elections since.  McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis got drubbed worse.

You are right, Dean hasn't been nominated yet.  However, you can substitute Kerry's name, Gephart, whoever....Northern liberals get squashed in the South.  Good grief.  If Gore gets beat by 4% and it's his state, what do you think will happen to Dean and company.

I keep telling you.  Forget the South.  No amount of wishful thinking is going to change the fact that there is no historical trend pointing to a competitive race in Tennessee between Bush and this bunch.  None whatsoever.

[agcatter]

For many Southern whites who had never until then voted for a Republican, Wallace was a temporary way station in their migration from the national Democratic Party.  By 72, those Southern whites had gone all the way over to the Republicans.  It is interesting that Nixon's 72 vote almost exactly equaled the sum of the 68 Nixon plus Wallace percentages in southern state after state.

[agcatter]

In 64 the Civil Rights Bill was pushed thru Congess by Johnson.  Whites in the deep South responded by voting against Johnson and for Goldwater who had voted against it in the Senate.

Johnson in 64 was still able to carry enough whites in the rest of the South to still carry Tennessee, NC, Va, Fla, Ark, Louisiana.

However, by 68 the white vote came undone even in those states and the Dem national ticket lost all those states.  Many of those whites got their first taste of voting for someone other than the Dem nominee for the first time in their life.  While they were not able to pull the Republican lever, many whites pulled the lever for Wallace and thus broke the habit of voting straight Democratic.  The next election in 72 saw the migration complete as Wallace was not on the ballot and studies show the Wallace voters broke around 85% Nixon, 15% McGovern.  Realignment was complete in the South and the white vote in the South has since gone overwhelmingly Republican.  In fact, even native southerner Carter lost the white vote (it was closer in 76) in the South even though he won all Southern states due to carrying 90% of the black vote.  Even HIS white % declined significantly in 80 after it became apparent after his first term that he was no conservative.

The Dem. Party can count on between 25 and 30% of the Southern white vote in a Presidential election.  Look for Dean to fall short of 25% in the South if he's nominated in 04.  They can expect to garner enough white votes to win some Senate and governor's races PROVIDING they run as moderates or moderate conservatives (eg. Gov. Warner in Va or former governor Hodges in SC).  Unfortnately for Democrats, the national Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that any of these 9 guys running against W will get buried in the old confederacy.  In other words, wave bye bye to 153 electoral votes.

[agcatter]

<Gephardt, Edwards, and Clark are all VERY moderate>

Oh please.  Very moderate?  You haven't been watching the same Democratic debates I have.

<And it's not true that Dems can win the South just by being moderate.>

I didn't say they could.  I was simply saying they nave NO chance at all running as a liberal.

However, here is a fact you may want to consider before you stick Arkansas and Louisiana in the Dem column.  No NON-Southern Dem nominee has carried a single Southern state since 1968 and that includes Arkansas and Louisiana.  In fact, "buried" is a perfect description of how those candidates fared in those states.

But hey, pour the resources in down there boys if you think you can win.  The more money Dems divert from say Ohio and Pa. to the South, the better.  

I think you aren't being very realistic.  I'd love to say Bush is competitive in Mass and Rhode Island.  Damned reality keeps getting in the way though.

[agcatter]

Dean will win the nomination and go down in November something like 54 - 46.  Pretty substantial win considering we are a 50 - 50 nation.

[agcatter]

Ok, I'll take a stab at objectivity.  The Dem nominee will have a much tougher time keeping the states Al Gore won by 1/2 of one percent - Wisconsin, Oregon, New Mexico, and Iowa -  than George Bush will have protecting his closest states of Florida and New Hampshire.  Bush will run much tougher in California and New york than he did in 2000.  He won't win those two states but will force Dems to spend resources there they didn't have to spend in 2000.  

If Dean is the nominee, Bush carries Minn, Pa, as well.

[agcatter]

Quite an accomplishment?  Against Howard Dean?  Hardly.

[agcatter]

I agree that most Europeans would prefer Dean.  

Dean would carry western Europe handily.  Perhaps Howie needs to move to France and run for something.  He'll get slaughtered here.

[agcatter]

Not against a Howard Dean type.  Ohio stays comfortably Republican.

[agcatter]

If I were Dem strategists, I'd worry more about defending states such as Wisconsin, Oregon, Iowa, and New Mexico where Gore scraped by with 1/2 of one percent or less.  Might even worry about Minn where the margin was a slender 2%.  There's a much greater chance that these states switch sides than for Arkansas (won by Bush by 6%) changing hands.

Realpolitik is once again completely discounting the cultural conservatism of the red states.  Howard Dean won't come within 15 points of carryinjg Arkansas.  I suspect he's in for a disappointment when it comes to West Virginia as well.  People in these two states are no more going to turn national security over to Howard Dean than a man in the moon.

[agcatter]

Arkansas and Louisiana will vote for a northern liberal when pigs fly.  It's not going to be easy for Dean to try to slide to the center after he's run hard left for months before and during the primaries.  Also, Bush has 170 million during the primary season to define Dean as the leftist he is.  Think of all that beautiful footage the Bush campaign will have of Dean playing to the left base during all those Democratic debates.  They will run it in their ads over and over and over.......

[agcatter]

Bush remains popular in Arkansas.  Last time I looked, Huckabee wasn't going to be on the presidential ballot.  Bush is on the ballot - and thank the lord his opponent is going to be Dean.  Write it down, Bush will carry Arkansas by at least 15 points.

[agcatter]

<Very unlikely that Bush would carry a Democratic leaning state by 15%.  Stop being partisan please....>

Partisan?  Bush's father beat Dukakis by 15.  McGovern lost by 23.  Mondale lost by 18.  Those are the last 3 northern liberals on the presidential ballot in Arkansas and the results.  Those are the voting trends in Arkansas when the voters there are presented with an opportunity to vote for a northern liberal.  My prediction is quite clearly based on past presidential voting trends, not partisanship.

[agcatter]

Drop the northern liberal argument?   Fine.  Non southern liberal if you prefer.  No non southern liberal has carried Arkansas since 1960.  Satisfied?  Unless we're talking about a southernor (Clinton, Carter) it doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference where the lib comes from....McGovern and Mondale from the MW or Dukakis from NE...or Dean from New England for that matter.

Clark would win Arkansas in a cakewalk?  Where do you get this stuff?

Ohio is a tossup?  Uh, Bush is leading every Dem candidate by 8 - 20 points and with that kind of spread nationally there is absolutely no way Dean or anyone else is running even in Ohio.

[agcatter]

Ohio is not a tossup steel tariffs or no.  The latest national poll has Bush over Dean 55 - 37.  No way a Republican leaning state like Ohio is a "tossup" with national numbers like that.  BTW, the latest numbers came well AFTER Bush announced he was repealing the steel tariffs.  No cacoon here.  It's called reality my friend.

[agcatter]

The only poll that counts is the one next November.  I think we can all agree on that.

[agcatter]

Nor have I seen any specific Ohio polls.

[agcatter]

There is a website entitled the Hedgehog Report  It contains daily polls from around the nation.  State Dem primary polls, state general election matchup polls, Dean vs Bush, Kerry vs Bush etc.  Quite interesting.  It's worth a look for all us political junkies.

[agcatter]

www.davidwissing.com

A guy out of Maryland maintains and updates the site.  If you scroll down on the site you get a lot of primary state Democratic polls that are hard to find anywhere else - Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Oklahoma for example.

[agcatter]

No way  a Republican polling in the high 50s nationally is polling 10 points behing that figure in the deep South.  

Get real.