MoveOn.org bids to take over Democratic Party

[Winston]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


91% of Blacks that voted, voted for Kerry

Funny, I recall the GOP share of the black vote increasing from 11% in 2000 to 18% this time around.

[chequita guevara]

That was pre-election polling.

[Winston]

And what is your 91% figure then?

[chequita guevara]

Exit polling.

[Sava]

The Republicans won by exciting their base... not moving to the center. Becoming "Republican-lite" isn't the answer for the Dem's. But they don't need to "move to the left" either. Frankly, I think the Washington establishment elitists need to be removed from the Party.

[Winston]

Ah, so it really comes down to who you want to believe the most. Mine was used by RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie in his post-election evaluation Q&A session with the National Press Club, during which he also predicted a 2008 GOP share of the black vote of at least 30%.

I don't know where you got the <9% figure, but there's a bit of a leap to make from such a figure, to the party going public with a 30% prediction for the next election.

[chequita guevara]

According to this, Bush got 11% of the Black vote.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Ed Gillespie is a hack. Of course he's gonna say stuff like that. He's trying to pretend the GOP isn't racist, because many centrist whites are opposed to racism.

[Winston]

Let's just agree that it's a matter of personal belief, and how much stock you put in different types of polling. Exit polls were once again highly unreliable in predicting anything about what really happened in this election.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
According to this, Bush got 11% of the Black vote.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Ed Gillespie is a hack. Of course he's gonna say stuff like that. He's trying to pretend the GOP isn't racist, because many centrist whites are opposed to racism.

[/troll] Which explains why the Republican Party is more appealing to Ku Klux Klan members than the Democratic Party [troll\]

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Winston
Exit polls were once again highly unreliable in predicting anything about what really happened in this election.

Not really. The early exit polls were, but that's why they weren't supposed to be released (and wouldn't have been had some blogger not gotten his hands on them). The full polls matched the election results.

[Winston]

Notice I said predicting. Which is all we really have when it comes to break down by race etc.

Of course they full polls fit the final result, once they'd been corrected enough to match it. Otherwise, exit pollers would be out of business pretty fast.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
According to this, Bush got 11% of the Black vote.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Ed Gillespie is a hack. Of course he's gonna say stuff like that. He's trying to pretend the GOP isn't racist, because many centrist whites are opposed to racism.

I was gonna say I thought Bush got 11%.

Course that 11% + the 91% that you say Kerry got means .....



As I suspected the Kerry campaign was tampering the vote...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sava
The Republicans won by exciting their base... not moving to the center. Becoming "Republican-lite" isn't the answer for the Dem's. But they don't need to "move to the left" either. Frankly, I think the Washington establishment elitists need to be removed from the Party.

Sava: Republicans can win by exciting there base because 20% of Americans consider themselves to be conservatives and that was about equal to the "moral values" vote (that's code for the religious). By contrast liberals only make up 8% of the population. Sorry but you can motivate that 8% all you want but you won't win elections; instead you must reach out to the middle 72%.

That means Republicans can win even if they only get 31% of that 72% as long as they get their base out. If Democrats get 100% of their base out they still need 43% of that 72% in order to win. As a proportion that is 4/7 of the undecide vote needed to squeek by with a win. Is it any wonder Republicans have been winning more elections?

Sure, we need to build our base beyond blacks, gays, latinos, and educated urban whites. We need to make more liberals and more socially progressive centrists but that is a long term thing. How do you win in the short and medium term? You stay in the center and you give that 72% more reasons to vote for us then to vote for the other guy.

[Dinner]

So now that we've established that Republicans start 12 points ahead as long as they can motivate religious conservatives to vote what can we do about it. For starters we can avoid issues which excite religious conservatives and raise their voter turn out. These skims off the Republicans' advantage in numbers. Incidentally the more we pander to the 8% of liberals with things like gay marriage the more we excite the 20% of religious conservatives and the more we encourage them to vote for Republicans.

We need to avoid those issues which are lightening rods for the religious right and we need to instead talk about things which the 72% like but which the left leaning 8% can still fall in behind. That means health care, education, the elimination of subsidies & waste, consumer protection laws and enforcing anti-trust laws, anti-corruption laws especially about big businesses buying legislation, protecting the enviroment, and promoting workers' rights. What ever we do we have to avoid looking like we're attacking religioun and we have to muzzle the anti-religious nutballs on the far left who want to ban Christmas.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


I was gonna say I thought Bush got 11%.

Course that 11% + the 91% that you say Kerry got means .....



As I suspected the Kerry campaign was tampering the vote...

Obviously I made a mistake. Kerry got 88%.