Swing voters or base? Who holds the key to winning the election?

[Redneck Socialist]

Conventional wisdom is that you need to appeal to the moderate swing voters to win a general election, but there seems to be a new theory developing. In short, the electorate is so polarized now that there is no moderate middle left. The winner of the next election will be that party that can most effectively mobilize its base. If this theory is true it has serious implications in terms of who the nominee selected in the primary is, but that is not what I am really interested in though and would like to avoid discussing for the time being.

Does anyone think this theory is valid? Myself am undecided at this point, but I would like to hear what you all think.

Something to stir the pot a little more: Does Bill White's win in the Houston Mayoral race

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4253668.html

hold any lesson for us during the general election? He seems to think so. Check out the report on NPR's Here and Now.

http://www.here-now.org/shows/2003/12/20031211.asp

White holds to the conventional, appeal to the moderate middle, school of campaigning and makes a good case. He isn't exactly a disinterested observer however.

I am not familiar enough with that race to comment on it, but if anyone out there is I would like to hear about it.

[dobak]

1. Both

That is why Bush and Clinton won

Appeal to both. Say and do enough to keep the base happy, then go after those few issues that get the middle riled up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. You need to strike a balance between

appealing to swing voters AND motivating the base. The Republicans' secret is a highly motivated base, but they run as moderates while throwing hints to their base about what they're really going to do.

I have never, ever seen Republicans diss their base the way certain Democratic Party types are known to do.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. The key:

Democrats.

We outnumber them. Just have to get to the booth.

[Redneck Socialist]

4. dobak and LL...

...I would put your responses in the appeal to middle column. (please correct me if I'm wrong) The theory as it has been expressed to me is that because so few people are neutral about bush the election is going to hinge on which party can turn out the most committed voters. If this is true (not sure I buy it btw) then moderating our message will actually hurt us when it comes to the general election.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. I don't mean softpedaling the message

I mean acknowledging the base's disgust with Bush and indicating a willingness to undo some of the damage that the Republicans have done, while at the same time using issues to appeal to the middle in very specific ways.

That does NOT mean platitudes like "policies for working families." It means specific proposals that will make sense to the average voter and will show a concern for "the little person" as opposed to corporate donors.

[mikehiggins]

6. This theory is garbage

More crap derived from polls and focus groups. Neither the GOP or the democratic parties are monolithic. The actual Radical Bush Fringe is not "most" of the GOP nor is the "Reagan Democrats" the majority of this party. Most people don't really identify themselves that way in their everyday life. Concentrating on "mobilising" the base is futile since very few of the voting public consider themselves tied to any particular party in ways similar to those of the past. You can find republicans voting in favor of abortion rights, and democrats opposing the Brady bill.

All you can do is try to appeal to the widest possible range of voters in ways and on issues that are important to them. The vote is still out on what that might be but people like me think Bush will be most vulnerable on the War which leads us to supporting Clark. Others have different views.

The important thing to remember, however, is that most voters do not follow politics as intensely as people like us, and that we sometimes lose track of that fact in our discussions, as do the people we support.

[Redneck Socialist]

7. I tend to agree with you...

...I have been involved in politics for a long time now and you are spot on when you say "most voters do not follow politics as intensely as people like us." However I do think people are more polarized than before and that leads me to at least give this idea more thought.

I threw it out here in hopes of generating some thought provoking discussion.

[maxr4clark]

8. warning, long answer

I meet a lot of people riding the bus who haven't thought about the election at all. At this point they count as "Undecided", which makes them swing voters in my mind. When they decide to tune in and pick a guy to vote for, we need to have the guy that appeals to them.

I think conservative/liberal as seen today in America is more personality than anything else. There are people who want a leader, a rock to cling to; most of these people end up conservative. A definite answer is what they want, not a chain of logic that can be assailed and must be defended at each step. Any argument that threatens to pry them off their rock scares them to h*ll, makes them lash out and/or run away. B*sh is this kind; he doesn't want to hear that a country supports America but not its policy in Iraq, you're either following B*sh or you're in the way.

Liberals like me want to understand why we believe what we want to believe; we want to be able to describe it in 250 words or more. It gives us a sense of nobility to understand. No wonder Noam Chomsky talks about the deep structure of sentences.

The people who don't pay any attention to the election until Nov 1, Joe and Jane Sixpack, aren't interested in choosing sides. They want to know who's ahead, so they can vote for that person and believe they are good people because the guy they voted for won. They pick candidates for the darnedest reasons: B*sh looks like the guy they know down the street, or Dean's mouth is so small he can barely smile so he can't be worth voting for.

Conservatives will vote for the guy who imitates a rock best in their view. Liberals will vote their conscience. These are the people who vote in every election. It's the Joe and Jane Sixpack people who don't vote or stay "undecided" until voting day.

What I think we need is a rock for people to cling to that is socially more liberal than the most liberal Repub you can remember, and who gives good explanations. Dean may be that guy, but the kind of rock he looks like to me is the same kind of rock B*sh looks like; the angry kind. I don't see Dean taking conservatives away from B*sh, but I do see him collecting the people who are angry at B*sh.

Clark is a kinder, gentler, more handsome rock. If you look at his policy papers, he is promising the traditional Democratic values. I happen to think he makes the case against the War in Iraq more effectively than Dean does at this point, although Dean definitely deserves credit for galvanizing the Dems up to this point.

Maybe Clark just fits my personality more than Dean does. After the nomination, I'll support the nom. Until then, I'm going to try to use at least 250 words to pursuade you that Clark is the right rock.

[Redneck Socialist]

9. Specific candidates aside...

you seem to be suscribing to the conventional, general elections are won in the middle/swing voter theory.

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Do we as democrats risk alienating our base and/or open ourselves up to a third party challenge by swinging too far right in order to appeal to swing voters?

I agree that some people use the "darnedest reason" to decide who to vote for, but I would argue that most voters do have some sort of idealogical slant even though they may not describe it as such or even recognize that their beliefs are idealogical.

[maxr4clark]

10. Not how I see it

No, I'm saying that left/right ideology isn't as important to so-called swing voters as their own insecurities are, and that voters who think they are voting on ideology, more often than not, are voting based on their insecurities, too, because they pick an ideology that suits their insecurities.

According to my view, Democrats risk alienating their base by picking a candidate who doesn't give reasons for his actions. Republicans risk alienating their base by picking a candidate who doesn't subjugate the voter. Both sides lose elections by either failing to appeal to people outside their base, or making a vain attempt to appeal to the other side's base.

Kerry is a prototypical Democrat, he gives reasons and logic for his positions. He has a droning voice and a motionless face that turn off voters who want to look and act and dress like their candidate. Okay, in less florid terms he has trouble connecting with swing voters.

B*sh is a prototypical Republican, maybe even a prototypical Fascist, a dominating dictator type born in a democratic country. If B*sh started trying to explain his actions, he would lose his base.

Dean and Clark both have leadership skills. Dean looks like a blue-collar, gruff union leader to me. Clark looks like a white-collar midwesterner to me, but he has been taught to lead people for the past 40 years of his life. Clark can get Joe and Jane Sixpack to follow him, his leadership skills are broad-spectrum.

In 2000, Joe and Jane Sixpack voted for B*sh, not Gore, because Gore couldn't convince them to follow him. I think the difference between Dean and Mr. Any Other Democrat in 1-1 matchups against B*sh is the best answer we have to whether Joe and Jane Sixpack will follow Dean; for whatever reason, he just doesn't seem to have "it".

[lastliberalintexas]

11. Ahem

"In 2000, Joe and Jane Sixpack voted for B*sh, not Gore, because Gore couldn't convince them to follow him."

Just wanted to remind you that Gore did receive 500,000+ more votes than Shrub. They were just in the wrong states (ignoring for the moment that Gore probably also won Florida).

People who base their analyses on what we must do to win while ignoring that we really did in 2000 are making the wrong assumptions about this race. It also explains the fallacy behind the "X candidate can't win" arguments.

[maxr4clark]

16. yes and no

I always say Gore only lost 5-4. But Gore was running as almost an incumbent, and now Shrub is the incumbent. If it was that close last time and home field advantage has switched, we need a candidate with far more appeal than Gore.

Only the nominee can win, so eight of our candidates can't. The national polls among the Dems are the best indication of who can win the nom; they aren't infallible, but they're the best indication we have. The national polls X v. Shrub are the best indication we have of how the nom will do in the General Election. They are about as reliable as next month's weather report. If you like Moseley-Braun, the national polls among Dems are a decent justification for the statement that Carol can't win. If you like Dean, the national X v. Shrub polls should be cause for concern. If you like any of the Dem candidates, the fact that Dems run at best about even with an obviously unfit candidate like Shrub should be cause for concern.

I'm not despairing, but I am concerned. The DU is a good place to voice concern that we aren't doing enough to get our guy elected, don't you think? I don't want to spread gloom, just motivation!

[lastliberalintexas]

17. Not time to worry yet

I know the national poll matchups for all of our candidates look kind of bad right now. But that's b/c most people really aren't paying attention, and they don't know much about our candidates. Which is why it is so important for us to get POSITIVE messages out there about ALL of our candidates, since any of them could be the nominee.

What is very telling, however, are Shrub's approval and re-elect numbers. He *loses* to an unnamed Dem! And while they vary somewhat from month to month, his approval ratings range from 45 to 60%. NOt very good for a "popular" president during wartime. Bush I probably had approval ratings of 75% or so at this point, before going dowhill in early 1992.

Shrub is very vulnerable, and once people start paying attention to the race, we will see that. Our job is to get around the corporate whore media and get the positive information about our nominee to the public!

[maxr4clark]

18. reasons for optimism

My private musings run along the same lines as your opinion here, that Bush II has low approval ratings for his situation. My outlook would be brighter if I had more data about approval ratings of previous deadbeat, one-term Presidents. After effectively losing last time, I'm inclined to be skeptical.

When I was a kid, there was a cartoon about Gulliver's Travels. My favorite character, whose name I have forgotten, always said "they'll neh-ver make it", no matter what the adventure was. I've been feeling a lot like I'm him lately.

I want to be optimistic, really I do. Thanks for cheering me up a little.

[lastliberalintexas]

19. You are welcome

On one hand I *hate* that I've turned into this Pollyanna who keeps posting these hideously positive messages (it's just soooo not me). But it was either that or leave DU, and I'd much rather try to change some attitudes here than give up on it. And I don't think the positivity is without reason- Shrub is very vulnerable and can definitely be beaten next year.

I don't have the polls on how Bush I was doing- I'm just going by memory here. But he had amazingly high approval ratings, and his son's don't compare even though their situations are similar (tho not exact). You could probably search the pollingdata.com (?) website and find some information about previous races though.

[lastliberalintexas]

12. Neither do alone

We definitely need the base, fired up and ready to campaign and vote for the candidate. This is where we get campaign volunteers, the foot soldiers who can increase turnout in their areas. Without the base, we may as well fold up and go home now.

We also need swing voters, but only those voters who can be won over without a compromise of Dem principles. If we win swing voters by becoming repubs, then we're really winning repub voters- not swing. True swing voters are the people who are a mixed bag politically- some are socially liberal and economically conservative, while others are the reverse. We need to convince these voters that X issue(s) is/are the most important ones, and they obviously need to be the ones with which they agree with us.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, we need to tap into the 40-50% of the elctorate that never even bothers to vote. We need to give them a reason to do so, and to vote for Dems. If we can get those people, we can tell the Froms and Reeds of the world to take a flying leap. Don't get me wrong- I want us to be a big tent party, and I welcome moderate and liberal Dems. But From and his ilk are neither- they are simply corporate whores who want the party to bow at the altar of Corporate America just like the repubs do.

*That* is where we get into trouble and get the "no difference" accusation thrown at us. It isn't just by being moderate on some issues. After all, David Bonnier and Dennis Kucinich have been pro-life Dems their entire careers, but I wouldn't- and I don't think anyone else would either- say that either of them is the proverbial pink tutu Dem. We need to be the big tent party while also remembering the definition of the word "opposition."


And btw- White's election, while very good news for Dems, was actually expected. He was running against a verrrry sleazy repub (Sanchez) who has run for mayor 2 or 3 times already against Ron Brown- and loses by bigger margins each time. His campaigns are full of ugly, personal attacks on his opponents, and he thinks that he can win the Hispanic vote just b/c his name is Sanchez. Never mind that everything that he stands for is antithetical to Hispanics in Texas- he should get their votes b/c of his last name and the Shrub endorsement. Yeah. The Hispanic and African-American communities really rallied behind White, and that made the difference.

The thing that can be taken from White's election is how important turnout is. We outnumber the repubs- it's just a matter of getting our people to the polls.

[Redneck Socialist]

22. Thanks for the info on White's win.

Is Houston more Democratic than Texas as a whole? I know that White spent a boatload of money but not much more. Where there any specific issues that White was able to capitalize on, or was it more of a personality driven campaign?

[snippy]

13. You need both your base and independent voters in order to win.

If both parties turn out the base, the independent voters decide the election in most cases, although this varies state by state. If one party does not turn out its base, the other party will almost always win. This is why so many political operatives talk of running away from the center in the primaries and toward the center in the general election.

[no name no slogan]

14. Keep in mind that not all "independents" are "moderates"

This is one of the great myths that the Democratic leadership has clung so tightly to over the last decade-- so much so that it's become dogma-- although recent election results don't validate it.

Both political parties have taken radical right turns over the past two decades, starting with Reagan and his quest to bring the right-wing religious voters into the Republican fold. In response, the Democrats have moved over to the right (predominantly on economic issues), attempting to capture the middle ground vacated by the Republicans.

Although the Democrats have remained fairly liberal on social issues, they have become decidedly old-line conservative on economic issues: welfare "reform", economic policy, corporate-friendly taxation, healthcare, etc. On most of these issues, the so-called "frontrunners" are not too far off from what Richard Nixon ran on in 1972!

Many of today's "independents" are disaffected voters on the left who have STOPPED voting altogether because of the indifference of BOTH political parties to their concerns: good jobs, fair wages and economic security.

This party, on the national level, has all but abandoned working-class and their concerns. It has effectively ditched its base of working-class people in its bid to seem more 'palatable' to the soccer moms, yuppies suburbanites, and corporate CxOs who are footing the bills for their candidacies.

If this party REALLY wants to win, it needs to keep what's left of its core (who have mostly quit voting, judging by voter turnout rates in recent years) and STAND UP for true Democratic Values, like the ones that made us the party of the New Deal and Great Society.

I would say that we, as the moderate-right party, should appeal to the masses of disaffected formerly-Democratic voters by looking to the LEFT to win back the people we've left behind in our quest to become the party of the rich suburbanites. We need to appeal on our STRENGTHS in fairness, economic opportunity, and a sustainable economy.

We need to be first concerned for the needs of the PEOPLE, and not just how many checks they can write. We need candidates who will take PRINCIPALED stands on our important economic issues, and STICK TO THEM, and not "evolve" their answer depending on who's asking the question. We need candidates who ARE NOT AFRAID to stand up for what's right on core economic issues, especially since most Americans support higher taxes on the wealthy, a universal healthcare system, spending more on schools and infrastructure, etc.

The "moderate" independents are fickle, and usually don't make up their minds until the last minute anyway. We should replace them with the disaffected voters we left behind in our march to the center.

Maybe, if we run candidates who have backbone and principals, we may even attract the "moderates" to our cause, too.

It worked for Paul Wellstone, because he had principals and stood up for them, no matter how unpopular it seemed at the time. We can do the same, too.

[CMT]

15. BOTH

if you don't excite the base and they don't show up (as happened in 2002) we are in real trouble. However, we also need to get the votes of swing voters. I think all of candidates can accomplish this.

[goodhue]

20. neither

While I concur that base turnout is more important than swing voters, might I suggest that the key is motivating new first-time voters who are neither base nor swing. A candidate who could do that would surpass their opponents base plus swing. But new voters are not likely to come out unless they see someone atypical for whom to vote.

[OHdem10]

21. I would say appeal to your base.

We have been doing this Moderate Middle Deal and have consistently lost seats in the house and senate or we surely have not made any outstanding gains. In the state elections even in conservative Mississippi and Kentucky--Truman told us If one are faced with voting between a fake Republican and a real Republican he will chosse the real thing every time.

We may be polarized to the point that only a handful of Moderates remain hovering in the middle. Common Sense tells me that if you have your base all geared and enthusiasitcally behind you you can pull situations to show this enthusiam on TV. Their enthusiams will
assist in draqing others in.Ignoring your base until the last minute makes them feel nglected and that you only want their vote. You are not really interested in their issues. Could this be why we have had declining participation--the party is only interested in the surbuban upscale vote. I am not being meanspirited or try to get people upset but this brings out my passions.

I have a theory which may explain my problem with this approach
As I understand it, they are trying to appeal to the middle--(no matter how you hack it these people are usually disgrunteled Republicans or DEms(Moderate) this idea there is a group of people who have no feelings either way-will just vote for the candidate who does the best sales job??? This tells me something right off the bat. You haved to have darn charming and smart candidates..ie, Bill Clinton. God lost the Mold after he made Bill Clinton. We do not have a plethora of these people--could this be why are consisently losing.
Secondly If you start in the center to attract these people you are starting with an agenda that appeals to moderate Republicans. What about your entire base.Whites(rich, poor) blacks LatinosAsians etc. You are telling them to take a Moderate Republican phiosopy and Agenda.Could this be why half do not vote. Third ly, when you get to
Congress== becaue you went out of your way to appeal to the Center--
Is this why you are willing to help a Republican, radical Right Republican President push through his agends Taxcuts
Medicare you name it. Your loyalty is to those people in the center and not your base? I used to be a Centrist, I thought until I sat down and watched eactly what happens.Maybe I was more left of center all along.

I say have an enthusiatic base who willdraw others into our party.
Use your base to govern-- call on them to call congress and put on the pressure . Keep them active and the party will grow.

[Redneck Socialist]

23. No consensus yet...

...but I didn't think there would be. The turn out the base theory seem to be getting increased coverage recently. I have heard it come up a couple of times in the media in the last few days. I think we will hear more and more about it as the general election nears.

I like what Lydia leftcoast wrote. "The Republicans' secret is a highly motivated base, but they run as moderates while throwing hints to their base about what they're really going to do." This is a very succinct explanation of Republican tactic in the last few campaigns.

[TexasPatriot]

24. 37%

that's the number

37% of voters identify themselves as independents. That's more than dems, and more than pubs.

I'll be a little more 'enthusiastic' on this issue here than my blog. Lately, we dems suck at rallying our base. How long has it been - 30 years? What - 1972? And lets say we do this time...

My take is that the political spectrum has a conservation of energy rule. The more energetic we dems get on the left, the more energetic the pubs get on the right - and as the two of us press on our core issues, we piss the crap out of each other. Example - let's pick something that's not widely popular across the country, but is popular amongst pubs (i'm going to use pubs as a target cause i'm practicing). How about not restricting the sale of automatic weapons.

Ok. Every time Bush* stands up there and says 'i'm for people having AK-47s' what does it do. A whole bunch of idaho secessionist militiamen go 'whooop' and do a dance - and George* locks up their vote. But then a whole bunch of Dems get equally pissed off on the other side of the equation. Over time, all these little issues add up for the non-single-issue people - and the 2 bases end up with the 'i have to vote because the other guy is an ass'

Now in the middle, those other 37% end up going 'why the hell do we always get these crazy assed candidates, why cant we have someone worth my vote running for office'

Ok - so right now, a LOT of the pubs are unhappy with George. They're just as scared as the dems are. We're all scared. Scared of losing our jobs. Scared of not finding a new job. Scared that the job we do find will suck and deliving pizza is not going to help with those college loan payments. Scared that there's going to be a terrorist attack - or that we're in a mess in the middle east that the current govt really doesnt seem to have a very good grasp on.

Right now, there are a lot of pubs that are unhappy with George* over other stuff. They think he's being fiscally irresponsible with the deficit. So much so that right now they're really not all that sure they'll get up off their butts and vote.

So where do we run. If we run a candidate without that centrist appeal, we energize a lot of those Bush* voters that might well stay home. They dont vote for Bush*, they vote against DemX. This is why Roveco will attempt to paint the dem as a leftist monster.

If the RNC is denied that angle - their options to energize their base are a lot more hamhanded and force the right to move off away from the center just to get their own to vote. Right now, they're looking at stuff like 'gay marriage' et al - and that's just not enough to offset the gains a dem gets from making a centrist run at the WH.

In our favor, the frenetic energy seen in the ABB movement means that all those angry people on the left are energized already - our candidate doesnt have to be someone that has to make those base-energizing moves. We hate W* already.

We have an amazing opportunity to take the WH this fall - and I honestly believe, in the right circumstances, shock a lot of people and go 12-2-1. I am not a dreamer - I'm a pragmatist. If we lose this, I swear it'll be our own damned fault.

[Redneck Socialist]

27. conservation of political energy...

...great idea! For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every person you pull to your side with a polarizing issue you drive one person to your opponents side.

I like it, but if we run a candidate that is so moderate it turns off our base don't we risk losing more voters from our core supporters than we pick up from the republicans?

[TexasPatriot]

29. your question

"if we run a candidate that is so moderate it turns off our base don't we risk losing more voters from our core supporters than we pick up from the republicans?"

yes. if your people arent energized and you put someone out there that will energize them, then you're going to light up the other side of the equation. But that's not where I think we are. I think we're closer to where George* was 4 years ago - only flipped. 4 years ago, there was so much anger and vitriol aimed at the Clintons, the pub base was already lit up. George ran from the center... the whole 'uniter not a divider' thing.... etc etc... I can remember a lot of times in the debates between Gore and Bush where Bush they agreed more than they disagreed. This was a HUGE F*@#KUP by the Gore people - and they should burn for it. Gore needed to paint Bush on the right and move left - rather than sit in the center. It was only in the last days of the campaign when Gore started to try to put Bush out on the fringe - and it worked (only not quite enough, depending on how many votes in florida you want to count)

Another way to look at it, its why a majority of households with union membership in the cali election didnt vote for Davis. In fact, if you look at it - Davis won the prior eleciton by making sure he was running against a figure that was polarizing. When he was up against a non-polarizing figure he was crushed. Why? Because he's a technocrat and his base hated him. Even as he tried to do things the left would like - (Drivers Licenses for Illegal Aliens etc) they were so pissed off over the fact that they'd been offered such a crappy choice the year before that the negatives were still resonating in their minds. The base not only didnt turn out - they voted for the other team.

So - do you need your base? yes. You need someone that will have a platform that will appeal to the democratic voters - but I think the energy from the dems is already there (if it weren't we wouldnt be talking about insurgent campaigns and draft movements).

So lets talk about the center a little, and look at the alternative. If we run a candidate that 'can be painted' off on the left (truth is the first victim in politics), it not only allows GW* to re-engage the center and play up the encumbant/fear cards, but it also allows him to do things off on the right to re-energize his own base. If you think partial-birth abortion was bad - giving the pubs someone they can use will let them persue a legislative agenda way out on the fringe. So the choice of candidate not only impacts what sort of choice the swing voter is presented with (a negative vote vs a positive vote), but it also significantly alters the sort of damage Delay can do over the next year - and into the following four. Afterall, if the pubs have the opportunity to advance a far-right political agenda in the year leading up to a presidential election - and Bush* wins - he will have the right to stand up there and say 'mandate'...

Clinton managed to run from the center - but his vote tallies were nothing to write home about, and the base really didnt turn out for him. Hell, if you listen to some of the hatred toward the DLC voiced on these boards, you'd think Clinton had lost. The base was taken for granted - and they hate that (trust me, i'm with em). I'm NOT arguing to do the same - in fact I'm saying they're already a substantial part of this campaign. But they're already energized - ABB is all about that. So we have an opportunity. We can crush the SOB, deny him the battleground of his choosing, and force him away from the center - or we can watch him CHOOSE to move away from the center or CHOOSE to stay there and lose his own base.

[Redneck Socialist]

34. To push it a little further...

Don't you think that the pubs will try and "paint" whomever we nominate as an "extreme liberal?" Hell they would twist Leiberman into a loony leftist. They seem to have pretty much perfected that strategy and as a result we start every election running from behind, desperately trying to defend against those attacks. The republicans have already defined us and we never even get the opportunity to control the message, thus allowing them to choose "the battleground."

I agree that our base is already energized, but do we have enough time between the convention and November to grab that middle ground and force bush right? I am concerned that the pubs are already controlling the message.

[TexasPatriot]

38. well, it all depends on the candidate

I didnt think there was a lot RoveCo could do to Richards or McCain, but the smears were amazing. I firmly believe it would be harder to 'paint' certain candidates with the traditional 'libral' smears - but that's my opinion. Many dont share it - and that's ok. This is, afterall, the democratic process. We choose the path together - and ultimately we're all responsible for the outcome, whether it's Bush's* first term or a possible second.

However, I think the OBL ad this week was kidgloves compared to what's coming.

I cant really talk about this without getting into a how this candidate might be perceived vs that one - and I'd rather not go there in this thread. All positive outcomes for any of the major candidates are possible at this point - given enough hard work. Some will require more hard work than others - and a lot more money - and maybe some luck. I'd prefer we give W* the hardest time possible - because I feel this election is just that important, but that's me.

There's plenty of time, though with the new voter registration rules that are about to go into effect (submit govt ID or its no good) it'll be a little harder to get some of those first time voters on the roles. I'm hoping FatMike is listening - punkvoter can make a big difference in this election with a lot of often-ignored citizens. That's something a lot of pollsters arent really paying attention to out there right now. You have no idea how many goths and sk8rs are taking this election thing seriously. There is a populism against W* that goes well beyond Convio's fundraising system.

I feel Bush is going to move right regardless - the issue is whether he'll do so because we let him by giving him a candidate he can effectively paint 'libral' or not. Remember, Bush* wants to play the 'fear' and 'incumbent' cards desperately. If they are countered, he has a much crappier deck.

[Redneck Socialist]

39. Tough to continue this discussion without getting into specific candidates

Like yourself I would rather not get into that in this thread. I deliberately poised my original question to avoid the "my candidate is great, yours sucks" flame fests that have been so popular of late.

I hope you are right about the skater vote and the youth vote in general. I am skeptical though, for a couple of reasons. I am going to make some rather broad generalizations here but I think they are reasonably accurate. While younger people may not care for bush, they don't vote in very high numbers. Having worked on several campaigns I know first hand how frustrating it is to get them to vote much less get them more actively involved. A lot of the "youth vote" (for lack of a better term) is pretty conservative. I have no hard data to back this up but what mock elections I have observed often go the pubs way.

That being said I would love to think I am wrong about this and I dearly hope you can convince me otherwise.

Ultimately I think this election is going to very close. It is going to come down to good old fashioned organizing and GOTV. Whichever campaign does the best job of that is going to win.

[TexasPatriot]

40. well, all i have is hearsay from friends who still run in this crowd

being an older married fart, it's not my scene like it was years ago...

but what i'm hearing is this sort of noise:
10-12 of the mid-gen punk crowd (somewhere between social distortion and operation ivy/nofx) sitting around drinking beer shooting pool - talking about how much bush* sucks, and how they never voted before, or that they voted for Mickey Mouse etc - but they're going to vote this time. Friend asked which of them had actually voted for a mainstream candidate in the past - and none of them had - but all of them would vote dem in the upcoming election.

and this is in texas

There are different camps in young America - and the mohawk crowd is a very different animal than the Jessica Simpson one. Thing is, I've never heard noises like that from the punks - they're usually too disaffected to care. I remember Jello Biafra's impromptu protest concert during the republican convention in Dallas in 84 - but you dont see them actually really talking about voting all that often. Punkvoter.com thinks they can register 500,000. I think they'll do better.

[TexasPatriot]

41. having just read the Newsweek article on Dean

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3707189/

and Trippi - one thing stands out. Trippi believes this election will be about energizing the core.

"But the main aim—as it is on the GOP side—is to energize and mobilize the base. "Core Democrats were depressed in 2002, and we got clobbered," Trippi says. To help them, or any Democrat, independent issues groups are hoping to raise and spend at least $80 million on voter registration, turnout and TV ads critical of Bush."

This is a gift to the pubs, but if that's what we dems want - i'm along for the ride (though i'm not terribly confident).

[Redneck Socialist]

44. I think the election will be won or lost based...

...on which strategy we Democrats choose. Which is why I brought this whole thing up to begin with. I like the sound of the "mobilize the base" theory because it goes against conventional wisdom and that excites me, but some times conventional wisdom is conventional because it is correct. I also like the idea of focusing on younger, disaffected, non voters and bringing them into the system, but I know how difficult that can be.

Like yourself I am not 100% sold on this of mobilizing the base idea because I recognize how risky, and in many ways more difficult it makes it to get the numbers we need to win. On the other hand what we have been doing as Democrats has not been terribly effective (Clinton aside) the last few elections, so maybe it is time for a new strategy. I'd feel better about taking the risk if the consequences of losing were not so god awful bad.

Anyway thanks for the conversation. I found your idea of "conservation of political energy" pretty compelling. I will have give it more thought and maybe post on it at some later date.

PS liked your blog.

[GreenPartyVoter]

25. Everyone!

We need every voter we can get. Whoever wins the primary has to win everyone over to "anyone but bush" thinking. Expose Bush for the hooligan that he is.

Show support for Civil Rights and Fiscal responsibility. Those two areas are being trashed by Bush, so that kind of message ought to win over a lot of voters from all across the political spectrum.

[maxr4clark]

35. Better Than Bush

Exposing little George as the hooligan he is, yes. But please, let's not stop there. Let us get an effective Democrat in office, one who can improve our international policies and reputation and bring us back together as a nation.

I hope that the Green Party and Ralph Nader will not split the liberal vote by starting a candidacy this late. Although I admire Nader for his long and noble efforts on our behalf, I have no doubt that he does not appeal to anyone who would vote for Bu$h. Unless he can win the election outright, his candidacy would only serve to make Bu$h's reelection more likely. By now, so many Democrats have committed to voting for the Democratic nominee, I seriously doubt that Nader can win the election outright.

[slackmaster]

26. I'll recycle Bob Dole's answer to the briefs/boxers question

"Depends."

I don't accept the polarization theory. People may be polarized on specific issues but party loyalty, at least here in California, is at an all-time low. The math is surely different in different states and locales. Look at the most recent registration stats for California:

43.6% Democrats
35.3% Republicans
5% Other (Mostly Libertarians and Greens)
16.1% Declined to State

See http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ror/regstats_09-30-03.pdf

Declined to State (indpendents) are the fastest-growing group. Most are people who quit the Democratic Party for going too far to the left or the Republican Party for going too far to the right for their tastes. Everyone leans one way or another but more and more people don't feel they fit into a traditional party or any of the minor ones. I think that group represents a good estimate of the number of true swing voters.

Clearly at least in California neither Democrats nor Republicans can win a majority without some support from the middle, and at the moment even if you get every Democrat and every independent going your way you will still need some support from members of other parties to get past 50%. You have to support your core plus appeal to a substantial number of people of other stated persuasions.

[AP]

28. Democrats have a more loyal base than Republicans.

Republicans' base is the religious right. Their turnout is dramatically dropping (psst, and pay attention to things the Republicans try to do to get it back up).

The Democrats' base is union members, black voters, and Green prefereres. The first two vote in a proportion of all voters which exceeds their representation in the population. Green prefererrers voted almost 90% for Gore in the end in 2000.

Democrats have a lot less to worry about when it comes to the not abandoning their base. The Republican base is more easily turned off or persuaded to vote for a moderate.

So, obviously, to me, Repbulicans need to appeal to the base, and Democrats need to appeal to moderates.

[slackmaster]

30. I must respectfully disagree about Republicans

AP opined:

Republicans' base is the religious right.

Not according to traditional Republicans like my mom and her siblings. FWIW she quit the GOP a few years ago because she felt the party had been co-opted by the religious right. Appointments made by GWB like AG John Ashcroft represent a setback; I think the GOP at large is actually heading toward moderation. It's gaining numbers here in California at about the rate the Democratic Party is losing registrants. (Caveat: But the FASTEST growing group in CA is independents, i.e. Declined to State.)

[AP]

31. In 94 25% of all voters considered themselves religious right,

although they made up about 20% of the population. I believe, they've fallen all the way down to 12% of the voters.

The religious right is the Republican base. However, Repubs have been having a problem with them. Thus, they have tried to give churches lots of money recently, and are trying to make and issue of abortion and CU for the 2004 election.

[BertrandL]

32. Swing voters matter most

My uninformed opinion:

If you look at independant polls, you'll see very few undecideds (less than 10%). That may lead you to believe that the party base is the most important.

However, it seems to me that Bush's bungling and growing reputation as shifty has, to a certain extent, curbed right-wing enthusiasm. Republicans need to get out the vote; Democrats need to swing the middle -- our base is already fired up.

So, I think we need to field a candidate who appeals to the middle (the leading candidates plus Kerry), and then worry about voter turnout.

[Martin Eden]

33. base, swing, and non-voters

What about the 40% or so of eligible voters who don't vote?

Conventional wisdom says it is a waste of resources to go after them, but I think this election is already very unconventional. The bases are more polarized than ever, but the Democratic base is more outraged, motivated, and mobilized than ever before.

Every one of us undoubtedly know quite a few people who don't bother to vote. We may not even be aware they don't vote, so we need to start discussions with our relatives, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Let some of our knowledge and passion rub off on them. Stress the importance of this election, the huge negative impact Bush is having, and persuade them to come out and vote in the general election.

I'm not advocating that our nominee invest huge sums in this direction. I'm urging every one of us to mobilize a grassroots movement to get involved with our fellow citizens and recruit as many voters as we can.

This kind of effort won't hurt us in November, and will help to influence the base, the swing, and those who otherwise may not have voted.

[rainstan]

36. Polarization is not necessarily the Parties

We do have a deeply polarized country, but it is more around specific issues than the parties. The serious polarization is around abortion, god, and race. The right wingers behind these issues are far more committed and blinded than the liberals. They also see that what can bring them victory is the republican party and they have captured it. Religious zealots are not people you can debate with, they have the truth and if you don't buy in then you are the enemy. Democrats these days tend to be for the making the world a better place to live and as a matter of fact are split all over the place on how to reach those goals. But they are certainly all much closer to each other than anyone of them is to the republicans. The one thing that unites us all is the antigonism to the policies of the Bush administration. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who are not paying enough attention to what exactly the Bush admisnistration is doing. They still haven't got it that Bush is not a compasionate conservative. The republican base does know and they are going to fight with religious zeal to re-elect the *******. It is the war that is going to gain peoples attention and we are going to have to push it to win.

[rbnyc]

43. Right on. (nt)

[dolstein]

37. If you do well among swing voters, you'll do well among the base

If polls show the Democratic nominee running competitively against Bush (which requires being competitive among swing voters), the base will turn out. If polls show the Democratic nominee getting blown out, the base will stay home.

[TexasPatriot]

42. Well RS

In your mind, how does our conversation vary based on today's events?

[Redneck Socialist]

45. You mean the Red Sox signing Foulke?

Just kidding. I have been at work all day so all I know is that we found Saddam. I haven't really had time to process that tid bit yet.

My intial thought is that it is good for bush. Second thought: The election is still a long time away and Iraq can still turn into a huge shit storm.

In terms of base vs swing, for the moment it energizes his base, ("gee that G W sure is one swell prez.") and it makes him look successful to the swing voter who might have been having some reservations about the war.

The Democratic base still hates his guts and nothing is going to change that. So one spin might be that now more than ever we need to mobilize our base and bring a lot of former non voters over to our side. Will that be successful? Perhaps but it will be very chancy because as you have pointed out it surrenders the middle to bush.

The other spin would be that now more than ever we need a candidate with strong foreign policy creds to battle bush on that front. That would reassure the folks in the middle that the Dems have not been so blinded by their rage about bush that they have forgotten that many (most?) folks are genuinely afraid and are looking for a strong leader that will protect the country. Again this conversation gets difficult with out naming names.

So does our conversation vary? Not yet mainly because I can't make up my e'ffin mind on this issue. Short term, capturing Saddam is definitely a plus for bush, long term it remains to be seen. Cop out? Sure but also very true.

Swing vs base is going to be a big issue going forward, though not one that will get much press. I would like to continue this conversation as we see how it plays out.

[TexasPatriot]

48. heh

lets see. Juan Cole came out with a fairly reserved post, and TPM noted a newsweek article by Zakarai (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3711225/) that pointed to greater cooperation between US and Iraqi forces going forward. If that's how it plays out (and i have to hope that's how it does for the sake of our troops and the iraqi people) then we're in for a lot of 'I ROCK IRAQ!!!' noises out of Roveco over the next 11 months.

I think you're right, it helps roveco in both camps. And downplaying it by saying the attacks would continue was a lot smarter than 'mission accomplished' - so they didn't make that mistake again.

there was another good thread in here -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=893190 which would really complicate the analysis.

We'll see as we get closer to March 3, but I have a feeling there's less value in being the angry anti-bush* candidate.

[Redneck Socialist]

50. Good info from commonwealth, but...

...I think the electoral picture is very different now than in 2000. I'll spin out my argument tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

[goodhue]

46. haven't i seen this before

i swear i already replied to this thread but it must have been elsewhere. the key is new voters netheir swing nor base but of the two base is the more important to turn out

[Redneck Socialist]

47. By new voters do you mean...

people who have never (or rarely) voted before? Will these new voters come from the ranks of those who were left behind as the Dems moved right or are they independent voters who have been turned off by both parties?

[goodhue]

49. folks who have never voted

They probably don't self-identify as left although their economic status is such that they are a natural constituency for progressives. Mostly they think politics offers nothing for them and they will not vote unless they hear somebody who stands apart by speaking truth to power. Ventura benefited greatly from such voters.