The GOP base is energized enough to respond like trained seals in polls

[BurtWorm]

But will they show up to vote? :shrug:

http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/45749919/2684


The Lay Of The Land: The Aggregate Polls, And The Voter Who Shows
by DemFromCT
Mon Nov 06, 2006 at 04:16:33 AM PST

Andy Kohut of The Pew Research Center was interviewed on NPR about the recent Pew Poll. He noted that while the voter sentiment hasn't changed, what has changed is Republicans are more energized than they were. The poll was adjusted to reflect that, and there we have the explanation for the poll tightening. Subgroups who have a Dem lead (but not as much as before) include women and independents. The slew of polls we covered yesterday looked at those subgroups as well.

The WSJ has a free article this am looking that the all-important swing voter.

The 2006 midterm elections could go down in the books as the year that Karl Rove's strategy of energizing the Republican base reached its limits, and Iraq opened the door for Democrats to court disaffected independent voters.

As voters head to the polls tomorrow, Republicans still hope to hold on to power in Congress by mobilizing conservative supporters and using negative ads to taint Democrats and suppress their turnout. But this time, with Democrats making a strong bid for at least the House, the outcome could rest more on voters who aren't hard-core party loyalists.

"There are some elections where the fear of the status quo is greater than the fear of change," says Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster. "This is one of those elections."

How much change could depend on how voters -- particularly independents -- resolve these questions: How much has Iraq trumped the larger war against terror, which two years ago was the president's great link to swing voters? How effectively have Republicans used a tough-on-immigration and antitax posture to counter the erosion of support for the war? How unshakable is the economic pessimism in the Midwest? And what is the lasting impact of political scandals, topped by former Rep. Mark Foley's sexual approaches to former teenage pages?

It's not that all of a sudden Bush and Iraq became popular on Friday. What happened over the weekend is interviews suggested that as unhappy as Republican voters are, they'll hold their nose and vote for the GOP. To that extent, the GOP "play to the base" campaign worked as designed.

The importance of likely voter models therefore should be appreciated. Gallup's been doing theirs for a long time, yet in a wave election, the sentiment for change can be underestimated (by definition, the LV model isn't based on changing from the past). Frank Newport thinks it looks like 1994, and the difference is strong enough to take the House.

...

[Avalux]

1. I think we should focus on US.

Bottom line - if Democrats are energized and GOTV, we win.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Luntz - you led your party down this path

now you stab them in the back ??

what a worm.

[elocs]

3. Both parties need the independent swing voters to win.

You get out your base, and then try and win as many of the swing votes as possible. I don't think that the base alone will generally win an election by themselves.

[BurtWorm]

5. The received wisdom is that this election is a base-oriented election.

If the Republicans can't get their seals to vote, they may have to actually start offering them herring instead of just the sanctimony of marriage between males and females and borders secure against people for whom English is a second language.

[elocs]

6. I had read that the independents are breaking heavily towards the Dems.

In an election where both sides can get out their base, the independents are needed to win. If you can pull a bigger percentage of independent, swing voters than the other side and get out your base you will win. I think that if it was everybody who WOULD vote for a Democrat versus those who WOULD vote for a Republican, the Democrats would win. I believe there is a correlation between education and income, and the frequency of voting. There are many poor and poorly educated people who could and should vote for Democrats who do not vote at all for one reason or another. Even so, Republicans need to suppress the vote in Democratic districts in order to win.

[BurtWorm]

7. Every poll I've seen (though I haven't looked at the ones too closely today)

has shown Independents breaking for Dems. Who knows if they'll actually vote, either?

[fasttense]

4. There is no way the repukes are as angry as Democratic

voters are. Angry voters make more of an effort to vote. This BS about repukes being "energized" is nothing but spin. "Energized" means exactly what? They have energy? They have excitement? Democratic voters have anger, and anger is much more of a motivator than just having energy and excitement. Ignore the spin, remember when the supremes selected our pResident, get angry and vote.