Saturday 16 October 2004

Take Heart! It's the Election that matters.

I've heard some wailing lately that in spite of winning all three debates, Kerry hasn't pulled ahead in the polls. Kerry was right to target his base more than the swing voters in the last two debates, because that's where he's going to win this election. Targeting swing voters to the exclusion of firing up the base would have helped his poll numbers, but the Democrats' advantage this year is going to be the phenomenal turnout among voters hellbent on defeating W. There is no way the polls can accurately reflect that. Focusing on firing up that natural constituency was the right way to go - and I feel he did it in a way that didn't alienate many of the swing voters either.
-the eternal optimist

4 comments:

-epm said...

This election will be decided by the side that does a better job of getting out the vote, not by swing voters. For crying out loud, at this point in the game how many swing voters are there? Something like 4- or 5% of the electorate? Heck, that's the margin of error of some polls.

Today's uncommitted voter is one of two things: uncommitted to actually voting, in which case they're just messin' with the pollsters' minds; or they'll remain uncommitted until 3 seconds before checking the box, in which case they're, well, messin' with the pollsters' minds.

There's one thing that makes me more nervous than hearing Kerry's behind in the polls: hearing he's ahead in the polls... I'm more jazzed about getting out the vote when my guy is the slight underdog. (Of course, if Kerry were up by 16 points, I'd be singing a different tune!)

All I know is, I've got my daughter, my son, and his wife all registered and in the "D" column. And my brother (40), a former Army Specialist, will be voting for the first time ever.... for Kerry. None of these people show up in the polls.

Now, if I could just get the in-laws to the polls...

Michael Moore-on said...

I too have been busily registering my family members, friends etc.. for Bush. Republicans are just as hell bent to have dubya in office as you are to have him out. Little known secret here, republican's by and large are a quiet bunch. They tend to let their vote speak for them. Kerry is just wrong, your assumption that "anybody but Bush" will be enough is just as wrong. I have never seen us more fired up than now.

Alex said...

I was tooling through my blog looking for something when I saw that you had kindly indicated that my piece on Iraq posted on July 16th ran afoul of something that anarchie bunker published and copyrighted sometime in 2003. Unfortunately, I didn't know anyone had copyrighted it. In fact it was sent to me as a joke with no indication of its' origins. I suppose in retrospect I should have done a search but with approximately 10 million bloggers (so I'm told) blogging good luck on finding a copyrighted version somewhere!!

-epm said...

"Republicans are just as hell bent to have dubya in office..."

You got me there. Why just the other day John Eisenhower was saying... no, wait... bad example. I got it. William Milliken, former Republican governor of Michigan, was saying how gung ho he was for Bush... No, that was Kerry he was endorsing. But there's all those Republican senators praising Bush's management of the war in Iraq... Well, except for all the Republican senators who've voiced serious concerns about Bush's management of the war in Iraq.

But you're right, I'm sure. I've seen pictures of John McCain campaigning with Bush. By the way, if you see John tell him I hope he passes that kidney stone soon. He really looks painfully uncomfortable.

More Kool-Aide?