Has Bush Already Lost The Swing Vote?

[Donutboy 0]

N.H. Exit Polls Show Warning for Bush

By WILL LESTER

Associated Press Writer

January 28, 2004, 5:20 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is paying heed not only to the criticism from his Democratic rivals but the dissatisfaction among independent voters who will play a crucial role in New Hampshire and other battleground states this November.

The president's trip to the Granite State Thursday comes after months in which the Democratic hopefuls charged through New Hampshire assailing his policies, from his tax cuts to handling of postwar Iraq to education.

In Tuesday's primary, independent voters played a major role, making up almost half -- 45 percent -- of New Hampshire's record Democratic primary turnout of about 200,000. Seven in 10 independents who voted in the primary said the nation's economy is not in good shape[/color], according to an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

Almost nine in 10 said they were worried about the direction of the nation's economy in the next few years. Eight in 10 said the Bush tax cuts should be canceled altogether or only for the wealthy. The views about the economy of independents who voted in the Democratic primary were almost as sour as those of Democratic voters.

On Thursday, Bush will defend his economic record in New Hampshire, where Democrats for months have reminded voters that 2.3 million jobs have been lost during his administration. His re-election message is that the economy is rebounding, but he's not satisfied.

"Certainly, the economy is one of our highest priorities," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday. "And we have worked to make sure that the economy is growing strong; it's continuing to grow even stronger, but there's more to do. The President looks forward to going to New Hampshire to talk with the people of New Hampshire about this important priority."

McClellan suggested it was no surprise -- in a Democratic primary -- to hear calls for repealing the tax cuts that the president won from Congress. He said Bush would press ahead with his call for Congress to make expiring tax cuts permanent.

"I don't think it's any accident that he's coming, that (Arizona Sen.) John McCain was here Monday and (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist was here a week ago," said Linda Fowler, director of the Nelson Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College. "New Hampshire, as small as it is, will be one of the battleground states."

Four years ago, New Hampshire -- like many states -- was enjoying economic good times with a surge in high-paying, high-tech jobs and a low unemployment rate of around 2 percent. Today, unemployment remains well below the national level of 5.7 percent, but the state's unemployment rate has increased to 4.1 percent. Since 2000, the state has lost 20,000 manufacturing jobs.

Overall, independents who voted Tuesday were disgruntled.

Four in 10 of the independents who voted in the Democratic primary said they were angry at Bush, and another four in 10 said they were dissatisfied. Eight in 10 said they were worried there will be another major terrorist attack in this country. Results of the survey of 1,848 voters were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, higher for subgroups.

Almost four in 10 voters in New Hampshire are independents, political analysts say. Their support will be crucial in the general election in a state Bush won in 2000 by just over 7,000 votes. At stake are four electoral votes.

Polling as recently as December showed Bush drawing support from fewer than half -- 47 percent -- of independents in a matchup with a Democratic candidate. About a third said they would vote for the Democrat and another 21 percent were undecided. That's not a strong position for a Republican president in a state with a Republican governor, Republican congressional delegation and Republican-dominated state legislature.

The primary results on independent voters are "a sign that there's a bloc of independents where there are problems," said New Hampshire pollster Dick Bennett. "That's why Bush is coming, he has to reach out to the Republican-leaning independents."

[Tigermike 3,425]

Dixie Trap for Democrats in Presidential Race

By Norman Solomon, AlterNet

January 12, 2004

Many pundits say President Bush is sitting pretty, but this year began with new poll data telling a very different story. A national Harris survey, completed on Jan. 1 for Time magazine and CNN, found that just 51 percent of respondents said they were "likely" to vote for Bush in November, compared to 46 percent "unlikely." When people were asked to "choose between Howard Dean, the Democrat, and George W. Bush, the Republican," the margin for Bush was only 51-43, and when the survey focused on "likely voters" the gap narrowed to 51-46.

While other polls have some different numbers, clearly the race for the White House could be quite close. But one of the obstacles to Democratic success is the pretense of having a chance to carry a bunch of Southern states. Actually, for a Democratic presidential campaign in 2004 – in terms of money, travel time, rhetoric and espoused ideology – Dixie is a sinkhole.

In 2000, the Bush-Cheney campaign swept all of the South, albeit with electoral thievery in Florida.

The percentage margins were double-digit in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. But leading Democrats show no signs of acknowledging what ought to be self-evident: They should not exert their presidential campaign to troll for electoral votes in such states any more than the Bush team will push to win in Massachusetts or Hawaii.

During the Jan. 4 debate in Iowa, responding to a question about how he plans to "reach out" to "particularly white Southern voters who no longer even consider Democratic candidates," Sen. John Kerry offered patriotic-sounding flourishes. "I am a veteran," he said. "I've fought in a war. They particularly respect service to country in the South." Then Kerry added a real doozy: "And in the end, if I'm the nominee, I could always pick a running mate from the South, and we'll do just fine."

But in 2000, even with a Southerner at the top, the Democratic ticket did not get a single electoral vote from the South. So this year, in the South, how could a ticket headed by Kerry "do just fine"?

Such posturing is partly a charade for the primary season. Several Democratic candidates are concentrating appreciable resources on the South Carolina primary, for instance, because they could win some early delegates there. Yet, come November, the likelihood of South Carolina's electoral votes going to the Democratic ticket is on a par with the chances that Laura Bush will publicly express a fervent desire to marry Dennis Kucinich.

At the risk of riling some political journalists, the Democrats should stop kidding themselves about the South in this year's presidential campaign. "The 2000 election left us with a map split between blue states and red states," Joe Velasquez and Steve Cobble write in the Jan. 5 edition of The Nation magazine. "The conventional wisdom is that a Northern nominee, to win, will have to find a way to convert some of the old Confederate gray from red to blue. But most Southern states are burial grounds for Northern Democrats, not battlegrounds."

Velasquez and Cobble make a persuasive case. "For almost 40 years now," they point out, "the white South has been moving steadily into the Republican ranks. Indeed, white Southerners now run the GOP and provide a very high proportion of its cultural shock troops. Given these facts, we believe it's past time to target the electoral map in a different way. The new path to the White House runs through the Latino Southwest, not the former Confederacy, especially for a Northern nominee. Hope blooms as a cactus flower, not a magnolia blossom."

Longtime progressive electoral strategists, Velasquez and Cobble single out three states with booming Latino populations – Arizona, Nevada and Colorado – carried by Bush in 2000 but within striking distance for the Democratic ticket in 2004. Also, they note, New Mexico was "essentially a dead heat" won by Al Gore.

"When considering the Latino vote," they write, "reflect on this potentially empowering statistic: There are as many unregistered Latinos who are American citizens as there were Latino voters in 2000 – more than 5.5 million. These potential voters are not likely Bush voters, despite Republican rhetoric."

According to Velasquez and Cobble, "re-defeating George W. Bush in 2004 hinges on holding blue states on both coasts, making gains in the Midwest from West Virginia through Ohio to Missouri and adding New Hampshire – and registering and mobilizing massive numbers of Latino voters in the Southwest and Florida." They conclude: "Mobilizing the fast-rising Southwestern Latino population around the same progressive economic issues that can also unite poor whites and African-Americans is the ticket to ride in 2004."

The notion of carrying several Southern states is often encouraged by media pundits eager for a more "moderate" Democratic standard bearer. But the Dixie trip is a dead end. And a fixation on the conservative sensibilities of white Southerners is apt to tilt the ticket away from the kind of political message that could resonate sufficiently elsewhere to mean victory.

Tell Mr. Kerry that we don't care too much for condescending northern liberals either. Especially those that are buddy, buddy with Ted Kennedy.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17541

[Tiger Al 0]

Who is "we?"

[Tigermike 3,425]

Obviously more than you and Donut!

[Donutboy 0]

Who is "we?"

You know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

[Tigermike 3,425]

Who is "we?"

You know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

You mean those guys that Howard Dean wants to vote for him? Isn't that just like you liberal democrats. Start slinging the race card!

Class warfare and the race card is all you guys have isn't!

[Donutboy 0]

Who is "we?"

You know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

You mean those guys that Howard Dean wants to vote for him? Isn't that just like you liberal democrats. Start slinging the race card!

Class warfare and the race card is all you guys have isn't!

Gee, I don't recall playing the race card. Good ole boys? Country boys raised away from the lights of the city. What's racist about that? Pickup trucks? Is that a racist instrument? Rebel Flags? That doesn't have anything to do with racism, does it? Isn't that merely honoring your heritage? Shotguns? I don't think hunting is a sport dominated by whites, is it? SO..... What's racist about good ole boys riding around in pickups, with a shotgun in the back window and rebel flag on the front bumper? Are YOU making the assumption that this good ole boy riding around in a pickup with a rebel flag on the front bumper and a shotgun in the back is a racist symbol? If so, you formed the opinion on your own because I never mentioned that it was a racist symbol.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Gee, I don't recall playing the race card. Good ole boys? Country boys raised away from the lights of the city. What's racist about that? Pickup trucks? Is that a racist instrument? Rebel Flags? That doesn't have anything to do with racism, does it? Isn't that merely honoring your heritage? Shotguns? I don't think hunting is a sport dominated by whites, is it? SO..... What's racist about good ole boys riding around in pickups, with a shotgun in the back window and rebel flag on the front bumper? Are YOU making the assumption that this good ole boy riding around in a pickup with a rebel flag on the front bumper and a shotgun in the back is a racist symbol? If so, you formed the opinion on your own because I never mentioned that it was a racist symbol.

You know exactly what you intended and what you wanted to imply. Don't try to crawfish and imply different.

[Donutboy 0]

Gee, I don't recall playing the race card. Good ole boys? Country boys raised away from the lights of the city. What's racist about that? Pickup trucks? Is that a racist instrument? Rebel Flags? That doesn't have anything to do with racism, does it? Isn't that merely honoring your heritage? Shotguns? I don't think hunting is a sport dominated by whites, is it? SO..... What's racist about good ole boys riding around in pickups, with a shotgun in the back window and rebel flag on the front bumper? Are YOU making the assumption that this good ole boy riding around in a pickup with a rebel flag on the front bumper and a shotgun in the back is a racist symbol? If so, you formed the opinion on your own because I never mentioned that it was a racist symbol.

You know exactly what you intended and what you wanted to imply. Don't try to crawfish and imply different.

Crawfish? Imply differently? TM, WHY did YOU think of racism when I mentioned those things in tandem? Do YOU equate them with racism? Search deep on this one and ask your self WHY you equate them with racism. Has there been great discussion on this board about drivers of pickups with rebel Flags waving and shotguns in the back being racists? I don't remember such a discussion. If you got the perception that it was a racist symbol, you didn't get it from me. As for me, I WAS raised on a farm but I don't drive a pickup, I don't have a tag of any kind on my car and I have nothing in the back window. One of my best friends at work drives a late model Chevrolet dually, with a combination state flag/Rebel flag on the front. Even though he is an avid hunter, he doesn't carry his gun in the back window of his truck. From partying with him a few times and talking with him a lot at work, I can assure you that he's no racist. When Howard Dean was talking about getting the vote of the Southerners with pickups and rebel flags, he was NOT referring to the racists!! He was referring to the good ole boys, the ones who do the menial labor, the farmers, the people who don't mind getting a little dirt under their fingernails. Your party is the one who tried to make that innocent statement into a racist one.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Search deep on this one and ask your self WHY you equate them with racism.

I don't have to search deep. It was and is clearly apparent what you meant and what you were implying.

You know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

Explain this any way you wish, you know exactly what you were meaning. Your meaning was clear.

Just like several months ago you said:

Our recent indiscriminate bombings of Afghan children playing in fields because a terrorist suspect had been spotted in the area days earlier.

Just like then you were full of you still are!

[Donutboy 0]

Search deep on this one and ask your self WHY you equate them with racism.

I don't have to search deep. It was and is clearly apparent what you meant and what you were implying.

You know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

Explain this any way you wish, you know exactly what you were meaning. Your meaning was clear.

Just like several months ago you said:

Our recent indiscriminate bombings of Afghan children playing in fields because a terrorist suspect had been spotted in the area days earlier.

Just like then you were full of you still are!

Face it TigerMike, you accused us of playing the race card and now you've reduced it to KNOWING what we were thinking. You don't know what I'm thinking. You and I think differently on a LOT of different items. Read the Mirror has two faces posts. It goes into a LOT of detail about ASSUMING someone meant something, based on YOUR train of thought, when their train of thought is different from your own. You stuck your foot in your mouth and you're trying as best you can to save face when you really should have eneded it long ago with a simple, "Sorry, I assumed...." On another front, exactly what does the bombing of innocent children in Afghanistan post have to do with good ole boys in the South?

[Tigermike 3,425]

Face it TigerMike, you accused us of playing the race card ,,,,,,,

You did and this entire thread has been your attempt to deny that.

[Tiger Al 0]

OK, after all this, I'd still like to know who "we" is, please. Do you mean southerners or republicans or whites? Your original statement was a little vague on who "we" is.

[Tigermike 3,425]

OK, after all this, I'd still like to know who "we" is, please. Do you mean southerners or republicans or whites? Your original statement was a little vague on who "we" is.

On the hole in general I meant southerners. Not all, I don't and can't speak for all.

What I said was:

Tell Mr. Kerry that we don't care too much for condescending northern liberals either. Especially those that are buddy, buddy with Ted Kennedy.

On the hole in general I meant most southerners. Not all, I don't and can't speak for all. And I will stand by that statement, most southerners don't care too much for condescending northern liberals either. Especially those that are buddy, buddy with Ted Kennedy.

[Donutboy 0]

Face it TigerMike, you accused us of playing the race card ,,,,,,,

You did and this entire thread has been your attempt to deny that.

Whatever dude!! Think what you will. I'm tired of arguing it. It's turned into a really petty thread and has nothing to do with the original message, the swing vote. FWIW, I don't really think "rural southerners" (Is that less offensive to you? I'll try to be more PC in the future.) are considered the swing vote.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Whatever dude!! Think what you will. I'm tired of arguing it. It's turned into a really petty thread and has nothing to do with the original message, the swing vote. FWIW, I don't really think "rural southerners" (Is that less offensive to you? I'll try to be more PC in the future.) are considered the swing vote.

the original message, the swing vote.

And I countered with an article about the

Dixie Trap for Democrats in Presidential Race

To which you posted:

you know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

You should change your name from Donutboy to CrawfishBoy. That's what you have been doing this entire thread.

[Donutboy 0]

Whatever dude!! Think what you will. I'm tired of arguing it. It's turned into a really petty thread and has nothing to do with the original message, the swing vote. FWIW, I don't really think "rural southerners" (Is that less offensive to you? I'll try to be more PC in the future.) are considered the swing vote.

the original message, the swing vote.

And I countered with an article about the

Dixie Trap for Democrats in Presidential Race

To which you posted:

you know, TA. The good ole boys that ride around in pickups with rebel flag tags and shotguns in the rear windows. You're right TM, I'm NOT one of them!!

You should change your name from Donutboy to CrawfishBoy. That's what you have been doing this entire thread.

Perhaps you should change your's to Miss Cleo, since you think you're such a psychic, believing that you know what someone meant instead of what they said!!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

OK, after all this, I'd still like to know who "we" is, please. Do you mean southerners or republicans or whites? Your original statement was a little vague on who "we" is.

Sees to me that "We" is easy to define - "WE" would be the vast majority of voters in the South (yes, including Florida, like it or not) who overwhelmingly voted for GW Bush in 2000 against a fellow Southerner. Probably the same "we" that overwhelmingly voted for GHW Bush against a condescending northern liberal in that election as well.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Sees to me that "We" is easy to define - "WE" would be the vast majority of voters in the South (yes, including Florida, like it or not) who overwhelmingly voted for GW Bush in 2000 against a fellow Southerner. Probably the same "we" that overwhelmingly voted for GHW Bush against a condescending northern liberal in that election as well.

Thank you Jenny.

[Tiger Al 0]

So "we" is southern republicans. Thanks!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

So "we" is southern republicans. Thanks!

That would imply that the vote in every single southern state was split exactly down party lines. I really don't think that is the case.

-------BUSH------------GORE

AL - 941,173-----------692,611

AR - 472,940-----------422,768

FL - 2,912,790--------- 2,912,253

GA - 1,419,720---------1,116,230

KY - 872,492-----------638,898

LA - 927,871-----------792,344

MS - 572,844-----------404,614

NC - 1,631,163---------1,257,692

SC - 785,937------------565,561

TN - 1,061,949---------981,720

TX - 3,799,639---------2,433,746

VA - 1,437,490---------1,217,290

You can't tell me that the Republicans outnumber the Democrats in the South this badly.

[Tiger Al 0]

Why would you think they don't?

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Why would you think they don't?

Because most people I know are not registered to either party. Even the conservatives on this board don't necessarily call themselves a Republican - just a conservative. I am the same way, believe it or not. My Congressional internship in 1989 was for a Democratic congressman - but he was conservative in his views. So I think a lot of people voted for GWB because he represented their core values and beliefs more than Gore did.

[Tiger Al 0]

Would you be happier if I'd used the term "southern conservatives?"