Electoral Analysis

[Annie]

I like it:

http://vodkapundit.com/archives/006743.php

John Kerry: Dumber Than an Amoeba?
Posted by Stephen Green · 20 September 2004
Thanks to demographic changes, if John Kerry were to win the same states Al Gore did in 2000, Kerry would lose 278 to 260, instead of Gore's 271-266 nailbiter. To win, Kerry needs to find ten EC votes somewhere. But where?

Let's write off big parts of the map where Kerry - or probably even Jesus, if He ran as a Democrat - simply can't win. There's the South, short of Florida and perhaps Virginia. Everything between Kansas and Utah, and between the Rio Grande and the Canadian Border (minus New Mexico) is Bush Country, too. So what states can and should Kerry contest? It's a short list:

New Hampshire
Ohio
Florida
Nevada
Virginia*
Missouri
Taking New Hampshire and Nevada (9 votes total) wouldn't cut it. Ohio, Florida, Virginia, or Missouri by themselves, would. So how is Kerry doing in those states? Let's see the latest numbers from Mason-Dixon, Rasmussen, Zogby, and others:

New Hampshire - Kerry up 6, to Bush up 9
Ohio - Bush up 3 to 8 points
Florida - a tie, up to Bush by 6
Nevada - Bush up 4
Virginia - Bush up 4
Missouri - Bush by anywhere from 2 to 14
OK, then - Florida is Kerry's last, best, and maybe only hope. But that's assuming an awful lot, given what's going on in a few of Kerry's base states.

Right now, Pennsylvania (21) and Iowa (7) are both up for grabs, Wisconsin (10) looks strong for Bush, and New Mexico (5), Minnesota (10), and Oregon (7) are all weak for Kerry. That's 60 EC votes Kerry can no longer count on to win. Instead of fighting in Florida, he's got to watch his back in six states he ought to have in the bag. Meanwhile, Bush's only big worry is Florida.

Now that Kerry has exhausted the Vietnam issue both for himself (thanks to the Swift Boat Vets) and Bush (thanks to Dan Rather), he needs some fresh ammo. If what we've read the last couple days is any indication, Kerry thinks that Iraq is exactly the right caliber.

Brace yourselves, kids - Kerry is going to do some damage in the next week, hammering Bush on Iraq. Bush's numbers will slip. But if Bush is vulnerable on Iraq, Kerry is even more so. He can hurt Bush, but thanks to Kerry's history of taking every possible position on Iraq, he won't be able to gain any traction from it.

In the meantime, Rathergate will continue to fester, and there's not a damn thing Kerry can do to stop it - and there's nothing Bush need do to encourage it. A hundred years from now, journalism schools will still be teaching about Dan's Folly.

The more important question is, what about the Democrats' Folly? In a field with Joe Lieberman (the "Let's win the war without being total Republican bastards" candidate) and Howard Dean (the anti-war guy), the Democrats nominated a guy who is neither fish nor fowl.

Kerry voted against the Gulf War in 1991 – a position I can respectfully disagree with. I mean, restoring Kuwait's kleptocratic sheiks to their thrones probably wasn't our Number One priority. Then Kerry voted for war against Iraq. Except now he claims his vote was only to threaten Saddam, not to oust him, which Kerry would never have done, except for those times when he said he would have.

Yet the flip-flopping isn't what bothers me. What bothers me here is: Just how stupid does John Kerry think we are? When Congress votes to authorize the use of force – which is the modern, nicey-nice version of a Declaration of War – does he expect us to believe he thought the President wouldn't use it? That's like giving a kid a gross of bottle rockets and a new Bic lighter, then leaving the boy unsupervised – and being shocked, shocked to hear small explosions in the distance.

What, exactly, did Kerry think Bush was going to do with his authorization of force, have it framed and mount it on an Oval Office wall? Bullshit. Kerry knew his vote meant war. You knew it meant war. Amazon tribes so primitive they don't even know they're living in Brazil knew it meant war. Single-cell organisms knew it meant war. Yet Kerry expects us to believe he was only voting to give Bush some extra diplomatic muscle?

Forget the polls. Forget the Electoral College. Forget the economy, the war, and 9/11. Forget if you're a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green. Just remember that John Kerry thinks you're stupid.


*Yes, I do mean Virginia, not West Virginia. Northern VA is more or less a suburb of DC now, making the state less Southern and more like a government town. And we know how those usually vote. Twelve years from now, we may wonder how any Republican ever won there.

West Virginia hasn't voted for a northeastern liberal since Dukakis, and isn't likely to do so again. Not so long as there's a war on, anyway.

 

[musicman]

Excellent link, Kathianne! My favorites:

"A hundred years from now, journalism schools will still be teaching about Dan's folly".

And, they can title the course, *How one self-absorbed prima donna singlehandedly finished the job of breaking liberalism's stranglehold on the dissemination of information*.

"...restoring Kuwait's kleptocratic sheiks to their thrones...".

LOL! I remember Mike Royko's take:* Well, now the war's over, and we have restored the Emir of Kuwait to his gold toilet seat...*

"Forget the polls. Forget the Electoral College. Forget the economy, the war and 9/11. Forget if you're a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green. Just remember that John Kerry thinks you're stupid."

'Nuff said.

 

[Annie]

Excellent link, Kathianne! My favorites:

"A hundred years from now, journalism schools will still be teaching about Dan's folly".

And, they can title the course, *How one self-absorbed prima donna singlehandedly finished the job of breaking liberalism's stranglehold on the dissemination of information*.

"...restoring Kuwait's kleptocratic sheiks to their thrones...".

LOL! I remember Mike Royko's take:* Well, now the war's over, and we have restored the Emir of Kuwait to his gold toilet seat...*

"Forget the polls. Forget the Electoral College. Forget the economy, the war and 9/11. Forget if you're a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green. Just remember that John Kerry thinks you're stupid."

'Nuff said.

Oh I miss Royko! Read him as a kid in Chicago Daily News, lost some time when he went to Sun-Times, but my folks bought his books, then caught up again when he moved to the Tribune. Probably the best writer Chicago ever had-yeah including Studs!

 

[musicman]

I used to catch his column in the Hamilton(OH) Journal-News, which has since, I'm sorry to say, disintegrated into a liberal rag. Seems like he was syndicated in one of the Dallas papers, too, while I was living there. I miss him, too. So much common sense, which I consider the soul of wit.