More election analysis

[pegkerr]

Two articles here and here, with election analysis (strong warning: very angry and contemptuous of Republicans) with some interesting observations for Democrats. I include them because whether you agree or disagree about their recommendations (and some are definitely inflammatory) the analysis of voter breakdown (what types of people voted for which candidate) might possibly be useful to know.

Comments

[peppersghost.livejournal.com]

I love the second one. Unfortunately it will only re-inforce that stereotype of liberals as arrogant intellectuals, but I've often thought we need to stop apologizing for being smart. The Democrats have tried for too long to have it both ways. The Republicans have succeeded by embracing and even touting their black-and-white ignorance. We need to stop trying to get those "heartland" votes by trying to look like the everyman. Instead, we should be firing up the urban folks by being up front about and proud of what we know and believe. It terrifies me when Dems analyze the election and decide we need to pander more to "moral values" (as if people who didn't vote Republican have no morals and values). That's just going to water us down further. Instead, we need to trumpet our own set of values and screw what the "red folks" think. We need to show people a CLEAR choice.

Of course, I find it funny that the Democrats are the ones who are now the "elites." For so long we were the party of the common guy, and we still are. It's amazing how many poor and middle class people can't see that they're voting against their own best interests. I guess gay love bothers them *that* much.

(Sorry to rant in your journal, especially since I comment so infrequently, but your links really hit a nerve...)

[winterbadger]

we need to trumpet our own set of values and screw what the "red folks" think.

Welcome to several decades as the virtuous minority. If the Democratic Party decides that the answer to an election it only barely lost agaisnt a sitting presdient in wartime is to become more strident, more extreme, and shift to its left, instead of trying to reach out more to the centrist of both parties who won't be able to stomach much more of the DeLays and the Frists and the Bushes... well, the Republicans will win again, and again, and again.

We need to do a better job of exposing the Republican's dangerously simplistic black/white story, instead of just making up one of our own. We don't need to "pander" to people who vote their morals (aka their conscience) but we *do* have to do a much better job of demonstrating how doing just that ought to make them vote for a true centrist who has America's best wishes at heart instead of a wolf in "gee, shucks, regualr guy" clothing who is only interested in looking out for the wealthy.

Yes, middle America is voting agaisnt its own interests. But if that isn't illustrated fro them with better clarity than was done this time, they'll keep doing so.

[peppersghost.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see your point and agree with it. I didn't mean to come across as wanting the party to get more strident and extreme (though I can see how my rant itself came across as strident). What I really want is for the party to be more proud of the intelligent people who are its members and to state clearly what they stand for. At times during Kerry's campaign I felt that he was playing an "oh yeah, me, too!" game with the Republicans. "I'm religious, too!" "I'm an average guy, too!" "I'm not for gay marriage, either!" It seemed to me that it only muddied the choice for undecided voters. I don't want stridency, but I do long for just a bit less apologizing when the Republicans try to paint us as elites. The last I checked, I didn't grow up in privilege, but Bush sure did. It's just another example of the way conservatives have been allowed to co-opt the language.

Which, I think, gets to your point.

I would love for the Democrats to be able to expose what's really going on with the Republicans. Part of my frustration may be coming from a perspective of thinking that they were making strides in that department. I also couldn't imagine that any sane person would look at what was in front of them and still vote for Bush and Co. If an opposition party can't convince voters by a wider margin when the incumbent is so obviously corrupt, I find that scary. And part of me fears that there are more voting neocons out there than centrists who could be won over.

[winterbadger]

I also couldn't imagine that any sane person would look at what was in front of them and still vote for Bush and Co.

I think part of that was poor information (and if people *choose* to only watch Fox, I don't know what to do about that). I think part of it was just not being sure that Kerry would handle things all that much differently; a lot of people are just naturally inclined to see an election like this one not between two opponents but between the incumbent and a challenger, and they expect to see the challenger demonstrate how he would do a better job. And while I was so angry and disgusted with Bush that I felty anything had to be better, and while I felt Kerry was a good, smart, capable guy who would certainly do a good job as president and do better at representing me and my beleifs, Kerry and his campaign really did a poor job of reaching those other folks, I fear.

They did a good job of laying out Bush's mistakes, but the answers they suggested for how Kerry would do better were... flat. "Rebuild our relationships with our allies": yes, good, but are the French or Germans going to send more troops to help pacify the insurgency? Even with Pres. Kerry in the White House, I doubt it. "Train more Iraqi security forces faster" The allies might have helped with that, but it isn't clear how much help that would be, or how much faster this would lead to a solution. Same with health care, same with social security. A lot of "I have a plan" and not enough simple substance. The Democrats spent so much time showing how Bush had done a bad job that they didn't seem to have much time left to talk about specifics of what Kerry would do better.

At times during Kerry's campaign I felt that he was playing an "oh yeah, me, too!" game with the Republicans. "I'm religious, too!" "I'm an average guy, too!" "I'm not for gay marriage, either!" It seemed to me that it only muddied the choice for undecided voters.

Agreed. Even if your position and that of your opponent yield the same outcome, they have different reasons they do so. Talk about that, talk about those values ("We agree that America's business sector should be strong, but I want an economically strong America because that will mean higher salaries and better jobs for American workers, unlike my opponent, whose interest lies in seeing CEOs get richer. We should get people off welfare, but by growing the economy, not by cutting benefits to thsoe who need them." etc.)

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

May I make the observation--not intended to be inflammatory, but simply an observation--that educated does not necessarily equal smart? Some very intelligent people never finished high school; some certifiable cretins have Ph.D.s. I think it's more breadth of exposure to other cultures, which you get more in cities than in nonurban settings.

For the record, for my part, gay love had nothing to do with why I voted for Bush.

~EducatedandRed!Amanda

Interesting, but, uh...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

...I can _really_ do without the contempt the author has for red state folks, and the assumption that us wonderful sophiticated urban folks don't have cowshit on our roots.

What may bother me the most is the "Gee, if little Johnny accidentially blows his head off, good for our side" crack. Hits a little too close to home...

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I'll take exception to the author of the piece in Seattle's The Stranger as well. I'm a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, thankyouverymuch, buster. Those hicks you're talking about are my family. Lay off.

I think that he has an interesting idea, however, in choosing "urban" as the focus of the national party in style and priority. I'll let him have his little bluster to bring that idea along. I think that, ironically, an "urban" strategy would attract a lot of young rural voters. Many of them are (as I and most of my classmates were) eager to get to the city. Even if it's just the "little" city down the road a piece and not the "big" city, there's an appeal that says hope and opportunity there. Many of their parents want their kids to move to the city so they can "do better" than mom and dad. That's maybe the line to take; stop dissing the rural folks, start building on the hope and opportunity of our golden cities.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Hey, I never used indoor plumbing until I was six. But The Stranger's bashing didn't bother me much -- it's bile. That thing was meant as a manifesto I think and it certainly does seem to have gotten people talking. You have an interesting point about attracting the young rural voters. I'd certainly like to see it tried and I suspect both Minneapolis and Seattle (where you live and where I live and where the Stranger folks live) would be good test cases. I think the Stranger article went awry in being too dismissive of the suburbs -- I think we'll need them on our side at least somewhat.

MKK

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

It's not entirely fair to bash the red states for their higher divorce rate. It is entirely possible that those living in states with higher divorce rates would, because of that, be more concerned about 'threats to marriage' (however wrongheaded their ideas to fix it are.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I loved the first article (haven't gotten to the second one yet), even with it's over the top comments. And those hicks he's talking about are my family too, but they are exactly the red-conservatives he was describing, so I can't feel offended for their sakes.

This past year, the constant apologies for being liberal pissed me off. And this article made up for that.

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

Well, there are some blatant mistruths in the first article. For one, San Diego County went RED -- it's right there on the map and LA County is white, at least according to the county map right there on the page. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US with a population well over 500,000 and Harris County is clearly red. Dallas/Fort Worth? Looks red to me. Can't speak for other large cities, but those are the clearly RED cities I can point out on a map because I've either lived there or been there. I can't take anyone seriously who can't get their facts straight, nevermind the vitriol. Hey, I have little respect for slack jawed religious nutjobs myself, but those people are in the minority in this country, even in the heartland.

I think this notion of playing to the urban base will be an absolute disaster for the Democratic party. I mean, really now. Clinton has been out of office only four years and he was a moderate, yet very popular Democrat all over. Mark my words, if the Democratic party nominates someone far to the left in the next presidential election (or someone anyone who is not a Democrat hates - think Senator Clinton) they will lose. If they campaign on a platform of raising taxes for services the heartland will never see, they will lose (and might even lose a bit of the middle to high income urban vote as well if the Republicans get some brains and run a moderate).

Bush should not have won this election. He's a dangerous, fascist bumbling fool. The Democratic party needed a Clinton (a Bill Clinton), not a John Kerry. The Ivory Tower bit is going to put off more than just your rural voters. Frankly, it puts me off.

The Democrats need to focus on purple -- not red, not blue.

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

...and to add to this...

The Republicans, though they currently have a victory, are going to be busy the next four years pissing off moderates. Pissing off the people who vote conservative for fiscal or foriegn policy reasons (this was me prior to the Shrub). They think they've found the winning strategy by playing to the far religious right. But they haven't. And I think the Democrats could find themselves with a real coup if they play to the middle, seeing as how the Republicans have completely ignored these folks.

Run on tax cuts for the middle and working class without the class warfare rhetoric. Run on compassion for the social issues. Run on not getting mixed up in any future costly, unnecessary wars. Don't run on hate -- let the Republicans run on hate. Oh, and pray for an even bigger recession.

[winterbadger]

AMEN!

[pameladean]

Those were very cathartic. I'll be happy to apologize for their distortions when the other side owes up to its considerably greater ones.

Even I, in my wallowing catharsis, was made a trifle uneasy by the one about urbanity. I like living in the city, but I also compost and recycle. I think the real culprit is less the actual thoughts of the writer and more the rhetoric, the grabbing of this or that to be a gigantic symbol. The other side -- I find myself unable, sometimes, to say "Republicans" because of a nagging feeling that a lot of the people I most want to send to Pluto without a passport are not, in any meaningful sense, Republicans at all, in the same way that the 9/11 hijackers were not pilots -- the other side, as I say, is really good at that, but I hope it's not a necessary element of persuasive electioneering.

Pamela

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

I kind of take exception, in the second one, to the way the colors are presented in the "Rorschach" version. The base, background color is blue, and the red is an overlay disfiguring it. That doesn't surprise me, given the bent of the author, but I think stooping to such visual subliminals is unworthy of anyone who is artistic with words.

~Amanda