Let's Talk Sense...
Sunday, September 24, 2000 Volume XXV, No. 29
Roswell, New Mexico
In this issue:
Who's Going to Win?
--------Part 2-------
Electoral College Analysis---
State-by-state
· Electoral College Watch: Bush Team??
· My Projections
· No Criticism of Bush Campaign Intended
· The South: Bush Comes Roaring Back!
· Where Does This Leave Bush?
· The West (15 states, 100 Electoral Votes)
Electoral College Watch: We still wonder about the Bush Team
Well, things seem to be going marginally better for the Bush-Cheney
team. However, reports by the Annenberg Foundation and Kathleen
Hall Jamieson and other "election analysts" found more
disturbing news about the Electoral College Intelligence Quotient
of Bush 2000. Reports from this past summer show that Gore outspent
Bush significantly in 17 key states (true tossup states---i.e. not
Illinois). This while Bush was spending more overall!
Not only did they 1) not take advantage of their advantages, and
2) fail to define Gore in the spring, and 3) wander aimlessly in
Illinois, West Virginia, Minnesota, and California, but 4) they
allowed Gore to establish leads, or significantly close the gap
in the true battleground states. (Pennsylvania and maybe even New
Hampshire were probably lost during this period.)
It would be one thing if they had had funding problems, but they
didn't.
The Bush team may well pull this thing out, right now I am believing
they will. And they will have every right to crow about their competence.
But the reality will be more like a basketball team that commits
38 turnovers, misses 25 free-throw and still wins by 2 in overtime.
There are a number of basic factors this team has apparently not
had a handle on.
My Projections
To allay further questions, let me say that I can't help what the
polls say. (I have had numerous comments about how my projections
don't match the polls---either in individual states or nationally.)
My projections are not based on polls----although, unlike many conservatives
I hear from, I believe most polling is highly accurate. Understanding
what polls mean and do not mean, as well as the ability to read
the internals of a poll, causes the disconnect between the pollster
and the consumer, i. e. the American voter, the consumer of news
and information.
My projections are based on trends within each state's national
elections AND the image/policy positions/ideology each candidate
has been able to project to this point. It is a complex process
which includes formulae for estimating the total vote and the trends
among new arrivals (based on census data) over the past two presidential
cycles.
No Criticism of Bush Campaign Intended
The comments I have made about the Bush campaign and its decisions
about mapping its way to 270 Electoral votes, is in no way intended
to be anti-Bush, or a criticism of his campaign. I believe the Bush
triumvirate which heads up his campaign to be more talented than
any we have ever seen. I am confident he will be on message at the
end, and will do well in the debates.
The "mapping and media concentration" errors which I perceive
to have been committed are of a fundamental kind which should have
been headed off at numerous levels of know-how and responsibility
within both the RNC and a Bush strategic planning committee many
months ago.
The South (11 States)
(123 electoral votes): Virginia(13), North Carolina(14), Kentucky(8),
Tennessee(11), South Carolina(8), Georgia(13), Alabama(9), Florida(25),
Mississippi(7), Louisiana(9), and Arkansas(6).
Bush Comes Roaring Back!
(and Takes Tennessee Too!)
Bush wins the South 123-0. Surprising the pollsters and the Gore
camp, he takes Tennessee.
"Earth in the Balance" penetrates more Louisiana voters
than is thought possible----anyone who even knows anybody involved
in petroleum exploration or production is scared out of their wits.
Gore ends up blowing the Cajun Land for no reason other than his
own nuttiness. Otherwise it would have been an easy win for the
Democrat nominee.
In neighboring Arkansas, embarrassment at Gore's non-stop lying
(for no apparent reason---at least Clinton often had reasons to
lie) and their guilt about Clinton, as well as the conservative
trend in the state shifts the state to the Bush column.
The trend toward racial polarization in southern voting continues
unabated. Blacks keep nudging their voting participation percentages
upward to begin matching their actual share of the population. This
means that in places like Mississippi and South Carolina Republicans
must get ever higher, and seemingly improbable, percentages from
white voters---many of whom are by long-standing tradition, Democrats,
especially at the local level. In some states even when the GOP
is able to get nearly 70% of the white vote (or even higher), the
results are still very, very close.
Using Mississippi as an example (where Blacks make up 36% of the
population), if Gore were to get 95% of 36% the vote, Bush would
have to receive a near astounding 76% among white voters. As it
is, he has to win by a solid 2-1 (67%) margin among white voters.
Make no mistake about it, borrowing a page from Tip O'Neill, Lawton
Chiles, Bill Clinton, and just about every Democrat who has robbed
oxygen from the environment over the past 20 years, Al Gore WILL
try his best to scare the living daylights out of everyone he regards
as a mindless codger----and he apparently regards all Americans
over 55 as mindless codgers.
Demagoguery on social security and any other programs he can conjure
up will be the theme of the month in Florida this October. Gore
will do better than he deserves, but the return of huge margins
among Cuban-Americans (they were not there for Dole) in south Florida
for Bush will offset the demagoguery---- which will not be as effective
this time around anyway. The GOP will take Florida by a hundred
thousand votes.
45 days out, this is the way we see it:
(Popular vote, in 000's)
State |
Bush |
Gore |
Nader |
Buch. |
Others |
Virginia |
1,222 |
1,124 |
37 |
61 |
26 |
N. Carolina |
1,350 |
1,198 |
---- |
32 |
20 |
Kentucky |
731 |
685 |
13 |
17 |
12 |
Tennessee |
945 |
940 |
15 |
46 |
14 |
S. Carolina |
605 |
533 |
13 |
29 |
10 |
Georgia |
1,243 |
1,075 |
---- |
48 |
25 |
Alabama |
810 |
727 |
11 |
30 |
16 |
Florida |
2,670 |
2,560 |
70 |
70 |
30 |
Mississippi |
480 |
413 |
9 |
26 |
12 |
Louisiana |
847 |
840 |
17 |
39 |
27 |
Arkansas |
451 |
417 |
12 |
18 |
12 |
Totals |
11,354 |
10,512 |
197 |
416 |
204 |
Perc |
50.05% |
46.34% |
0.86% |
1.83% |
0.90% |
22,683,000 votes
Where does this leave Bush?
Well, it leaves him down only 123-127----lots better off than he
was coming out of the East.
Kentucky (and Indiana) will be the first to announce results on
election night. In '92 and '96, I instantly knew that my projections
had been correct when Kentucky went for Clinton (Indiana results
reveal nothing----if a Republican nominee were to lose the Hoosier
State you would know he is headed for a huge loss, maybe 538-0).
Kentucky will be safely in the Bush column.
He still has to sweep the West---not the Pacific, the West, and
he has to win Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and a couple of more key
states.
Can he do it? We'll see in the coming issues.
In the next issue:
The West (15 states)
(100 electoral votes)
Texas (32), Oklahoma (8), Kansas(6), Nebraska (5), South Dakota(3),
North Dakota(3), Montana(3), Wyoming (3), Colorado(8), New Mexico(5),
Arizona(8), Utah(5), Idaho(4), Nevada(4), Alaska(3)
About the makeup of the 15 "western states."
I am from the school of American demography which holds that some
of the "traditional" divisions of American regions---often
developed by journalists of the last century---make no sense.
The idea, for example, of a "Midwest" stretching from
Youngstown, Ohio on the Pennsylvania border, to Scottsbluff, Nebraska,
ignores true regionalism---the history, culture, and social mores
which make and shape regional interests.
I start the West (and I am not alone in this) with the six states
bisected by the 100th Meridian---from North Dakota to Texas. That
line is a clear demarcation in history, from the settlement of the
West to the common appeals of prairie populism of the 19th Century
to the common thread of modern-day conservative Republican leanings
(at least in national contexts).
The eight states of the Rocky Mountain region share most of these
historical experiences. Alaska, as part of the cordillera which
ties into the Rockies, is far closer to the West, in every sense,
than it is to any of its "Pacific" Region sister states---Washington,
Oregon, California and Hawaii. The fact that Alaska cruises depart
from Seattle, or that there are in fact economic ties between those
two points is completely irrelevant.