Reason and Radical

Purple Haze

From Michael Moore’s post-election message:

Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008. [end]

Also, keep in mind these things:

Bush got the lowest percentage of electoral votes (54%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Wilson.

Bush won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (51%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (who ran in a 4-way race that included Strom Thurmond).

Bush won by the lowest margin of the popular vote (3.5M) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (2.1M, and back then only 50M voted).

Bush won the three states that put him over 270 (OH, NM and IA--assuming the last two go his way) by only 161,989 (not counting the provisional ballots, absentee, etc.).

So, this is NOT a smashing incumbent victory like those of Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, LBJ or FDR.

It was a bit pitiful for an incumbent, frankly, especially after 9/11.

Also, young people voted in huge numbers (contrary to early media reports which measured under 30s which did not increase – but under 25 did and hugely – and they voted overwhelmingly for Kerry).

Plus 7 states moved from pro-Republican to pro-Democrat while ZERO moved from pro-Republican to pro-Democrat. Building the base! We now hold the partisan advantage in 24 states plus DC (worth 289 electoral votes, up from 231), while Republicans hold the advantage in 26 states (worth 249 electoral votes, down from 307).

Finally, when you see those maps of the US and all that red in the middle – remember, that represents very few people. Those states have massive areas that are largely unpopulated. Here’s a good map representing that: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/11/popular_vote_po.html

And my favorite map: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/11/purple_america.html

posted by Leimodnu @ 1:54 PM