Biomechanical Robotic Android Intended for Nocturnal Sabotage, Troubleshooting and Efficient Repair  

 
Politics and other Pastimes
 
 
 
Favorite Blogs: Right Wing News

Conservative Grapevine

Lucianne

Allman's Stove

Ankle-Biting Pundits

Kitty Litter

Radio Patriots

Pam Meister aka Blogmeister USA

Third Wave Dave

Lucky Dawg News (Hiatus)

And You Thought You Were Cranky?

Songbird

Dodo David

On Wings of Eagles

Alive and Kickin' Oldies

A Rose By Any Other Name

Airborne Combat Engineer

American Protest

Anonymous Opinion

Astute Blogger

The American Scratchpad

La Shawn Barber

BlackFive

Blue Crab Boulevard

Lorie Byrd

Captain's Quarters

Carol Platt Liebau

Rudy Carrera

CentCom

Chicago Ray

Chief Brief

Christian Conservative

Combs Spouts Off

Conservative Comet

Constitutional Public Radio

Crazy Politico

CrosSwords

Church & State

Danegerus

Decision '08

Richard Delevan

Dynamo Buzz

Eating Arizona

EckerNet

Educated Shoprat

Fear & Loathing

Flopping Aces

Gawfer

GeosciBlog

GOP and the City

Granddaddy Longlegs

Hell's Freezing Over

Here There and Back Again

Hillary Needs a Vacation

Hot Air

Hugh Hewitt

Illumination Inc.

In My Taxi (Liberal)

In the Right Place

Irish Pennants

Jackson's Junction

Jihadophobic

JREFForum Conspiracy Theories

Leather Penguin

Graham Lester

Let's Play King's Bounty

Liberty or Death

Little Bit Tired, Little Bit Worn

Lone Star Pundit

Marathon Pundit

Mark In Mexico

Twin Cities Chess

Memeorandum

Michelle Malkin

MilTracker

Molten Thought

Moonbattery

Mr Media Matters

Mrs Media Matters

Neander News

New Hampshire Insider

Neo-neocon

NoonzWire (Alex Nunez)

No Pundit Intended

The Nose on Your Face

Punch

Slugger O'Toole

Pajamas Media

Pajama Pack (AKA L-Dotters Blog)

Partisan Pundit

Passionate America

Pink Flamingo

Please Make It Clear

Polipundit

Politburo Diktat

Poor and Stupid

Radio Equalizer

Reaching for Lucidity

Real Ugly American

Regime Change Iran

Right-Wing & Right Minded

Right Wing Nuthouse(AKA Superhawk)

Satire & Theology

Fred Schoeneman

Sister Toldjah

Small Town Veteran

Roger L. Simon

David B. Smith

Shock And Blog

Some Soldier's Mom

Stolen Thunder

Stop the ACLU

The Strata-Sphere

Tel-Chai Nation

Texas Rainmaker

The Kingpin 68

Time Cannon

Tinkerty Tonk

Valley Greaser

Viking Pundit

Weapons of Mass Discussion

Wilkesboro Square

Wizbang

Tim Worstall

WuzzaDem

Ya Libnan (Cedar Revolution)

Add to Technorati Favorites
 
 
Saturday, May 10, 2003
 
Ruy Teixeira and John Judis published a book last year entitled "The Emerging Democratic Majority". The title echoed Kevin Phillips' 1969 bestseller, "The Emerging Republican Majority", as well as Lanny Davis' lesser-known 1974 opus "The Emerging Democratic Majority".

Davis at least had the advantage of seeing his book published in a watershed year for Democrats. Teixeira and Judis had the misfortune of being published just before the 2002 midterm elections, in which the Democrats were pretty soundly trouced. Fortunately, hope springs eternal, and Teixeira has written an article for the Washington Monthly to show that the Democratic majority is still emerging despite the fact that for him, the 2002 election "wasn't my ideal outcome".

Teixeira throws a fair amount of percentages at the reader in the hopes that nobody will bother to look at them too hard. However, he makes no attempt to put these numbers into real context. For example, he says:

"The Denver-Boulder area as a whole voted for Democrat Strickland by a 6-point margin; that's larger than the 3-point victory Gore won in 2000, which in turn improved on Michael Dukakis's 1-point loss in 1988."

That makes it sound like a pretty straight line of improvement from Dukakis' 1-point loss to Gore's 3-point win to (US Senate candidate) Strickland's 6-point win. But of course it does not mention that when Dukakis lost by 1 point in Denver in 1998, he was losing by about 7.5 percentage points nationally, so that his 1-point loss in Denver was about 6.5 percentage points better than he did overall, while Gore's 3-point win in Denver only bettered what he was doing nationally by about 2.5 percentage points. That sure does not sound like an area getting more Democratic, and the inclusion of the Senate candidate is clearly a red herring.

The rest of the article contains oodles of the same sort of proof:

"Arapahoe voted for Reagan in 1980 by 39 points, for Bush I in 1988 by 22 points and for W. in 2000 by only eight points. In the same period, Jefferson favored Reagan by 34 points, Bush by 15, and his son by just eight."

Arapahoe certainly does seem to have gotten more liberal by the stats provided... but Bush II still won it by eight points, which hardly makes it a Democrat bastion. Jefferson however seems to have stayed about the same from Bush I to Bush II despite the slide indicated in the results. Bush I won by 15 points, which was about 7 points better than he did nationally. Bush II won by 8 points, which is about 8-1/2 points better than he did nationally.

"Maryland's gubernatorial election is an even stronger refutation of the exurban thesis. To begin with, Democrats picked up two House seats in the 2002 election, and Gore beat Bush by 17 points in the last presidential election."

Well, yes, but more to the point in 2002, they lost the governorship. To cite that gubernatorial election as a refutation of the exurban thesis (that as suburbs become more Democratic, as they have, that simultaneously exurbs are becoming populated disproportionately by Republicans) is pretty silly. And in fact, notice that he immediately tries to divert attention from that loss with two completely unrelated issues--the individual election results in congressional elections, and Gore's vote total in 2000.

"So the GOP was clearly the turnout party in 2002. But it's unlikely to be able to repeat this. To begin with, Democrats won't be caught napping again. They've launched their own version of the "72-Hour Project" called "Project 5104"--shorthand for winning 51 percent of the vote in '04."

As usual, an explanation for 2002 that does not require admitting that the voters preferred Republicans over Democrats. Instead, the Democrats were just caught napping, but they've got a plan for '04--to get 51% of the vote.

Now that may not sound like an ambitious plan. That is, until you look back over the last 14 presidential elections and realize that the Democrats have managed to achive that 51% goal exactly ONCE. That's right. LBJ got 61% of the vote in 1964. NO other Democrat candidate for president has gotten 51% of the vote. Carter in 1976 got a bare majority with 50.06%; he was the only one to break 50%. Truman in 1958, Kennedy in 1960, and even Clinton in 1992 and 1996 were NOT majority presidents. In that same period of time, Eisenhower (twice), Nixon, Reagan (twice) and Bush I have all gotten more than 51% of the vote.
0 comments
Friday, May 09, 2003
 
Break up the Tigers! After a four game winning streak, the team is now batting .207. They have closed to within a game and a half of the Cleveland Indians. They aren't quite reminding people of the 1961 Yankees, but they're also bearing less resemblance to the 1962 Mets.
0 comments

 

 
  Endorsements: "11 Most Underrated Blogs"--Right Wing News

"Brainster is the Best"--Allman in the Morning FM 97.1 Talk (St. Louis)

"This is blogging like it oughta be"--Tom Maguire (Just One Minute)

"Quite young and quite nasty"--Civil Discourse Bustard (One out of two ain't bad)

Contact Me: pcurley (at) cdwebs (dot) com

Brainster in the Media

Howard Kurtz's Media Notes: May 27, 2005

Slate Today's Blogs:

March 16, 2005

May 9, 2005

June 3, 2005

Cited for Breaking the Christmas in Cambodia story (at Kerry Haters):

Hugh Hewitt: KerryHaters was on this story a long time ago. How could the elite media not have asked these questions before now?

Ankle-Biting Pundits: Our friends Pat and Kitty at Kerry Haters deserve the blog equivalent of a Pulitzer for their coverage of Kerry's intricate web of lies regarding Vietnam.

The Weekly Standard

Les Kinsolving

Greatest Hits

What If the Rest of the Fantastic Four Were Peaceniks?

Lefty Bloggers on Gay Witchhunt (linked by 16 blogs including Instapundit)

Kitty Myers Breaks Christmas in Cambodia

Brainster Shows Brinkley Says No Christmas in Cambodia

Explanation of the Blog's Name

Power Ratings Explained



blog radio

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Archives


 
  This page is powered by Blogger, the easy way to update your web site.  

Phoenix Commercial Properties

Window Cleaning Phoenix

Leather Goods, Leather Craft

Home  |  Archives