Reply #50: Bush was running for reelection in 1988?

[OnTheOtherHand]

Who knew?

I'm sure you've worked out in your head why it makes perfect sense that it was more useful for Bush Sr. to steal New York votes in 1988 than for Bush Jr. to steal New York votes in 2000. But at best, all this looks like circular reasoning.

You've butchered the other analysis, too. Assuming for the sake of argument that most of your assumptions make sense, you've confused a "741k net gain" for Bush with a 741k margin for Bush. If Bush actually won returning Bush and Gore voters by 741k, while losing new voters by 394k and returning Nader/other voters by 94k, then Bush would have won these counties outright by over 250,000 votes. Yet your own figures indicate that Kerry won these counties by over 800,000 votes. That's a net error of over one million votes. Yikes.

How could you have been off by over a million votes? Because the result, while arithmetically absurd, comported with what you deeply feel to be true. That's my guess, anyway.

ETA: I look forward to your explanation of how this is all my fault.