The Right's Nader?

[Finch]

The Republicans took a twisted delight in seeing Nader act as a spoiler from the left last time it appears that the Republicans may have there own spoiler problems in November it appears that Roy Moore the “Ten Commandments Judge” is looking to an independent run… while for me the Ten commandments incident was overblown it seems dear old Roy is even more socially conservative than any one had believed (well it was Alabama) it now seems that he may be looking to lead the Constitution party ticket in November and it seems very possible that a run by Moore supposing Bush failed to introduce some constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage might net between 3 and 6% nationwide…which would be heavily concentrated in the southern and western states… on top of the trouble Bush has been in recently this would just be icing on the cake…Haven’t got a link for the story but Politics 1 have been covering a fair bit so it should be on their News Blog if not on the front page…

PS How do you past pictures at the bottom of these messages?

[theorist]

1. Wow. Dixiecrats reincarnated.... Who would have thought? n/t

[Brian Sweat]

3. Even worse. Dixiepugs.

[Faygo Kid]

2. Run, Roy, Run! Now more than ever.

Now that it looks like Nader will run (ego over principle), we need to pray (ha ha) that Judge Roy Moort runs. But, Rove will get to him: Money, an appointment, whatever. Say it ain't so, Ralph!

[BR_Parkway]

4. Does he have a place we can donate! I'd love to give some

cash to advance his campaign!

[Finch]

5. I seem to remember

that he's going to wait till after he finished appealing against his being sacked as AL chief justice until he announces his candidacy (if he does) if Bush procrastinates over a defense of marriage amendment then I'd say theirs a very good chance that he'll anounce... at the moment I would imagine somewhere you'll be able to send encouragement... but lets not get overconfident...

[Finch]

6. Bush’s winning margins in the following states…

OSolid88%

TX: 21.32%

MS: 16.91%

SC: 15.93%

KY: 15.13%

AL: 14.88%

NC: 12.83%

GA: 11.69%

VA: 8.04%

LA: 7.68%

AR: 5.44%

TN: 3.86%

FL: 0.01%

Now in 2000 Moore was elected with 54% of the vote out of 1,614,282 votes cast on a turnout of 66%...in his home state with a lot of media coverage that while it will turn off moderate independent voters will seem to appeal to the hardcore conservative voters who lets say account for around 20% of the Solid Republican” which in turn is about 40% of the entire electorate (the rest being say 5% Republican leaner's, 10% independents, 5% Democrat leaner's and then 40% “Solid Dem”) so national that’s 8% who would agree with Moore and be tempted to vote for him…now lets say that a bit over around half (perhaps optimistic but hey I support Edwards) 4-6% do actually vote for this guy (I would imagine that southern, conservative, christens would in particular be tempted) what impact might that have?

Firstly the Moore vote is likely to be concentrated in conservative, typically republican states where Republicans usually garner around 55% of the vote and this conservative bloc will be bigger…so lets assume that in the Deep South this hard-line Conservative core accounts for say 10-12% of the vote, in the rocky mountain states it accounts for 6-8%, in the Midwest, south west and mid-Atlantic its around 3-6% and finally in the north east and on the west coast (stronger on the west coast I would imagine) this vote for Moore is around 1-3%...

so where Moore to get that proportion what would be the impact well firstly the Constitution Party would emerge as the dominate far right party within the United States… the reform Party would all but collapse and what remained of it would be quickly swallowed up by the Constitution Party, the likes of Pat Buchanan and Alan Keynes might well actually join this new party with its 5% nationwide and it federal funds…

In the actual election (assuming a Kerry/ Edwards ticket, with Kerry alienating some southerners and Edwards partially compensating so that a net effect of the Dem total in the southern states going down by between 3-1% this would mean based on the 2000 results that….

1.) If we assume that Moore gets a big vote in AL (say 19-20%) the Dems then win Alabama!

2.) Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia are all now competitive with a strong Moore run…

3.) Bush would be forced to the right to protect against Moore however this would present Kerry and/or Edwards with the chance to paint Bush as an extremist and so it is very possible that Bush would in the end adopt a halfway measure that would fail to address either the threat of Moore on the right or Kerry on the left.. hurray!


NOTE; This is all assuming a very good run for Moore which is unlikely however not impossible even a more realistically weak run by Moore would in all likelihood siphon sufficient votes from Bush to make a number of southern states close at the very least and might very possible present the potential for a string of upset Democratic wins…

Sorry this might seem like a rather rambling analysis…but hey…its my two cents…