The Ground War (David Shuster) - His "big deal" With Election Numbers

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086 /

<<
I've been running some of the vote totals from this election compared to the Presidential election four years ago. And they underscore why the Democratic party, as far as the political "ground war" is concerned, is in even worse shape than you might think.

Compared to four years ago, President Bush picked up 9.5 million votes. John Kerry, compared to Al Gore, picked up just under 5 million.

But here are some other important numbers:

Ralph Nader in 2000: 2.89 million votes
Ralph Nader in 2004: 400,706 votes.
Youth vote 18 - 29 for Gore: 9 million
Youth vote 18 - 29 for Kerry: 11 million

The polling indicated that most of Nader's erosion was John Kerry's gain. And as you can see above, Kerry picked up 2 million votes in the 18 - 29 category. So, that's 4 million of the 5 million vote pick-up for Kerry. In other words, if you rule out the Nader voters and younger voters, everybody else gave John Kerry a net gain of just 1 million votes (compared to Al Gore in 2000.) President Bush received about the same raw vote total among 18 - 29 year olds as he did four years ago. So, excluding that group, the President picked up 9.5 million new votes. Again, when you are talking about voters 30 and over... it's 9.5 million new votes for Bush... 1 million non Nader voters for Kerry.

>>
.....
<<
It means at least one of the following:

(1) The $200 million "get out of the vote" money pumped in to this election by ACT and the Media Fund was totally ineffective or wasteful.

(2) The dark internet conspiracy theorists are correct and something massively fraudulent happened on election day. (The evidence does not support that.)

(3) John Kerry was a worse candidate than Al Gore... but it was masked by (1) ACT and Media Fund efforts that made the most of a bad hand;

(4) President Bush made significant in-roads among moderates and "security moms."

(5) The Republican "get out the vote effort" was far more effective and efficient than the democrats.

I do not agree with 1 and 2. I'm unsure about 3. But I'm definitely inclined to go with 4, and 5. The exit polling indicates that President Bush closed the gender gap in this election, meaning that he ran almost even with Kerry among women voters. But putting that aside, you can see a fundamental difference in the way the Republican party organized it's "get out the vote efforts" and the way it was done by the democrats. The Republican organization was "bottom up." It relied heavily on local churches, religious organizations, civic groups, and tens of thousands of "precinct captains" to come up with lists and contacts for possible new Bush voters. The democratic efforts were more "top down." A huge amount of money was spent on sending paid canvassers into communities some had never been to before.
>>

While I agree with some of his points, I still think that it's mind boggling that * was able to pick 9.5 new votes. We might want to right a sub point under 2? What do you think?

[jsamuel]

1. BIG PROBLEM WITH HIS THEORY!

9.5 Million NEW VOTERS. Not old moderates. Thes were new people who voted. Moderates have nothing to do with it.

[OneBlueSky]

2. it's #2 . . . n/t

.

[Dr Fate]

3. So all these nationwide "glitches" did not happen?

It's all just coincidences or "conspiracies?"

We need to investigate & reform these "glitches"

[chimpymustgo]

4. Email him now.

Why do they believe everything in the exit polls EXCEPT that Kerry was kicking Chimpy's ass all day long. Till AFTER the polls closed.

[restorefreedom]

6. because Rove commanded them to.

I knew the second KKKarl came out to say there were "discrepancies" between the polls and the "results," it was over.

[restorefreedom]

5. There's no way * picked up 9 mill

I'll never believe they were all genuine votes intended for him.

Schuster made our point.

"Ralph Nader in 2000: 2.89 million votes
Ralph Nader in 2004: 400,706 votes.
Youth vote 18 - 29 for Gore: 9 million
Youth vote 18 - 29 for Kerry: 11 million"

Almost all of the Nader voters went for Kerry, as well as an increase in the young vote.

No one, except a few paranoid "security moms" (who probably live in Duluth anyway) who got hoodwinked by the terror threats switched allegiences.

I know of many people who voted for * the first time and were disappointed enough to vote for Kerry.

The math just doesn't add up for me. There's no way 9 million more people came out of the woodwork to vote this a**hole into office.

[sabra]

19. I still think Shuster is on our team...

Going off his previous blogs, he along with KO were some of the first to cover the voter irregularities. I believe him dismissing #2 is because, he knows it will be his ass on the line if comes out and says some thing on those lines. However he has stated that some thing weird and doesn't make sense he even noted that the GAO (Government Accountability Office) should investigate. Maybe he put this info together to get people thinking, and aware that this is truly a BIG DEAL, but not necessarily for the reason he states in this blog?

[maryallen]

30. No, he's not.

He came to MSNBC from FOX. He's been a Bush apologist since the day he arrived.

Why some of you keep saying he's partial to Dems is beyond me.

Re: Above article --
Early voting numbers significantly favored Kerry.
Registration efforts highly favored Dems.

[bluetrain]

41. Can't we verify party registration numbers?

[life_long_dem]

21. Duluth Minnesota or Duluth Georgia?

Minnesota went to Kerry.

[restorefreedom]

22. either one works

I just meant that some of the so-called "security moms" who are terrified for their kids probably live in places that have next to zero chance of getting attacked.

So many of these people in the boonies swallowed the tripe that Bin Laden is coming to their teeny town and, as the "administration" hoped, voted out of fear.

I was thrilled to see MN go for Kerry.

[fasttense]

25. Security Moms

I still don't buy the security Mom's GOP theory. These Mom's are more afraid of a terrorist attack under Kerry than a draft under Bush? Don't buy it.

[high density]

7. Come on, David

We can't win when so much of the process is rigged against us. People standing in line for 10 hours to vote is not how it's supposed to work.

[witchhazl]

11. I think David signalling our message

The MSM is still afraid to touch this issue. I can't even totally blame them, when you look at how some of the earliest "evidence" was quickly undermined. We should be glad some stuff gets better assessed before hitting mainstream only to be stomped on.

But he's making our case for us with these weird numbers. And he puts our explanation right there at #2. He runs right past it, cause it's too soon to endorse it, but he's definitely putting the story out there. If a good explanation comes up for the anomaly, he - and more importantly, we - are covered.

[sabra]

20. I agree!

[pointsoflight]

8. Regarding #2

Evidence doesn't support that? What evidence has been examined? What investigations have been conducted?

[bullimiami]

9. bigger problem with his theory. GIGO.

Garbage in, Garbage written.

Its a waste of time and space.

2) He debunks the evidence that he must have never looked at.

his opinions are like you know what. where is his evidence that "security moms" and bushs' amazing gotv effort worked the magic.

i think more like roves gstv effort. go steal the vote.

[Ediacara]

10. This is wrong

Exit polling showed that Kerry pulled off more Bush voters than Bush pulled in Gore voters.

There was an 11% defection from Bush to Kerry, roughly 5.5M people, and a 7% defection from Gore to Bush, roughly 3.5M people. This gives Bush a "previous voter" base of 48.5M and Kerry one of 53M.

The real question is how, despite data showing that more people were going from GOP to Dem than the reverse, that exit polls showed Kerry in a landslide, and that voter registration efforts were overwhelmingly Democratic, how did Bush get a net gain of 11.5 million voters, and Kerry only about 4 million?

This 11.5M number isn't evangelicals, because there are only 4M of them in the United States (and half of them already voted prior to 2004); and as we've seen it isn't Gore voters, because the defection rate worked heavily in Kerry's favor. I'm at a loss as to explain WHERE they came from if they're NOT ballot box stuffing, and "computer glitches."

[bullimiami]

12. because like bev harris figured

they had the ability to steal as many as 25million votes.

my opinion is that this is a 10 million + vote fraud.

i dont think chimpys numbers should have gone up much if at all and the rest should be kerry.

if naders NH audit shows what i expect then we will have proof they skimmed votes nationwide.

[witchhazl]

13. Off-message newbie question

How do you start a new discussion thread?

[jsamuel]

15. get 10 posts

[TexasChick]

18. witchhazl, you have to reply to different posts in threads. Reply to 10

of them and you will be able to post. Just keep replying to my reply until you get 10 posts and then viola! You can make your own thread!

[witchhazl]

23. Thanks, TexasChick and jsamuel

Sorry to be a little slow responding. I was surfing off on tangents.

[Bread and Circus]

14. For all the GOP cheerleading in the MSM, I've never seen the poll...

where any of these "didn't vote last time, voted for Bush this
time" voters come forward. I mean, for 9 million new voters, you'd
think they could get some sort of poll going to show this was the case.

I think Bush's "uptick" wasn't GOTV, it was GSTV as someone else said.
I think it was to the tune of 4 to 5 million votes.

[Ediacara]

16. Is there exit poll data

That enumerates the percentage of "didn't vote in 2000" voters and who they voted for? This could be the lynchpin don't you think?

[rockedthevoteinMA]

36. i don't know if this will help

but rock the vote did a ton of work getting people out. here's their blog where they talk about the 9% increase since 2000.
http://www.syntheticniche.com/comics/flash/liar_2.swf

"After outlining a clear argument that young voters did in fact turnout at the polls -- that it was the highest turnout percentage since 1972, at least 20.9 million Americans under 30 voted on November 2nd (4.6 million more than in 2000) and young people were especially active in battleground states -- King says that, if anything, we learned a lot about the future of American politics. He adds: "Most college students no longer fit neatly along a liberal to conservative continuum ."

I did a lot of work for them at my lil school up here in the blue state of ma - I know out of 200 registered voters, only 2 registered repuke.

[jsamuel]

17. NOTE - Evidence doesn't support that - VS - No evidence supports that yet

That is the real conclusion to be drawn here.

[Straight Shooter]

24. Can we even trust the totals, as numbers per se?

The people who ran the final tallies and thus concluded bush won, are the same people who are giving us the number of the total number of voters. What if the figure given for the total number of voters is wrong?

Is it conceivable that e-votes for Kerry were actually "erased"? For example, an e-vote machine was programmed to erase one of every 4,000 votes for John Kerry or one of every 1,000 straight Democratic party votes.

I don't know enough about these machines to formulate any kind of scientific or mathematical premise for my inquiry. It seems to me we've asked often about Kerry votes switched to bush; I just wonder if Kerry votes were programmed to never be counted at all.

[truehawk]

26. Poll books We will never know until

We count the signatures and absentee ballots.

[truehawk]

27. Someone from every county needs to count the signatures

[Straight Shooter]

28. Thanks, truehawk.

I suppose signature pages are composed of so many signatures per page, and the signature pages are consecutively numbered.

I'm in Oregon, ballot by mail, and I think it's the best system although probably difficult for large-population states. When I voted in Texas and Virginia, they checked my name against a sheet and then I signed in that I was there to vote. I can't remember if I signed in on the same sheet that listed my name as eligible to vote, or if it was a different sheet.

[johnaries]

29. His Soccer Mom theory doesn't work, if you consider that CNN

claimed their early polling was off because they "over-sampled" women voters early.

[newyawker99]

33. Hi johnaries!!

Welcome to DU!!

[mdb]

31. Pew Research Center points out...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/07/opinion/edbrooks...

-snip-
there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000.

There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

****************************
Remember the media reporting Rove was a genius for getting out 4 million new Republican evangelist this year? I'm still (though this is why I think the election was stolen) wondering where all these new Repubs came from.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

32. It's the Church People or Fraud

Somthing is wrong --either the evangelicals didn't tell the truth in exit polling or true fraud.

I have heard a number of stories. Hart focus on now == people saying very hard sell in church == demanding people vote for Bush.

Also a little girl from christian school coming home crying to her mom. They told me at school that you should not vote for Kerry because he wants to kill babies.

Not sure which is worse - a massive, scary, religious, wave of power or fraud.

[newyawker99]

34. Hi I hopehopeisontheway!!

Welcome to DU!!

[Fortunato]

37. Same here

Yeah, our kids got to vote for president in school (1st grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade). When we asked them who they would vote for, our middle child said he was voting for Bush because one of his friends told him that "Kerry killed babies."

Whatever one's stance on abortion rights, that's a pretty pathetic way to frame it. We gave me him a better analysis of the argument on both sides, and he came to his own conclusions on the matter.

The success of a democracy is based on the idea that every person gets a vote, while the failure of a democracy is that... every person gets a vote.

[Ediacara]

35. Amazing...

How Rove can get out 4M new evangelicals when only 4M evangelicals exist..... And 2M of them voted in 2000, and there aparently aren't any more of them voting this time LOL....

[lizzieforkerry]

38. I don't understand how he can say that

Dem had a top down GOTV. Our county had 1000 volunteers that live here going door to door and calling within our own county. ACT used local people too. I worked with both the Kerry campaign and ACT and it was always my neighbors that were doing the work. The same for my friends in our neighboring counties.

[Shalom]

39. Shuster Unknowingly Proves Fraud

(See e-mail sent to David Shuster below - he actually PROVES FRAUD occured!)

To: [e-mail]
Subject: A Logic Lesson in the Ground War

David:

Thanks for your article on the "ground war" over the 2004 election. It seems to me that your facts are well founded, but your logic and inferences are wrong:

You point out that:

"So, excluding that group, the president picked up 9.5 million new votes. Again, when you are talking about voters 30 and over... it's 9.5 million new votes for Bush... 1 million non-Nader voters for Kerry.

"That is astounding. Remember, Kerry was running against an incumbent president with an approval rating below 50%."

You discuss possible explanations, such as:

"2. The dark Internet conspiracy theorists are correct and something massively fraudulent happened on election day. (The evidence does not support that.)"

- The first thing to keep in mind is that YOUR OWN EVIDENCE supports that something is amiss.
- Secondly, the EVIDENCE of the tremendous disparity in exit poll results (as proven by Prof. Steven Freeman) supports that something is amiss.

The contention that (regardless of which party had a better mobilization effort) that Bush got 9 times the number of new voters than Kerry (excluding youth and Nader exiles) is IMPOSSIBLE.

Therefore, in terms of logic, you should follow the advice given by Arthur Conan Doyle though the character Sherlock Holmes:

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

AND THE TRUTH IS FRAUD.

[sabra]

40. Well written email!